Weekly News (Dec. 14-18)

It's hard to believe winter vacation is already here! It's been a busy and fun-filled week in kindergarten. Keep reading to see what we've been up to!

Math
This week in math we continued to explore the concept of measurement by using small and large gingerbread to measure objects throughout our classroom. With the help of our 5th grade buddies, we were able to measure the height of our tables and our backpacks. We also measured the height of a book and the length of a yardstick. We discussed our findings and learned that it took more small gingerbread men to measure each object, which is just what we predicted!

We also reviewed our graphing skills and practiced counting by 10's. We took a closer look at the teen numbers as well!

Jolly Phonics
We completed Book #6 this week. The students learned the following sounds:
/sh/ as in "sheep"
/th/ as in "this" and "three"

Literacy
Reading Workshop
This week during reading workshop, we learned that good readers are able to describe characters' physical traits and personalities by studying the illustrations and paying close attention to what the characters say and do. We also practiced "stepping into a character's shoes" and making inferences about what the different characters might say or do. We finished our Gingerbread Man comparison chart as well, which was a great way to reinforce and apply the skills we have been learning during our fiction unit!

Writing Workshop
I loved reading the students' weekend writing pieces. It's always fun to see what the children have been doing, and it's neat to see how they continue to grow as writers each week. We continued to work on stretching out our sounds and leaving spaces between words. We also spent some extra time reviewing the short vowel sounds (a, e, i, o, and u). These sounds are still tricky for many of the students, so extra practice with these sounds is always beneficial!

All About Me
We loved learning all about Gabriel this week. We learned that Gabriel LOVES animals, and he enjoys going to different zoos. It was neat to learn that Gabriel once held a wallaby at a visit to a zoo in Ohio. Gabriel also likes to swim and ride his bike. He is a big fan of Paw Patrol, and he loves the color yellow. Gabriel also enjoys playing with his dog Stitch and spending time with his family!

The class loved listening to Max and Mo. Thank you to Gabriel's mom for coming in to read!

Winter Fun in Kindergarten

The class enjoyed a visit from Mr. Deptula's 5th grade carolers. We all chimed in to sing some holiday songs!

A huge thank you to Mrs. Sessler, Mrs. Beane, and the Dryden PTA for organizing an amazing Winter Wonderland for our students. They had a blast!

I hope everyone has a wonderful winter vacation!

See you in 2016!

Weekly News (Dec. 7-11)

The countdown to winter vacation has begun! It's hard to believe there is just one more week before winter break. Time flies when you're having fun in kindergarten!

Math
This week we reviewed our teen numbers and practiced sequencing the numbers 0-20 using an interactive game on the whiteboard. We continue to reinforce the concept that the teen numbers are made up of a ten "plus some more." We also reviewed how to use a pan balance and introduced the concept of probability. We talked about what it means when things are sure or certain to happen and discussed the terms possible and impossible. We learned a new math game this week as well called the Train Game, which reinforced one-to-one matching while counting and identifying pairs of numbers that add up to 10. After rolling a die, the students would add cars to their train. Then they would fill in these statements after each turn. "I have ___ cars. I need ___ more to make 10." An online version of this game can also be found on the Everyday Math website that students can access using the login information that was provided at conferences!

The Train Game

 I have 5 cars.
I need 5 more to make 10.

Jolly Phonics
It's great to see how well the students are doing stretching out the sounds they hear when labeling their pictures in their Jolly Phonics notebooks. Keep up the great work K-2!

This week we learned the following sounds:

/y/ as in "yogurt"
/x/ as in "fox"
/ch/ as in "chocolate"

Literacy

Reading Workshop
This week during our mini lessons for our Fiction Unit, we learned several more strategies that good readers use. We learned that readers make personal connections while reading to better understand the characters' feelings and the events in the story. We also learned that making personal connections makes a story more meaningful and enjoyable for us to read. 

We also revisited the book I Broke My Trunk by Mo Willems this week. We learned that good readers are curious, and they ask a lot of questions while reading to deepen their understanding of the story and that good readers also look for "clues" or text signals to help us read with expression.

Building our "stamina" during independent reading time!

Writing Workshop
This week we worked on writing about our favorite winter activities. The children continue to grow as writers, and they are doing a great job really stretching out their words. We have been working on listening for middle sounds when writing, leaving spaces between words and ending our sentences with a period. It's great to see how much they have grown since the beginning of the year!

Gingerbread Unit
We continued to explore different versions of the original Gingerbread Man story this week. The class had a a great time comparing and singing the refrains from the following stories: The Gingerbread Cowboy and Gingerbread Baby. They also LOVED seeing our hallway transformed into a gingerbread wonderland!!

Coding in the LMC

Our kindergarteners continued to explore the world of coding in the LMC this week and were introduced to the code.org app and website. More information about coding will be coming home next week!

All About Me

We loved learning all about Jenny this week. We learned that Jenny enjoys playing tennis and snuggling up with her favorite stuffed animal. Her favorite Disney princess is Aerial, and she loves having tea parties. She enjoys coloring, and her favorite color is pink. Jenny also loves going to the park and spending time with her family!

Art Appreciation
A big thank you to Jeanie's mom for coming in for an art appreciation lesson this week. The class enjoyed learning about Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa and creating their own pictures showing a place that would make Mona Lisa smile.

Free Choice Centers

Have a great weekend!
Thanks for reading.

Weekly News (Nov. 30-Dec 4)

December is off to a fantastic start in Kindergarten! Take a peek below to see what we have been doing.

Math

This week in math we learned about the concept of weight and practiced using a pan balance. We passed around a cupful of pompoms and a cupful of plastic counting bears and made predictions about which set of objects was heavier. We used the pan balance to test out and confirm our predictions and learned that a pan balance is like a see saw. The heavier side goes down and the lighter side goes up. We also learned that the pans are balanced when both sides have an equal amount of weight.

We also used our interactive white board this week to solve addition and subtraction number stories similar to the one below. We used the words "more" and "less" to help us understand the concepts of adding and subtracting.  We also used dominoes this week to practice finding the sum and wrote a number sentence to match each domino.

Jolly Phonics

This week we learned the following sounds as we finished Book #5:

/ng/ as in "king"

/v/ as in "van"

/oo/ as in "book" and "moon"

Literacy

Reading Workshop

We began the mini-lesson portion of our Fiction Unit this week. Using two short stories, Where is Little Bear's Hat and Waking up Farmer Fred, the children learned how to make good predictions and practiced retelling the story in order. They also practiced listening for repeated phrases and patterns within each story. 

This week we also started our Gingerbread Unit, which will provide an opportunity for the children to practice using and applying the retelling strategies we have been learning during our reading workshop time. We will be comparing several versions of the Gingerbread Man, and we will use a graphic organizer to help us compare the different story elements we have been learning about including: main characters, setting, problems and solutions. So far we have read and compared the following two stories and have had quite a lively discussion!

The Gingerbread Man by Jim Aylesworth and The Gingerbread Girl by Lisa Campbell Ernst

Writing Workshop

I absolutely LOVED reading all about what the children did over their Thanksgiving break! I could tell everyone thoroughly enjoyed the time off. It is great to see the children's confidence in themselves as writers continue to grow. Next week we will continue to practice stretching out the sounds we hear when writing and leaving spaces between words. 

Sight Word Coloring

Coding in the LMC

Our class did an amazing job in the LMC this week! A special thank you to Cara's mom for helping out during Mrs. Breaux and Mrs. O'Kelly's coding lesson. Mrs. Breaux and Mrs. O'Kelly did a terrific job guided the students through several coding activities. They started out with a whole group lesson, then guided the students during partner work, and finally introduced the students to an app on the iPads call Kodable, which the children absolutely LOVED!! Kodable even "tweeted" about their work on twitter!

Free Choice Centers

The students were able to self-select their centers this week as I continued to work with students one-on-one to assess guided reading levels. I am eager to begin meeting with students for guided reading, and I think they are too!

Our Gingerbread Kids
Hope everyone has a great week!

Weekly News (Nov. 16-20)

Happy Thanksgiving from K-2!

We have been spending some time this week thinking about all of the things we are thankful for, and I was so touched by the students' thoughtful responses. We made "Thankful Turkeys" in the LMC this week, which are on display in the hallway outside our room, and we also thought about all the things we are thankful for in our classroom! 

What a thoughtful and kind-hearted group!

Math
This week the children learned a new game called "Roll and Record," which reinforced their counting and graphing skills. After rolling a single die, students would count the dots and practice writing the corresponding number in a bar graph like the one below. We practiced first as a class and then students rolled their own die and created individual graphs. This game was also a great way for many students to practice their "subitizing" skills--the ability to quickly identify the number of items in a small set without counting. Although students were able to count the dots on the die each time they rolled, they were also encouraged to roll and quickly identify how many dots there were without counting if they could.

Roll and Record

We also practiced following and creating our own patterns 
using colored Unifix cubes. 

Jolly Phonics

This week we reviewed all of the sounds from Book #4, and we learned the first two sounds from Book #5.

Zz as in "zebra"
Ww as in "wind"

Literacy

Reading Workshop
This week we finished the last two interactive read aloud lessons for our Fiction Unit, and we will begin our mini-lessons when we return from break. As a class we worked to create a story map after reading the book A Balloon for Isabel. In this story, Isabel tries to convince her teacher that she and Walter, both porcupines, should receive balloons on kindergarten graduation day just like the other children. As we listened closely to the story, we identified the characters and the setting as well as the problem the characters were trying to solve. In this story the characters were very resourceful and made several attempts to solve their problem before finding a solution that would work. We learned some valuable lessons from this story as you can see from our story map below. 

The children also did a terrific job during another reading workshop lesson this week. Using the wordless book Wave by Suzy Lee, the children learned how to describe the details in the illustrations to tell a realistic story just like a storyteller would from beginning to end. Using words like the ones in the illustration below, the children and I worked together to tell the story of the Wave. What an amazing group of storytellers we have in K-2!

Storytelling practice with the book Wave by Suzy Lee.

Writing Workshop

We continued to work on our narrative writing books this week, and we also did some writing about our favorite Thanksgiving day foods--so many healthy eaters in K-2!

All About Me

This week the class loved learning all about Ivan! We learned that Ivan loves to play soccer, and he also does Tae Kwon Do. Ivan is a big fan of Minecraft, and he LOVES computers. Ivan enjoys solving math problems and listening to stories from his favorite fairy tale book. He also likes to play with Legos and spend time with his family and his two cats!

The class loved Good Night, Sleep Tight, Don't Let the Bedbugs Bite! A big thank you to Ivan's mom for coming in to share a family favorite!

Thank you to Matthew's mom for reading some great stories 
from some of our favorite authors. What a great time!

Thank you to Ian's mom for reading There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Cat 
and a Pete the Cat book. We loved them!!

Thank you all so much for sharing your children with me each day. They fill me with pride, laughter, and warmth each and every day. I am so lucky to be their teacher. 
I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Love,
Mrs. Riesing