Northridge Monthly Newsletter

March 5 - Early Relase at 1:10pm

March 12 - Spring Individual & class pictures

March 13 - 3rd & 4th grade Music program 6:30 in the gym

March 14 - NO SCHOOL

March 17-21 - NO SCHOOL 🌸 Spring Break 🌸

March 24 - Kinder field trip to Botanica

March 25 - 1st grade field trip to Great Plains Nature Center

• Thanks to Simply Hygiene we have items such as soap, shampoo & conditioner, toilet paper, and more available to familes. Call the office if you are in need or have questions! 284-6540
• During morning drop-off, please keep students in the vehicle until 7:30.
• Goodies with Guardians had a great turnout 🍩 Thank you to all that came and enjoyed donuts & juice!

In Kindergarten we are focusing on letter sound fluency and blending our sounds to make words. We are working a lot with our vowel sounds! We are beginning to explore numbers 11-20 in math. We have been practicing addition and subtraction, we will continue to work on that with bigger numbers and writing equations. Please continue to practice these things at home!

Wow the third nine weeks have just flown by in first grade!! We have been busy practicing our sight words, learning our spelling patterns, and learning about place value!

First grade continues to learn new spelling patterns and apply those skills to our writing. The kids have loved spotting our spelling words on signs or in books. For math, we continue to work on place value, identifying tens and ones. We will be using tens and ones to work on double digit addition. First grade has been enjoying our work with Arts Partners of Wichita, using art and music to learn some ELA skills. They are looking forward to it culminating in a field trip after spring break!

Ms. Wedel & Mrs. Wittman

February has been a bumpy, busy month with snow days, lots of inside recess, and so many activities! We started off this month celebrating 100 days of learning. We had stations that students traveled to in both classrooms to celebrate all the learning and progress that has taken place so far in 2nd grade. Our 2nd week, we loved celebrating all the wonderful friendships on Valentine’s Day. Then, we prepared for student-led conferences and were so excited to be able to share our progress with our families! We are so thankful to end the month with sunshine and warmer temperatures! Our reading series has us learning all about heroes, famous Americans and good citizens. We are working on multi syllable words for spelling and Math has us working on numbers to 1000 and learning different strategies to add to our toolbox as we add and subtract these large numbers. The learning never stops! March will continue the learning and exploring for 2nd grade!

Mrs. Black and Mrs. Entz

February has been wild with all of our snow days but 3rd grade is chugging along. Currently we are focusing on Division and Multiplication in Math and working on finishing up our Opinion writing. We have been focusing on many different fun stories and have recently discovered a great tool in IXL for reading and math. Our 3rd graders are working hard and are very excited for Market Day and getting to share their shops will be a highlight!

4th Grade has been so busy learning about fractions. We have been focusing on ideniftying fractions, finding equivalent fractions, and now ordering fractions. In reading, we just finished up on learning about poetry. The 4th graders have been working super hard and getting ready to do some fun things!

Our IDD room has had a great month! In February, we loved learning all about Valentine's and love, and making lots of crafts with each other. We have also had lots of visits from our new Arts Partner, Mr. Trevor. He has shared new songs and stories with us, and lots of interesting new instruments! Our kiddos especially enjoyed the didgeridoo and the electric stick. Be on the lookout for information about an upcoming field trip that goes along with this quarter's Arts Partners lessons. As always, let me know if you have any questions or need anything!

Mrs. Baeza

In third and fourth grade IR we are working on our goals. We are doing a lot of building our fluency skills through repetition and building phonics skills. We are also practicing our reading comprehension skills. In math we are building up our multiplication skills, fractions, and reviewing addition and subtraction.

Hello! In PE class, K-4th grade students have had a great time participating in a variety of activities. They've been working on their skills in bowling, hockey, and jump rope, focusing on teamwork, coordination, and overall fitness. It’s been exciting to see their progress and enthusiasm in each activity!

Thank you for everyone that donated prizes and came to support our school! Your support means so much. More than 200 people joined us for BINGO!!

Snow, snow, snow!!! Kindergarteners have enjoyed playing in the snow, but I think they are even ready for it to warm up!!

We have started our program with Arts Partners and the students are loving it. We get one music lesson and one art lesson each week!! We have made Tie-Dye flowers and characters from the story we are reading.

We are beginning to work on addition and subtraction problems and drawing pictures to represent a story problem. We are also working on 3rd quarter sight words and reading some new books! We are looking forward to learning about our great state of Kansas and celebrating Kansas Day.

Wow, January flew by! Probably due to all of our snow days. We are finally settling back into our routines here in first grade. When we returned to school, we focused hard on reviewing our rules and expectations to ensure we all remember how to act like first graders after so much time out of school! We quickly started our spelling tests back up. In math we are working on place value and the different ways you may see a 2 digit number. This quarter we have joined up with Arts Partners of Wichita to bring music and art into the classroom. We have 2 lessons a week with some amazing artists! The kids have loved getting to learn in this new way and look forward to these lessons each week. To best support your student's learning, keep reading at home with them and practicing their spelling words each week!

Mrs. Wittman & Ms. Wedel

2nd graders are getting back into the swing of things after winter break. We started a new unit in math over shapes. We learned how to identify shapes and partition them into halves, thirds and fourths. We have been exploring how children around the world are different. We learned about different cultures and their traditions, games that they play, food they eat and how they do things at their schools. Kansas day is coming up and we are excited to learn about the history of Kansas compared to then and now!

Mrs. Entz and Mrs. Black

Our third graders returned from winter break full of energy and eager to learn! This month, they’re tackling multiplication and division in math and exploring fascinating nonfiction texts in reading. In social studies, they’ll dive into economics and discover how it impacts our daily lives. We're all excited for warmer days and plenty of sunshine ahead!

In 4th grade we have now begun getting into fractions, yay! Along with that, our class specifically is now starting an informative writing project over Presidents. In which they will get the chance to dress up as their President during their presentations.

IR SPED K-2 has continued with UFLI (University of Florida Literacy Institute) lessons for reading. They are becoming more and more confident in their reading with the lessons. The decodable reading passages have helped them become more automatic in reading fluently. This is definitely something to be proud of!

We are just starting new things in science with all grade levels. Kindergarten we will be learning about the human body and how it works. In first grade we are starting a unit on animal adaptations and how they help animals to survive. Second grade is beginning a unit on the earth's surface and erosion. Third graders are getting ready for their field trip to Exploration Place on January 29th. We are very excited! Fourth graders are going to learn about the human brain and how it controls the body.

The Northridge library has had an exciting January. Dozens of new books were cataloged and made available for the students. They were thrilled! Some are new books to fill gaps we have in a series. Others presented brand new characters to get-to-know and enjoy. I purchased a set of dinosaur books to update our collection. The average age of our current dinosaur books is 28 years old. The younger students have many new choices, as well. I read several to the classes and I think their favorite was Holey Moley by Bethan Clarke.

Starting next week, the 3rd and 4th graders will be learning about how to take notes. As adults, we do it so easily, but it is a learned skill that must be practiced. The students will be researching and taking notes on some interesting animals. Ask your child for a newly discovered fact!

Biographies are always fascinating to read. Our 1st and 2nd graders will be discovering what a biography is and how to find one on a person they are interested in learning more about. Don't be surprised if your child brings home a biography to share with you!

This month in speech we have tried to get back into our rhythm from all of the snow days and our recent break! We have focused on the new year, discussed our goals, and have continued to work on speech and language with a variety of fun and educational activities. You can continue to target your child's goals at home with speech BINGO, UNO, and Jenga! Have your child say their target sound in words three times before they take a turn! Word lists can be found online by typing in (Target sound) word list speech therapy. For example, "Initial /r/ word list speech therapy". Never hesitate to reach out to us if you have any questions!

We are incredibly grateful for the more than 500 food items that were donated. Our 4th grade boys that kick started this drive, met their goal and help to deliver everything to the New Hope Shelter for families in need. As a bonus reward, all students received a pajama day!

Kindergarten is almost done learning every letter in the alphabet. We have been practicing blending our sounds to make words and even sentences. We learned about greater than, less than, and have been applying it to groups and numbers. We are having fun getting ready for the Holidays and can't wait for the New Year!

First grade has been busy, busy, busy!!! We have been working hard on learning some new material, completing our benchmark assessments, finishing up things for our progress reports, and throwing some fun projects in where we can!

In math, we have been working on adding and subtracting numbers 0-20. We will start working with place value in the new year, which will lead us into adding even bigger numbers! In reading, we have continued to work on our spelling words. First grade has started practicing long vowels, and will continue this in January.

Ms. Wedel & Mrs. Wittman

It has been a busy few weeks for 2nd graders! We had our music concert at the beginning of the month and did a great job singing songs from around the world for our families. We also took a trip caroling to Presbyterian Manor. Thank you Mrs. Tolle for all your work and help with this! This month we are also working on learning about holidays around the world and the different traditions that communities celebrate for our social studies focus. Reading has us talking and learning about the sky and what we can see in both the day and night sky. We also spent some time talking about different ways we express ourselves. We continue to learn different and more complex spelling patterns each week as we focus on our reading, writing, and spelling. In math we are working on numbers to 1000 and different ways that we can demonstrate and compare numbers with 3 digits.

The first semester ends on December 19th so we are also taking our winter benchmark assessments for reading and math and excited to show what we know and what we have learned as progress reports will also be ready for families to view after December 20th. We can’t wait to see what 2025 has in store!

This month, our 3rd graders got to continue our work with Arts Partners on our Hope City Poetry Night and City Presentation. It was a wonderful experience, and we’re proud of everything the students created and learned through this collaboration!

As we look ahead to the Christmas holiday, we’re excited to wrap up our How-To Writing unit, where students have been developing practical and creative writing skills.

In math, we’ve been hard at work mastering multiplication! The students are making great progress, and we encourage you to ask them to demonstrate their skills at home.

Thank you for your continued support, and we wish you a joyful and festive holiday season!

We have had a joyful month in the IDD room! This month our main letters we focused on were C and D. We worked on letter sounds and building words, and got to have fun with Doughnuts and making Christmas Cookies! We learned about different Holidays that are celebrated this month, and sang lots of Christmas songs. Some of our favorite days were when we had visits from Mr. Aaron from Arts Partners. He taught us lots of new songs, and brought so much joy to our room. We are all ready for a nice long break, and I can't wait to see everyone back in January!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Mrs. Baeza

In third and fourth IR we have been working really hard on meeting our individual goals. There has been a lot of progression lately in the kids that I see. We are working a lot on multiplication skills and adding and subtracting multi digit numbers. In reading our focus is always on writing structure, phonics, comprehension, and fluency skills. Progress reports will be coming out soon!

The annual Thanksgiving Feast was a huge hit! The students did a wonderful job in preparing their class share of sides and desserts. Both 4th grade classes worked together to get all of the table and chairs set up, talk about teamwork!

Thank you for all of your food donations that help make this feast possible.

Kindergarten is ready for Thanksgiving and we have been talking about what we are thankful for. Most have said mom, dad, grandma, grandpa, but the answer I liked the best was “school”. When I asked her why, she said, “because I love to learn!”. We have been learning!! We have learned new sight words, about shapes, and blending sounds to read words. We are getting ready to start addition and subtraction problems, greater than and less than, and counting to 50. We will also be reading and learning about jobs people do in our community and discussing ways to make our community a better place.

First grade is starting to become quite the challenge for students in the best way possible! Spelling words are starting to tackle new rules of our language and patterns that we haven't seen before. This week we finished up -ng and when we get back from Thanksgiving break we will be working on doubling the last sound. We have officially begun adding and subtracting within 20. We will finish up this unit in math and assess the knowledge we have gained the week we get back from break. In our next math unit we will start looking at place value. Continue reading at home with your student to help grow their fluency and practicing those spelling words to ensure they know the rule of that week!! Have a great Thanksgiving break!

2nd graders have been working hard on their 1st Thanksgiving projects. Each group has been working collaboratively on their topic to learn about what the first Thanksgiving between the Wampanoag Indians and Pilgrims was like. In math we are using number lines to compare numbers and make estimates. We also used number lines to add and subtract and to show the difference between numbers. We studied a little bit of poetry and narrative nonfiction stories. Our question in focus has been “How can people help out their community?” In spelling we are diving into the tricky vowel teams and r controlled vowels. We will be ready for Thanksgiving break after all of this hard work we had been doing!

Mrs. Entz & Mrs. Black

November is an exciting month for third graders as we continue to learn and grow! In math, we’re practicing multiplication to strengthen our skills and become problem-solving experts. In reading, we’re working on understanding what we read and answering questions to show what we’ve learned. We’re also continuing to practice instructional writing, learning how to give clear steps and directions in our writing. This month is full of opportunities to work hard, have fun, and keep making progress every day!

In 4th grade we are really focusing on learning about taking accountability and being responsible. In math we just finished up four-by-one & two-by-two multiplication! Focusing hard in reading about finding the theme of each story we read!

IR SPED K-2 has started UFLI (University of Florida Literacy Institute) lessons for reading. It's amazing to see the progress already made with the repetition of lessons! They are learning the routine to the point that they are able to quote some of the context with me. UFLI is truly making a difference in their reading and writing ability!

Kindergarteners are learning to be engineers. They just finished reading The Three Little Pigs and then built strong little pigs' houses that the wolf could not blow down. First graders are learning about sound and light. They just finished exploring sound using tuning forks and watching the sound waves. After break they will be observing light. Second graders have been learning about the states of matter. They recently made oobleck and had a matter race. Third graders have been studying fossils. They did a fossil find and then took home all the fossils that they found and identified. Fourth graders are learning about how waves move using sound. Students used speakers and salt to observe how different pitches change the way the sound waves move.

Third and fourth grade students have discovered the Kansas State Library website. They have learned how to use it and are now visiting the site frequently on their own. Students may listen to books, read interesting fiction and nonfiction books, and look up important people, i.e., Taylor Swift. When students are working on research projects in the classroom, they now have a new source for finding and using relevant information. Ask your child to show you how to use the site at https://library.ks.gov/students .

This month in speech, students have been focusing on their goals through a variety of fun, seasonal activities perfect for late fall and Thanksgiving! Some of their favorites include reading stories about Thanksgiving traditions, fall harvest, and the importance of gratitude. Our students have been working hard on developing their speech sounds at all levels, as well as improving their language skills through engaging, real-life activities. With our break coming up, here are some ways you can target your child's speech goals at home:

-Reading books on Epic or from the library: look for speech sounds, story retell, asking basic what, where, who and when questions

- Playing board games: before your child takes their turn, have them say words that contain their speech sounds 5x, either alone or in a short sentence! You can also have them describe the game to you if they are more language based.

P & M Pumpkin Patch was a huge success!! We appreciate all of the volunteers that came and helped out.

Parent/Teacher Conferences - Thank you for the wonderful meals that were provided!

Bully Prevention Week - We love seeing students dress up & have fun!

Chocolate Fundraiser - We reached our goal!! Students sold over 200 boxes!

In Kindergarten we have been learning like crazy! We are learning new letters, sounds, and how to blend sounds to make words. For math, we have been focusing on more, fewer, and one less or one more. The students are looking forward to wearing their Halloween costumes to school and having our first class party!

First grade has finished up a great first quarter! We had a fun time at the pumpkin patch this month and look forward to some more fun events coming up.

In math, first grade is continuing our fact fluency (addition and subtraction) within 10, and will start adding and subtracting within 20 soon. First grade has started spelling! They will get 8 words each week, and we will spend time practicing! Each week there will be a different spelling rule. First grade will continue learning different phonics and spelling patterns. Please spend some time practicing each week, and don't forget to read!

Ms. Wedel & Mrs. Wittman

October in 2nd grade has been spent celebrating the arrival of Fall. We have enjoyed our crisp morning recess time as well as the days we walk outside with our family groups.

We have been working hard in 2nd grade on learning new spelling patterns and practicing with our spelling words each week as well as learning all sorts of things about multisyllable words, reading assorted genres from expository text to fables and realistic fiction and in math, working on two-digit addition and subtraction. We are now working on measurement and enjoying learning about different units, tools and ways to measure.

We are also busy preparing for our upcoming Arts Partners program featuring the book Crabbylegs and the Shells. Students will be singing, acting, dancing, and drumming to retell the story on October 29 at 6:30 pm in the Northridge gym.

It was so good to have our families in the building for parent-teacher conferences this month. We enjoyed sharing our students' progress with families! We are now looking forward to our fall parties and all the festivities scheduled for that day!

Mrs. Black & Mrs. Entz

As we embark on the second quarter of our school year, 3rd Grade is buzzing with activity! We are preparing for our first State test interim, diving into our Arts Partners project featuring the inspiring poetry book “Hope City,” and exploring new skills in Social Studies focused on map literacy. Additionally, we are concluding our personal narratives and transitioning into instructional writing. In Math, we are engaging with concepts of area and multiplication. Thank you for entrusting us with your 3rd Graders—it's a pleasure to support their growth and learning!

With the second quarter under way, fourth graders are building big skills. In math, they are learning to multiply large numbers. We hope that students will be able to multiply just about any numbers by the end of the semester. We continue to read all kinds of authors and writing. They have really enjoyed the opportunity to read a couple of reader's theaters. Watch out parents, because they will soon be honing their persuasive skills, by working on a holiday themed persuasive writing project. We are looking forward to many busy and fun days with activities that come during the holiday season.

We have been having a fun and busy Fall in the IDD room! Earlier in October we focused on the letter A while learning about apples. We did apple counting, learned about how apples grow through the seasons, and made homemade applesauce. The last couple of weeks we have focused on the letter P, learning a lot about pumpkins, and we had a blast at our Pumpkin Patch field trip! This week we are wrapping up the letter P and adding in some spooky fun with learning the steps of dressing up in costumes and trick or treating.

We are in the full swing of this year! We are working hard at our goals! In math, we have some who are working on multi digit addition with regrouping, and others who are working on counting money, place value, single digit addition and subtraction, rote counting and writing numbers. In reading we are mainly focusing on decoding, fluency, comprehension, and we have some who are focusing more on letter sounds and building cvc words. Students are working very hard in 3rd and 4th grade IRR!

For the past several weeks, our students have been focusing on the essential skill of dribbling in basketball. Dribbling not only enhances hand-eye coordination and balance, but it also encourages teamwork and strategic thinking as students navigate the court. Through fun drills and games, students are learning how to control the ball effectively while developing confidence in their abilities.

Kinders have been busy learning new sounds and letters. For the sounds of /b/ and /p/, we blew bubbles, made bear masks, used playdough and ate popcorn!!! We are adding vowel sounds and learning about Vowel Town with Pathways to Reading. In math, we are counting to 10, working on one more, one less and arranging groups of objects. We are ready for Fall and cooler recess weather!! We are also looking forward to the Pumpkin Patch field trip in October.

This week in first grade we celebrated Johnny Appleseed day (September 26th) by taste testing apples to find our favorite color, labeling parts of an apple as we learned more about them, making homemade applesauce, and learning the story behind Johnny Appleseed. Along with this, students are enjoying putting the sounds of Vowel Town to use and point out new sounds they hear. In math, we have started working with addition word problems. We are focusing on spotting the numbers given to us and finding key words within the problem. We are learning so many new things every day!

Ms. Wedel & Mrs. Wittman

September kicked off spelling lessons and weekly wonders lessons. We focused on “How Friends Depend on Each Other” as our essential question in ELA. We were able to tie our essential question and main idea and details into our work with our Arts Partners lessons. For Arts Partners we have begun working on our program that will be in October and have worked hard on our art projects on art days. For math we worked with graphs and data. We also began adding and subtracting two digit numbers up to 50 and then will work up to 100. We learned and celebrated constitution day on the 17th. We learned what a citizen is and why it is important to have rights and rules to follow.

What an exciting start we’ve had to the school year! In September the students jumped right into learning with enthusiasm. We’ve been busy establishing classroom routines and expectations, and it’s been wonderful to see friendships forming and our classroom community growing stronger each day. In literacy, we’ve continued personal narrative writing and a deeper understanding of reading comprehension and fluency; while in math, we’re mastering multiplication facts using arrays and other strategies. Our social studies unit on communities has sparked some great discussions about what it means to be a good citizen. We are so proud of our students and are excited for all the growth we’ll experience together this year. Thank you for your continued support— we look forward to keeping you updated on all our learning adventures!

After really focusing and locking in on the new school year, the four-graders are now getting the groove of their classrooms for the year. In math we have been focussed on place value and rounding those bigger numbers. In reading we are currently focussing on pinpointing the main idea in a story or passage. All while we are learning how we can be good classmates and friends to each other while we are still focused on that team building, working with one another, and listening to each other.

SPED K-2 is plugging away at learning new things! We are hard at work to fill the gap between last school year and the start of this school year. We are making gains and are excited to continue learning! 💜💜

Kindergarteners have been learning about weather. Now that it is fall we will start observing the new season and the changes it brings. First graders have been learning about the phases of the moon and should have brought home binoculars to use to observe our moon. Next we are learning about the sun and the stars. Second grade has been studying animal habitats and animal classification. We will be starting to learn about food chains this next week and by making our own food chain model. Third graders followed hurricane Francine and are in the process of building a model house that we will test against a hurricane in the classroom. Fourth graders are learning about energy conversion. They just learned how to make a circuit making a light bulb light and a motor power a fan. We will be working with solar panels this week.

Northridge Library is having an exciting year. The students are finding interesting books to read, especially in the nonfiction section. We have been looking at different types of books and practicing how to find a desired book. Genre, author's purpose and parts of a story are some of the additional topics we have covered. Thank you for helping your child make good choices in caring for their books when they are taken home. One note: We will not be having a book fair during conferences next month. Our fall book fair will occur the week before Christmas break.

This month in speech, students have been working on their goals using a variety of fall based activities. Some of their favorites include reading stories about visiting an apple orchard and pumpkin patch, as well as learning about the life cycle of some fall plants! Our students have been working hard developing their speech sounds in all levels, as well as developing their language skills in real-life settings. Some of the books we have read include: “Apples, Apples” by Kathleen Weidner Zoehfeld and “Little Pumpkin” by Suzanne Fossey. Looking for some free and easy ways to practice your child’s goals? Grab a book and look for speech sounds, talk about the pictures in detail and retell the story at the end! Many books can be accessed for free on YouTube, as well as through Epic! Never hesitate to reach out if you have any questions or need any resources!

• Mrs. Brown and Mrs. Leyba, 417-551-9367

Thank you to all the families that came to our fall festival! We had an amazing turn out and appreciate all of the support. A HUGE shoutout to our community partners: Scouts of America, Banana Bikes from Riverside Park Rentals, Arts Partners, Friesen Counseling, CASA, Anthony Rubin with MHIT, Bible School, Safehope, Big Brothers & Big Sisters, Prairie View, Walk & Roll Harvey Coalition and B&B Lumber for the dunk tank!

Kindergarten is off to a great start, we are working on walking in the hallway, listening to each other and being a good friend. We read "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom" and made our own alphabet coconut tree. We have been working with math tools such as connecting cubes, pattern blocks, and colored counters with 5-frames. So far we have learned the letter M. Next up we are learning N, F, and V. Full days of Kindergarten can be a lot of work, make sure you are getting lots of rest and a good breakfast!

First grade has been off to an amazing start! We have started to settle into our classes. We have been busy learning procedures and expectations. In our classes, we have old friends and new friends and are enjoying working together and in groups.

In reading, first grade is learning all about vowel town. We are learning all the vowel sounds and the spellings of them. We will start to put these into practice and start spelling words and reading! In math, we have started our year with some addition and subtraction within 10. We will soon get into some data, and start working on collecting our own data and making graphs. First grade is spending time working on our handwriting, making sure our letters are formed correctly.

We have been so excited to be back to school and look forward to the year to come!

Ms. Wedel & Mrs. Wittman

2nd graders are beginning to get into a nice routine as we celebrate our first few weeks of the school year. It has been such a joy to learn more about each student and all the wonderful gifts they bring to our Northridge school family. We started off the year learning all about what it means to be a 2nd grader using activities that helped us further understand how to be respectful, responsible, safe, and ready to learn! We have spent some time talking about feelings and how to handle all the different feelings we feel throughout our days! Now we are working on learning about how families are alike and different using our reading series and learning new spelling patterns to help with our reading and writing. Math began with a little review on our basic facts and then soon we will dive into graphs and diagrams as we learn how to organize and understand information! Our days are full of learning, but full of lots of laughs too!

We have been getting acquainted with our expectations and our classmates. In math we're learning about multiplication and graphs. In reading we're starting to learn about Narrative Nonfiction and we will be talking about communities in both reading and Social Studies. For writing we will be working on our handwriting, grammar, and personal narratives. We're finishing up our first round of Fastbridge testing and are excited to get started with our small groups! Thanks for sharing your 3rd Graders with us!

-Miss Kusmaul and Mrs. Widener

After a few weeks of former students getting reacquainted and new students finding their barings, Fourth graders are back at it like they never left. We have focussed on team building, listening to each other, working with different people and how to get our needs met at school among other things that will help students throughout the school year. We also spent some time discussing how our thoughts and attitudes can affect how we see ourselves and end the conversation with some delicious fresh pancakes.

We have had a busy start to our year in the IDD room! We are getting into a good groove with our daily routines, and working on being a helpful friend. One of our favorite parts of the day is our Calendar Time, where we sing lots of songs, read books, and work on lots of skills. With Fall coming up in a few weeks, we will be working on our letters, vocabulary, and numbers with a focus on apples, our changing weather, and Fall colors. We can't wait for you to see everything we are working on!

In third and fourth grade IR we are focusing on review of previous years knowledge and fluency in both reading and math skills (addition and subtraction).

Welcome to Physical Education with Coach K! The program goes beyond just physical fitness; I'm dedicated to teaching students the importance of critical thinking, teamwork, and responsibility through engaging activities. From building foundational motor skills to understanding the value of a healthy lifestyle, our PE classes are designed to equip students with the tools they need for success both inside and outside the gym!

Arrival Procedures:

The front doors open at 7:30 am for breakfast. All students must arrive through the front. If your child is not eating breakfast at school, they can go to the gym for walking club. Students may go into their classroom at 7:50. Please do not let your students out of vehicles before 7:30 am, as there is no supervision, which creates a potentially dangerous situation for students. We ask that you use the circle drive for drop-off and remain in your car. Pull forward as far as possible to allow your child to exit your vehicle safely and for other vehicles to pull up behind you. If you are walking your child to the door, only park in designated areas and not in the circle drive as this may block other vehicles, creating congestion and potentially unsafe conditions for students. Please note that parents are not allowed to walk their children into the building during drop-off and pick-up times. You are welcome to call 316.284.6540 to schedule an appointment if you need to speak with a staff member.

Dismissal Procedures:

Families will be issued two gold student pick-up name cards. Please have your name card displayed in your front window or carry it with you if you are walking up. This will ensure that dismissal is as safe and efficient as possible. All students will be dismissed out the Gym Doors AFTER 3:10

1. If you are walking up to get your student, please park at the church or on Clover Lane do NOT park on Normandy, the circle drive or the pick-up lane as this causes congestion.

1. Please have your student name sign displayed for students and staff to see

2. Students will walk out the West doors in a line and then to guardians

3. Do not ask your students to run across streets or parking lots. No students will be allowed to cross the street without a parent.

2. If you are driving up to get your student please pull forward to the first available cone, students will walk out to the cones

1. Please have your student name sign displayed in your front window of car

2. Students will walk out the south door.

3. Traffic should line up going down Normandy

3. If you are going to arrive after 3:20 pm, please call the office. If you are going to come after 3:20 pm each afternoon, Clubhouse is available and can be arranged by contacting Newton Recreation Center. We do not have staff available to stay beyond 3:20 pm for late pick-up.

• On 1:10 dismissal days students must be picked up by 1:20 Clubhouse is available and can be arranged by contacting Newton Recreation Center. We do not have staff available to stay beyond 1:20 pm for late pick-up
• If your child is picked up by someone else, please contact Kelsey or Courtney at the office, 316-284-6540. We must have notification from the parent or guardian for the student to go home with someone else, and we will ask for ID.

Included is the Newton School District Attendance calendar and Black/Gold Days calendar. This year, the school district is implementing an early release schedule nine times during the year to allow for teacher collaboration and professional development. Students will eat lunch at school on these days and be released at 1:10pm. These dates are indicated in orange on the attendance calendar.

Early Release Dates (students dismissed at 1:10pm):

September 11

October 2

November 13

December 11

January 22

February 12

March 5

April 2

May 14

NRC Clubhouse is Newton's before and after school program. It is run by the Newton Recreation Center and is available for Northridge students. The link for more information about this program is included below.

Northridge Clubhouse Information Link