Welcome back! We hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and break! We are so glad to be back! Beginning a new year is so exciting!

This month, we will be focusing on blending letters into words and our reading skills. In math, we will be working on addition and subtraction. There is so much to learn!

Your student will be bringing home readers to practice. Please read with your child, sign the book, and send back. We are practicing good homework skills!

We wanted to thank our families and students for their caring and generosity. With our Pennies for Presents, we were able to help 2 families have a happy Christmas. The Manna House deeply appreciated the toiletry drive as well. They were thrilled to be able to stock their shelves. Thank you for all that you do to support us, our school, and our community!

December was full of fun and surprises. We finished our Gingerbread Unit; special thanks to Victory Electric for finding our gingerbread friends! We did lots of activities and enjoyed our time together before the long winter break.

ELA - We are finishing Unit 3 Making Choices and moving on to Unit 4 Planting for the Future. Students have continued to read informational and narrative texts. For foundational skills, students are continuing to decode words and working to use them in sentences. In writing, they have written narrative and opinion pieces.

Math - We are beginning Module 3 Ordering and Comparing Length Measurements as Numbers.

Science - We are in our Spinning Sky Unit. Throughout this unit, we learn about the sun, moon, and stars.

Social Studies - We are continuing to learn about civics/government and economics.

Reminders - Please read the decodable readers that are sent home with your student. Practice reading and spelling high frequency words; Unit 4 words will be sent home soon. Please continue working on the math homework packets. By doing these things, you are helping your student reach their full potential.

Thank you!

Welcome Back!

We are excited to be back with the students and to continue with our learning.

Math: We will continue with Module 4, which is adding and subtracting 2 and 3 digit numbers using place value strategies.

Reading: We will finishing up Unit 3 Module A and B: students will ask and answer questions about informational text. We will research a topic and write about it.

We will start on Unit 4 Module A and B: The goals for this module is for students to recount and describe character’s challenges in stories.

Writing: Our goals are for students to create narrative texts that include challenges and character’s responses to those challenges.

Third grade is off to a great start in 2022!

We are starting a new module in ELA. Our main focus in reading is finding the central message, lesson, or moral of a story. We will be reading 3 narrative stories to help us learn how to find the central message in a text. In writing, students will be writing an opinion about two of the stories we are reading and telling which one they liked better. In phonics, we are learning about irregular plurals, r-controlled vowels, prefixes, and suffixes.

We are still learning about area in math. Students are applying their multiplication skills on how to solve for the area of rectangles, and their division skills to solve for a side of a rectangle as well. We will be moving onto the next module which focuses on fractions by the end of the month.

In science, we are beginning our weather unit. We will be doing many exciting activities that help students better understand clouds, predicting weather, why some places are hotter than others, and how to keep a house safe from a wind storm. In social studies, we will begin learning about the history of Dodge City.

Thank you for your continued support!

Math: We will be completing the following topics for Module 5: Fraction Equivalence, Ordering, and Operations. Topic A: Decomposition and Fraction Equivalence. Topic B: Fraction Equivalence Using Multiplication and Division, and Topic C: Fraction Comparison.

Reading: We will be starting Unit 3 Module A. In this module, readers will understand that different types of texts that can be used to analyze similar topics and ideas. Writers will understand that evidence can be drawn from both literary and informational texts to state and support opinions about a topic. Learners will understand that science is a newer method of explaining natural phenomena. For our performance based assessment, students will analyze two of the texts they have read in this module—Earthquakes and Quake!—and state and support an opinion about which text more effectively portrays the impact of earthquakes on human beings.

Social Studies: We will continue with our unit where students will investigate settlement patterns to draw conclusions about a sense of place, first in Kansas, and then in relation to five geographic regions in the United States. Students will compare and contrast the Kansa with one prominent tribe from each of five geographic regions in the United States in the context of their geographic, cultural, political, and social characteristics. We will also highlight Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Science: In our unit this month, students will investigate the science of sound. Students will construct physical devices to feel the vibrations that allow us to communicate across distances. Students will also use digital devices to visualize the characteristics of different sound waves that cause us to hear different things.

Thank you for your continued support at home!

It is so hard to believe that New Year, 2022, has already begun. As we enter this new year, it is only natural to be excited about what the new year will bring into our lives. It is a time of new beginnings and setting new goals. In the spirit of a new beginning, your students are starting the third quarter, which means they are halfway done with the school year. This month will be filled with many new and exciting lessons for your students.

This month your students will be looking up to the stars as we begin our journey to studying the cosmos. In reading, we are focusing on the universe's secrets in a fictional book by Stephen Hawking and his daughter Lucy, called George's Secret Key to the Universe. In the book, your students will join George on his adventure with Annie as they discover scientific facts about the universe with the aid of an extraordinary computer that can send them to space. Their adventures will take them to planets in our solar system and even to a black hole. I am sure your students will be eager to let you know what they have learned in this book

In our writing, we will continue our adventure into space as you students begin writing their own science fiction short stories. They will use the examples from our reading and create a brief narrative of a science fiction adventure. In these stories, your students will develop a science fiction narrative throughout the story. They will also have to develop their characters and create dialogue for them. Finally, they will need to proofread their assignment and correct their grammar and spelling errors. I am confident they will be excited to read their stories to you once they are done.

Our study of the sky above continues in our Science as we explore how the Earth's rotation and the Sun affect our seasons. Next, we spend some time talking about the phases of the moon. As we expand into the solar system, we will study the planets and their gravity. Finally, we will discuss what makes a planet habitable and what must be considered before trying to live on another planet.

In math, we will continue to learn about fractions and decimals. The important thing to know about fractions and decimals is they are all equal parts of the whole unit. It is also important to know that fractions play a significant role in our lives, especially when paying taxes because we must pay a fraction of what we spend on goods and services to the government. In Module 4, your students are learning how to multiply and divide fractions. They are also learning how to use fractions to convert measurements from one unit into another unit, for example, liters into milliliters. They are also learning how to take fractions of an hour and convert them into minutes. So, I encourage you to ask your students some fraction questions, so they can practice these skills.

Finally, in Social Studies, we will be learning about the events leading up to the American revolution. Some of the events we will talk about are the consequences of the French Indian War, the tax laws passed by the British Parliament, the boycotts on tea, and the rise of the Sons of Liberty. These events are the sparks that will result in the American Revolution and the forming of a new nation.

Again, this is a month of new beginnings and setting new goals. Your students have many exciting new lessons to learn as they explore space through their reading and science this month. They will continue learning more about fractions and how they are a part of our everyday existence. Finally, we will learn more about the events that helped shape our country and led us to the American Revolution. This month will be a busy and fun month for your students, and we are looking forward to helping them set new goals and reach new heights throughout the new year.

Hello from the counseling corner at Northwest Elementary!

Dear parents/guardians: children go through phases of various feelings, some over confident and some not so confident, and some balanced feelings of “I didn’t do it the first time, but maybe I can the next time”. Part of growing is learning that each person has his or her talents, but not everyone is good at everything. We can help our children learn about friendships and equality by teaching lessons such as these. Not only will each child feel better about his or herself, each child will recognize and be more positive about others-no matter who the “other” is or what the “other” is able to do. I would like to share that this month I will be teaching students how to be fair but mostly how to use the keys to equality, even when some circumstances seem unfair; we are all equal in the good we can give to the world.

Best wishes to a new year!

In kindergarten & first grade they learned all about the nutcracker ballet by Tchaikovsky in which they did activities that included movements, playing instruments, & reading rhythms to go along with some of the songs they saw & heard in the ballet performance. They also learned & sang some Christmas carols.

2nd grade had their music program themed, Elves of the North Pole, and they did such a wonderful job performing!

5th grade worked hard preparing for & taking tests of which were identifying notes on a treble clef staff, listening to two different pitches and seeing if the second one is higher or lower than the first pitch, identifying if a song is fast or slow, and identifying if a song is loud or soft. Along with that they also learned the history on a few of most popular Christmas carols.

11- Papa John's Night

17- No School

19- PTO

28-Spring Pictures