December Parent Newsletter
2023
📆 Important Dates
December 16-17- PTO Winter Market
December 18- Ugly Sweater Day
Winter Concert Rehearsal
School Board Meeting - 6:00
December 19- Holiday Best Dress up
Northview Winter Concert @ HGCA
-K/1- 9:30
-4th-11:00
-2/3- 1:30
December 20-Winter White Out/Snowman Day
Kindergarten Caroling- 9:15
December 21-Holiday Character Dress up Day
JK Cookies/Carols
December 22-Pajama Day
December 25-January 2- Winter Break
January 3- Classes resume
January 5- Northview Clothing Day
School-wide assembly
January 8- No Junior Kindergarten
A Message from the Principal
Happy December! As we move into our holiday season, I want to wish everyone a safe and enjoyable holiday. I am excited to share that I am expecting my second child in April 2024. I am beginning to make detailed plans for my maternity leave. I feel confident in my staff and other administration to keep Northview safe and productive while I am out. The finalized plan will be shared before I leave for maternity leave. The students at Northview are beginning to notice I am expecting a child and are very kind and tell me "congratulations!"
Winter Dress Up Days
Monday, December 18th- Ugly Sweater Day
Tuesday, December 19th- Holiday Best Dress up
Wednesday, December 20th- Winter White Out/Snowman Day
Thursday, December 21st- Holiday Character Dress up Day
Friday, December 22nd- Pajama Day
Join us for the Northview Music Concert
Kindergarten through Fourth Grade students have the opportunity to participate in the Northview Music Winter Concert at the Howards Grove Center for the Arts on Tuesday, December 19, 2023. Students will be bussed from Northview to the HGCA. All students that participate are required to ride the bus. The following times are the approximate times students will leave Northview and return to Northview after the Music Winter Concert.
All parents are able to attend the Winter Concert at the high school. Approximate times for each grade level performances are as follows.
- Kindergarten/1st grade- 9:30am
- 4th Grade- 11:00am
- 2nd /3rd Grade- 1:30pm
Thank you Mrs. Barrett for all your hard work and dedication to our students and music program.
Counselor Corner 🌛
Last month, Northview students learned about the character trait of Gratitude! We learned that an Attitude of Gratitude means being in the present moment and choosing to be thankful and appreciative for things in our life. When we use a gratitude mindset, we feel more confident, positive, optimistic, and joyful about the things we have and the people that matter most!
Our character traits for December are Empathy and Kindness. Empathy means understanding how someone else is feeling and then showing that person support. We will be focusing on two elements of Empathy: Shared Emotion and Seeing Other Perspectives. From there, we will talk about how to show kindness in all areas of our building and community. We had a guest author, Todd Zimmermann, join us for our school assembly to read his book, "Oliver the Ornament" and discuss kindness with our students. He gave our students a HUGE shout out stating he has never worked with such a respectful school. Way to go Northview!
After returning from Winter Break, we will focus on the character trait of Flexible Thinking.
Rainbow Kids Program
Rainbow Kids provides peer support groups for children, teens, and adults who are grieving a loss due to death, divorce, separation, incarceration, abandonment or deployment.
These 10-week programs group participants with trained facilitators to address the issues confronted in family loss situations. This is not counseling.
The purpose of these support groups is to provide the participants an opportunity to share their feelings in an accepting environment supported by trained, caring, compassionate adults.
The aim of these programs is to:
– Furnish the participant with an understanding of their new family unit
– Assist in building a stronger sense of self-esteem
– Direct them toward a healthy resolution of the changes that have taken place in their personal lives
The Winter Session begins January 4th for ages 5 years old through Adults. Please see the attached flyer for more information!
Books and Breakfast
A HUGE shout out to all parents, grandparents, caregivers, & special adults who took time out of their busy schedules to attend one or both of the Books & Breakfast events held in October & December. Each event had over 200 people in attendance! The library was full to bursting with enthusiasm & love for books & reading as families enjoyed a light breakfast & time reading together to start their day.
Thank you to the PTO and Tietz’s Piggly Wiggly for your continued support of Books & Breakfast! We could not have this event without your patronage.
Mark your calendars! Books & Breakfast will be held twice more this school year on Thursday, 2/8/24 & Thursday, 4/11/24. Watch for more detailed information to come home approximately one week before the next event.
We hope to see you there!
Mrs. Henschel, District Librarian
Mrs. Jacques, Title 1 Reading Specialist
Mrs. Waters, Elementary Library Assistant
PTO News
Thank You!
· Family Food Night: Thank you to everyone who joined us at the November Family Food Night at Parker John’s. Thanks to your support, the PTO raised almost $200! Thank you to those who joined us at our first Family Food Night at Log Cabin, where we raised an additional $260 for programming for our students, teachers, and families. We greatly value our new partnership with Log Cabin and look forward to seeing you there next month!
· Holiday Sale: We were thrilled to partner with three amazing local businesses for our annual holiday sale and want to give a special shout-out to everyone who made purchases from Dairy Queen, Little Brown Cow Cheese, and Hartman’s Bakery. Orders will be available at the High School for pick-up on Wednesday, December 20 from 3:30pm – 6:00pm.
· Winter Market: Thank you for joining us at our first annual Winter Market the weekend of December 16-17. We welcomed over 30 local vendors who showcased their homemade products and offerings to guests from near and far!
Save the Date
· January 2024: Stop by our next Family Food Night at Log Cabin, where 10% of all sales will be donated back to the PTO for ongoing student programming. Join us for great food and another easy night of meal prep. Date to be announced soon!
· Monday, January 8, 2024: Join us for our monthly PTO Meeting at 5:00pm in the Northview Library. Everyone is welcome! Free babysitting is provided if requested within 72 hours of the meeting. Please contact hgpto@yahoo.com for more information.
· January 19-21, 2024: Family Food Night at Marco’s Pizza. Skip your meal prep the weekend of January 19-21 and order some delicious pizza and amazing sides from Marcos on Calumet Avenue in Sheboygan! Perfect for a weekend on the go or watching the big game!
· Monday, January 22, 2024: Ice-Skating Day! Join us for our annual ice-skating event at the Sheboygan Lakers Ice Center. The rink will be open to Howards Grove families from 9:00-11:00am on Monday, January 22.
· Tuesday, February 6, 2024: PJs, Pancakes, & Books at Northview Elementary. There’s just something extra special about pancakes for dinner! Put on your favorite PJs and join us for a fun evening of reading and a yummy pancake dinner at Northview Elementary.
As 2023 comes to a close, we want to take a moment to thank our amazing families, teachers, and community members for another great year. We are incredibly appreciative of your ongoing support and participation in PTO events and initiatives. We wish you a wonderful holiday season and look forward to what’s to come in 2024!
Physical Education with Mrs. Kramer
From cooperative activities to overhand throw practice to parachute, it's been a busy month in PE class!!
Art with Mrs. Lewis
We are pleased to share with you the exciting news that our art class has been a great success! Our students have been working hard and having a lot of fun exploring different art techniques and materials. From paper weaving to portraits, printmaking to clay, our students have been exploring their creativity and producing amazing works of art.
Our Kindergarten students have been working with clay to create three-dimensional sculptures. They have been learning how to shape and mold the clay, and how to use different tools to create texture and detail. They have used pinch pot and coil techniques to create a snail that they will be glazing.
Our first grade art class has been paper weaving. Students have been learning how to use different colored strips of paper to create beautiful patterns and textures. They have also been working on their scissors skills to turn their weaving into fantastic animals.
Second grade has been exploring portraiture. Our students have been learning the steps to create a self-portrait. They will use “Bad Case of Stripes” as their inspiration for the final piece.
Third graders will be moving into some really exciting stuff. They will be using clay to create a coil dish. One of the next projects will be shading using black lights and fluorescent materials to create a galaxy. It is always fun to see what glows in a room lit by nothing but black lights!
Finally our fourth grade art class has been exploring printmaking. Our students have been learning how to create prints using relief printing and monoprints. Coming up students will get the chance to learn how to use Gelli Plates to create incredible monoprints. They have been experimenting with different colors, textures, and patterns to create unique and interesting prints.
Overall, our art class has been a wonderful experience for everyone involved. Our students have been learning new skills, exploring their creativity, and having a lot of fun in the process. We can't wait to see what they create next!
Music
Look what's happening in General Music Class!
Junior Kindergarten
Kindergarten
The kindergarteners celebrated their classroom families with a Thanksgiving luncheon before break. Thank you to all the families who volunteered and contributed food and other items to make our lunches so special.
Lots of fun and exciting things are in store for kindergarten classes in the month of December. We are looking forward to our annual gingerbread baking and decorating days the week of the 11th. Kindergarteners will be reading, retelling, and comparing different versions of the gingerbread man before celebrating. We are also looking forward to the Winter Concert on the 19th. Mrs. Barrett has dedicated lots of time and energy into making each grade levels' concert a fun and successful learning experience as we head into winter break.
Before heading into winter break, the kindergarteners have been busy becoming readers and book makers. They are learning how to point to words and use snap words and patterns in books to read page by page. They are also learning how to use snap words, patterns, and their knowledge of letters and sounds to write about topics that are important to them. In phonics, we are becoming word scientists by studying and reading the alphabet chart in different ways to better our understanding of letters and sounds in words. Finally in math, kindergarteners are learning about the numbers 6-10 and how to use 5-groups to make those numbers.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all of our kindergarten families!
1st Grade
2nd Grade
3rd Grade
In the spirit of giving, 3rd graders have collected gloves/mittens, scarves, and hats to donate to Sheboygan Area Pay It Forward. For our winter celebration one of our activities will be pairing up sets of winter items and packaging them in sealed bags along with a poem to share the gifts of warmth and love. The Sheboygan Area Pay It Forward will be leaving these baggies on giving trees in local parks for those who need it most in this cold season.
4th Grade
4th grade students have been busy, busy, busy! We have been studying historical fiction which entails book clubs, and writing diary entries. While writing diary entries we travel back in time and become a character from the historical time period our class is studying. We have completed our division unit in math, and we're working on putting together all of the skills we have learned so far this year by designing hot cocoa stands. We want to wish everyone a happy holiday season! We hope that you can take some time to create new memories with each other!
đź’ˇ Reminders
- Please send your child with all the necessary winter clothing through the winter months. Weather changes quickly so we would like all students prepared.
Connect with Mrs. Ellinger
Email: sellinger@hgtigers.com
Website: hgtigers.org
Location: 902 Tyler Road, Howards Grove, WI, USA
Phone: 920-565-4457