Hello!

Hello Kindergarten Families!! I am SO excited to see all of you, and I'm looking forward to working with you and your children. We are going to have a GREAT year! I hope you are able to join us for Dryden's Ice Cream Social Night on Monday, August 19 from 5:00-6:30. Students and families are welcome to visit our classroom and then enjoy treats in the school gym. Hope to see you there! 

Can't wait to learn all about our new kinder friends! Take a peek below to learn more about Mrs. Riesing. See you soon!

Thanks for checking out our class blog!

See you soon!

Happy Summer Vacation!

It's hard to believe it's time to say goodbye. It's been such a great year! I have been blown away by all that these amazing kindergarten friends have accomplished this year not only with their academic skills but in their character, perseverance, and mindfulness too. I am really going to miss this group of kinder friends and families. I am so proud of them and thankful for all you do to foster a love of learning! Wishing you all a happy and restful summer vacation! Be sure to take a peek at some of our end of year activities--lunchroom practice, personalized learning play centers, first grade buddy tours, 5th grade buddy visit, and of course field day! There are photo links below.

Wishing you all a happy and restful summer vacation!

--Mrs. Riesing 

End of Year Activities AM Class

End of Year Activities PM Class

Classroom News (April 8-May 10)

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

I was blown away by all of the thoughtful cards, gifts, and gestures during Teacher Appreciation Week. Thank you all for thinking of me and brightening my week! 

Math
During math time we have been learning how to count forward and back from a given number. We have also been learning our addition math facts and recording our thinking using a number sentence. We have also been working to master our addition math facts with sums up to 5.

Comparing numbers

Number pairs that make 10

Number pairs that make 10

Recording our thinking using a "number bond"

Writing an addition number sentence to match our picture

Reading Workshop
The class has been loving our nonfiction reading workshop unit! We have been using a variety of mentor texts to learn about the different features nonfiction authors use to help us learn about a topic. We used the book How Bees Make Honey to see how authors use different nonfiction text features to organize information and help us understand what is important, and then we searched for some of these features in our own books.

Searching for nonfiction text features

Sharing our examples of nonfiction text features

Sharing examples of nonfiction text features

Sharing our examples of nonfiction text features

Sharing our examples of nonfiction text features

Sorting our books into piles of fiction and nonfiction

Sorting our books into piles of fiction and nonfiction

Picking nonfiction books for our book bins

We also took a closer look at one of our nonfiction text features--photographs. We learned that nonfiction authors use photographs to show us how things look in our real lives and the details in photos help us understand the information in the text. We also learned that photos and words work together to teach us new information.

We learned about the genre of biography as well while reading Me...Jane by Patrick McDonnell. As we read McDonnell's beautifully written and illustrated book about the young life of Jane Goodall, we learned that a biography is a nonfiction book written about the life of someone else. 

We also read the book Healthy Habits and learned how to identify key details that support the big idea of the text. While listening to the book, the students acted like detectives and used good thinking skills as they worked to figure out how all the facts fit together to support the big idea--keeping our bodies healthy everyday. After examining the table of contents, reading the headings, and thinking about the big idea, we were able to identify the following habits we should do everyday to stay healthy:

Eat good foods like fruit, eggs, and nuts

Drink plenty of milk and water

Clean and protect our skin

Brush and floss our teeth

Play hard for exercise

Get lots of sleep

Writing Workshop
Our weekend writing routine has been a great opportunity for the students not only to practice their writing skills, but it has also been a great opportunity for them to talk to their friends and me about their weekend adventures! It is exciting to see them gaining more confidence in themselves as writers each week! They continue to work hard to match up letters with the sounds they hear, and they are working to include the following elements in their writing:

• Capital letter at the beginning of each sentence
• Spaces between words
• Lowercase letters throughout each sentence
• Period at the end of each sentence

Take a peek at some of our other recent writing pieces below as well.

Favorite Season Writing

Favorite Season Writing

Writing about a person you know

Writing about a person you know

Ways we can help the Earth

A poem to show how thankful we are for Mrs. Beane

Science
We began our final science unit of the year that will focus on how animals, plants, and people use resources from their environment to survive. We began our unit by listening to several short texts about different animals, like the one pictured below,  and then we discussed what information we knew about animals. We recorded our thoughts and came up with the following definition for an animal.

An animal is a creature that can move and get what it needs from where it lives like water, food, air, and shelter. The students also had time to select an animal they would like to research throughout our unit. They are super excited to begin their research!

LMC
Take a peek below to see what we have been learning in the LMC.

Scanning QR codes to listen to poetry 

Listening to poetry 

Listening to poetry

Listening to poetry

Listening to poetry

Sorting books into fiction and nonfiction

Kindergarten Musical
I loved watching the children perform their songs during their musical last week. They did such an amazing job! Here is the link I shared last week with photos and videos from the show. Enjoy!

Assessments
I have been working with students one-on-one to gather some assessment information for report cards and to do one more guided reading assessment before the end of the school year. It is amazing to see how much progress the students have made.

Miss Weber
The afternoon class said good-bye to Miss Weber this week, our high school intern from Prospect.