Week of February 8th

 Happy Friday, everyone!

NO SCHOOL THIS FRIDAY (2/11) OR NEXT MONDAY (2/15)

 Hello Everyone! January is over already!? Happy February!

Join NDLC staff members and other NDLC parents and guardians in discussing the book The Read Aloud Family on Tuesday, Feb 9th from 8:00-8:30 pm.  The discussion will take place on Google Meet (a link will be sent prior to the meeting).  See below for a description of the book. The book can be purchased on Amazon or any other book retailer. 

The Read Aloud Family

Discover practical strategies to make reading aloud a meaningful family ritual.

The stories we read--and the conversations we have about them--help shape family traditions, create lifelong memories, and become part of our legacy. Reading aloud not only has the power to change a family--it has the power to change the world. 

But we all know that connecting deeply with our families can be difficult in our busy, technology-driven society. Reading aloud is one of the best ways to be fully present with our children, even after they can read themselves, but it isn't always easy to do. Discover how to:

• Prepare your kids for academic success through reading to them
• Develop empathy and compassion in your kids through books
• Find time to read aloud in the midst of school, sports, and dinner dishes
• Choose books across a variety of sibling interests and ages
• Make reading aloud the best part of your family's day

The Read-Aloud Family also offers age-appropriate book lists from infancy through adolescence. From a toddler's wonder to a teenager's resistance, you will find the inspiration you need to start a read-aloud movement in your own home.

A message from Student Council:

It’s a Penny War! 

Student Council is sponsoring a Penny War from February 16th-19th to raise money for Pillars Warming Shelter. Students can bring in pennies to earn points for their own class and silver coins to subtract points from other classes. 

Upcoming Events:

February 5th - NDLC Wear

February 12th - No School for students & staff

February 15th - No School for students

February 26th - NDLC Wear

Students will be voting on a school mascot this week thanks to Student Council. Will be it a Red Panda, Husky, or Brown Bear? 

We finished our American Revolution Unit! To celebrate, we turned the classroom into a "Meet the Author" event! The students were able to share parts from their book, what they learned, and why they were inspired to write and research their chosen topic. Here are some pictures!

Curriculum Update:

Reading: Our next unit will focus on "Interpreting Characters". We will fall back in love with reading fiction books of our choice while aiming to increase our reading volume, use precise words and text evidence when studying characters, and identifying themes. This unit will allow us to read books in partnerships and book clubs!

Writing: We finished our American Revolution unit! I have to say, that was may favorite unit yet! I think the students really enjoyed it, too. We are moving on to our "Choose Your Own Adventure" Unit where students will have much more freedom in selecting the genre they'd like to write about. I will be working with each 'genre' regularly supporting their individual unique needs. Our goals for the unit are to transfer what we know about structure and elaboration of different genres, strengthen our understanding of the writing process, live more of a writerly life, and understand how useful mentor texts can be!

Word Study: To keep students accountable, word study is now completed on loose leaf paper and collected each day. At the end of the week I have some awesome student helpers that help me staple each students' weeks worth of word study to send home. Take a look at these as they come home. It might give you some insight to how well your student is paying attention as well as help them identify questions they may need to ask me to better understand what each lesson is teaching. We are on unit 8! In Unit 8, I will review the consonant-le syllable. This syllable is considered a “final stable” syllable. It is always the last syllable in a word and it has only three letters: a consonant, an l and an e. The e is the vowel and it is silent. The consonant and the l are sounded out like a blend. I will remind students that the consonant-le syllable is always the last syllable in a multisyllabic word. Take a look at the following examples and how we mark them:

s¬mple c -le t¡ble o -le

I will then introduce the consonant-le exception. This includes words that end with stle. Both the t and e are silent so stle is read as /sl/. Examples of the consonant-le exception include castle

and whistle: c¤stle c -le wh¬stle c -le

I will teach students all the different ways to spell the /l/ sound in a final syllable (as in table, label or final) Students will also learn how to add suffixes to consonant -le syllables. To add a suffix to a consonant -le syllable, students must follow the silent e spelling rule; they will drop the e to add a vowel suffix (settle - settling) and keep the e to add a consonant suffix (settle - settlement). In week 3, students will learn about another final stable syllable. This one is also always the last syllable in a word. It always has four letters: either the glued sound tion or sion. Students will learn that tion says /shun/ as in vacation and sion says /shun/ as in mansion and /zhun/ as in television.

Math: We started Unit 8 this week - Geometry! Students are struggling more with this unit than I have noticed before. It is important to note that geometry is where students left off when COVID hit in 3rd grade. I will continue to work with small groups and one-on-one with students so they can grow confident with geometry. We have been learning a lot of new mathematic vocabulary as well as practicing using measuring and identifying different angles and lines.

Content: We will begin our new sciene unit on Earth's Processes and Systems this week!

Enjoy your weekend! ❄

Carly Burris