Meet Ms. Hayes! Our Long Term Sub

Hello,

I would love to introduce you to our teacher for the remainder of the school year, Ms. Hayes!

A little bit about Ms. Hayes:

Ms. Hayes has been a teacher for 20 years in Fond du Lac with a mix of elementary and middle school experience. In her free time she enjoys spending time with her five nephews, reading and taking her two dogs for walks. She is excited to be at NDLC and to finish the school year with such a wonderful group of second graders! 

We are lucky to have her! She has a lot of experience she is bringing to the position and the students are left in great hands.

Contact Information:

Her email address is hayesm@kaukaunasd.org

This is the email I would use to inform her about appointments, questions, or if there are different ways students are getting home. 

I will still have access to my email but I will not be able to return your emails or forward them to where they need to go in a timely fashion. 

You can also email Ms. Quinn in the office and she will relay messages to Ms. Hayes in the classroom. Ms. Quinn's email is quinnh@kaukaunasd.org 

A little note from Mrs. Tuma:

I just wanted to say that I really enjoyed working with all of you this school year. You are raising wonderful humans-- they are a kind, thoughtful, and funny class. I'm happy that I was a chapter in their life and will miss them while I am away! I love teaching and watching them grow as learners but it's really fun to watch their personalities develop further as well.

Have a wonderful rest of the school year and summer! I'll see the kids next year!

4/25 to 4/29

It was nice to see everyone at the concert. The 2nd graders did amazing! I was so proud of them. If you didn't know-- NDLC has a Facebook page where the concert was posted, so you can send it to any family that may not have been able to attend. The Facebook page is called NDLC Charter School.

I will be contacting chaperones this week for our upcoming field trip to 1000 Islands. Be on the look out for those emails.

We are finalizing the substitute teacher that will be here for the month of May. I am hoping to introduce them through the blog, along with their contact information, soon! We have a few great candidates. The students will be in great hands for the fun month of May. 

 Upcoming Events:

• 4/26 Color Day: 2nd Grade is Green!

• 5/3 Baby Tuma Due Date (but who knows!)

• 5/4 Field Trip to 1,000 Islands Nature Center

• 5/27 Early Release

• 5/30 No School

• 6/2: Last Day of School & Early Release

Reading

In reading we continue to work in Nonfiction Book Clubs.  Students get to pick a topic to study/read within their clubs.  They are coming together as clubs to share their thinking and grow their ideas.  Things we have focused on so far are:

–Chunking the text to help us know when to stop and check in on our understanding.

–Using text features (captions, pictures, maps, graphs) to squeeze all we can out of the text.

–Stopping to explain to ourselves and what we just read (retell/recall) 

–Building and growing our ideas across the text.  Noticing when our thinking has changed.  (They might say, “I used to think ______, but now I think _______.”)

Writing

In writing we started our second bend of the unit.  Students picked a new insect to research and take notes on.  Now they are starting to plan and draft their next chapter book.

Math

In math we are ending unit 6 on adding and subtracting multi-digit numbers. We will have a test on this unit at the end of the week. Students have been doing well finding a strategy that works for them!

Special Guest

We had a special guest come in a few weeks ago! It was great timing because we had just finished out economics unit and the students learned even more about how to be responsible with their money. All students were gifted a book and a quarter to go towards saving, spending, donating, or even investing!

4/19 to 4/22

 Upcoming Events:

• 4/21: Spring Concert
• 4/22 Return Field Trip Forms (This field trip is free! Just need the pink form returned)
• 4/26 Color Day: 2nd Grade is Green!
• 5/3: Baby Tuma Due Date
• 5/4 Field Trip to 1,000 Islands Nature Center
• 5/27 Early Release
• 5/30 No School

Hello parents!!

Just a reminder that the 2nd grade concert is Thursday, April 21 at 6:30 pm. Please plan to arrive by 6:10 pm. Students should go directly to their classrooms, and guests can be seated in the gym. The students are amazing! You are going to love the concert!!

Sing-cerly,

Mrs. Krueger

Survey

Our school is implementing a whole-school transformational process called the Leader in Me, which teaches 21st-century leadership and life skills to students and creates a culture of student empowerment based on the idea that every child can be a leader.

Our school will be conducting surveys to learn more about key areas of strength and areas of needed growth in our school. In order for us to have a holistic picture of what is going on in our school, we are asking all parents/guardians to participate.

If you decide to participate, you will be asked to complete a survey (without sharing your name or other identifying information) that will be available through the email sent to you on April 11th. The survey is completely voluntary, but we do hope to get feedback from one member of every household.

The parent/guardian survey takes about 5-8 minutes to complete and will ask questions about your child and about his or her experience in New Directions. If you have more than one child attending the school, you will be asked to think about the oldest child's experiences as you answer questions related to his or her growth.

Please take the survey sent to you, it is to be completed by: April 26, 2022

4/11-4/13

 Upcoming Events

• 4/12 Family Night (see below)

• 4/13: Egg Crack Off (bring hard boiled egg!)

• 4/13: Last day to bring in muffin bags

• 4/14,4/15,4/18   No school

• 4/21: Spring Concert

• 4/26 Color Day: 2nd Grade is Green!

• 5/4 Field Trip to 1,000 Islands Nature Center

• 5/27 Early Release

Writing

What a fun week of writing.  Students started the week in Research Clubs, with a specific insect to research. They took notes on the insect in their field guides. (See Picture Below) Later in the week we started to drafting our first chapter book about the insect we researched.  

Math

We are off on our new unit all about 3 digit numbers. Students have been working hard to find an addition strategy that works for them to solve the problems and this week we will go into subtraction. Check out this video explaining the different strategies that we have learned! Video

Field Trip

This week Monday (4/11) a field trip note will be coming home with information about our last field trip. Be on the lookout for that!

Fang's Reading Club

If you completed all of the bases for the Timber Rattlers reading program the prizes will be coming home on Monday! (4/11). The Timber Rattlers are doing it differently this year. Students will come home with voucher tickets that once turned in are exchanged for the prizes that they earned. They also will have instructions for how to book a game with their free ticket!

4/4 to 4/8

 

Upcoming Events:

• 4/5 Crazy Sock Day

• 4/12 Family Night (more information to come)

• 4/13: Egg Crack Off
• 4/13: Last day to bring in muffin bags for environmental club
• 4/14, 4/15, 4/18   No school

• 4/21: Spring Concert

Update From Mrs. Tuma:

I wanted you to be aware that throughout the month of April I will be starting to put report card grades into Infinite Campus before I leave for maternity leave. You might get notifications of things being entered and feel free to ask any questions you have along the way, but some grades will be subject to change depending on a few of our remaining units this year.

 

Reading

This week we start our new reading unit. Students will be reading nonfiction and working in clubs to share all they learn around a topic.  

 

Writing

Our new and exciting writing unit will start this week too!!  We are excited to become Insect Experts who learn how to research, note take, and write nonfiction chapter books. 

  

Environmental Club Update:

Our last day collecting muffin bags will be April 13th. We will be mailing them out soon after. 

Thank you for turning them in and making it a successful environmental project!

-Environmental Club

 

‘Egg’cellent Egg Crack Off

 Students at NDLC will be participating in an Egg Crack-off. Please send a hard-boiled egg in a container to school with your child on Wednesday, April 13.  Eggs cannot have paint, crayon, marker, or film on them. Each classroom will have a contest. When two hard boiled eggs are hit only one will crack!  The winner of each classroom will then crack off against the winners from other classes while the rest of the school watches. It’s an “egg-cellent” time for all! 

Photos from last week!

Students enjoyed brownies from Mrs. Tuma on April Fools Day

An ice-cream treat for reaching our Knowledge-a-thon goal from last month!

We mailed out letters to our favorite authors giving them our opinions. We are hoping for a few responses before the school year is done!

In Leader in Me we were learning about teamwork this week. We built chairs in a group of 3 with the goal for them to be able to lift their feet!

Last week students applied for a classroom leadership role that they will have for the remainder of the school year. They had to write to give me reasons why they would be the best fit for their job and these were the results!