The stockings were hung from the white board with care...

Ms. Burns and I are so excited for Christmas! :) Yesterday, during centers, Mrs. Neal and Mrs. Atwell came in and helped the students write their name on their stockings with glitter. The children thought it was so neat to see their name in glitter. (HUGE thank you to Mrs. Neal and Mrs. Atwell for helping!)

This morning while we were waiting for the morning announcements to come, we let each child "hang their stocking" from the white board. Be sure to ask your child about decorating their stocking as well as hanging it. Don't forget to come to "Polar Express Night" tonight to hear us read the story. Free hot chocolate and crafts will be available. Bring a wrapped toy for "Toys For Tots" and receive a free homework pass! We hope to see you there!

*Happy Holidays*

Miss Ryan

All aboard the Polar Express!

The Polar Express is coming to New Berlin Elementary on December 10th! Please join us for a night of hot chocolate, crafts, and a reading of the Polar Express. This year we are asking that you bring a small toy to help "Toys for Tots". Information will be sent home in your child's agenda letting you know the time, and extra details. If you have any questions, please let us know. Ms. Burns' and I, will be reading the story in our room!

We hope you all had a relaxing and enjoyable Thanksgiving. It's hard to believe it is already December 1st! Progress reports will go home on Friday so please be on the look out.

Did you know you can check your child's grades online? Come to the front office to get your password to our parent portal. Stay up to date with how your child is doing in the classroom. If you have any questions or concerns, let us know.

We will be having a holiday gift exchange with the students in our class. Information was sent home in the agenda. Please return the slip provided so we know if your child is participating or not.

Our Math goals have been a success. Almost every child has met their goal. We are so proud of their hard work!!!! Thank you parents for helping your child at home with writing their numbers 0-20!

Be on the lookout for updated pictures soon! As always, if you have any questions or concerns, feel free to contact us.

Thanks for your continued support-Miss Ryan and Ms. Burns

The book fair is here!!

The holiday book fair is at New Berlin! Students had the chance to fill out a wish list on Monday and it was sent home in the agenda. If you would like to send money in so your child can purchase a book, please be sure to include 7% for sales tax. If you have any questions about this, please let us know!

The students will NOT have homework next week due to the Thanksgiving holiday. We ask that you continue to work on the skills we've sent home this week; sight words, number recognition, reading stories, etc. Homework will resume the week following Thanksgiving.

We have started to set individual Math Goals in our classroom. To start off small, we chose writing our numbers from 0-20. While this is not a standard, or a requirement, we have been working extremely hard in helping students to reach their goal. To ensure your child meets their goal by December 1st, please use the holiday weekend to practice writing numbers. I explained to the children the 'tens' column as well as the 'ones' column and how writing numbers backwards makes a new number...if a child writes 31 and really means 13, it's wrong. Encourage your child to practice writing their numbers. We are hoping to display something outside the room when we have all met our goal. With all of that being said, I'm hoping to start 'Math Fact Goals' right after Christmas. I will send home more information after the holidays to explain what we are going to be doing. Again, it is not expected that you work with your child on their 'Math Facts' but my intent is to have them fully ready for first grade addition and subtraction.

ALL ABOARD!!! The Polar Express Night is approaching. Be on the lookout for more information in your child's agenda.' Polar Express Night' is one of our favorite family nights!!! Ms. Burns and I, always volunteer to read the book in our classroom so please consider bringing the family out for the fun of the 'Polar Express'

With the Thanksgiving holiday fast approaching, we just want to express how thankful we are to have such wonderful support from our parents. We work very hard everyday with your children and we would not be as successful as we are without the encouragement and support you have shown us. Enjoy your time with family and friends and again thank you for all you have done for us. It is such a pleasure to be apart of the New Berlin Family!

A month later...

In the past month, we have done so much!! I apologize for not updating sooner.

Thank you to everyone who came out and participated in our 'Spotlight on Learning' Night. We had an excellent turn out and hope that you have a better understanding of the curriculum and the things we are teaching in class.

In Math Investigations, we have been working on creating, extending, and recording patterns. In the slide show below, we were creating hopscotch paths to show patterns. We introduced this lesson by jumping on hopscotch paths after recess outside. We are so proud of the students. They are able to identify the unit of a pattern as well as explain how many times the unit repeats. This week, we used 12 red and yellow chips to create patterns. The homework next week has an extended activity so be sure to ask your student all about it!

Our Fall Harvest Celebration was so much fun! Many, many thanks to the parents who helped make it a success! The children thoroughly enjoyed painting their pumpkins as well as making arts and crafts to celebrate the wonderful season of fall. Below are pictures from the event. Be on the look-out for information coming home about our Thanksgiving pumpkin pie social as well as our Winter Celebration information!

This is our last week of narrative writing. We are going to be starting our study of functional writing. Over the past several weeks, Ms. Burns and I have been pulling guided writing groups. On one particular day of guided writing groups, I paired my students up with each other and explained that I was reversing the role. I told the students they had to teach each other by reminding each other of the important things we need to remember to do when writing stories. I was so impressed with how well they worked together. Below are some pictures of the lesson.

Also, as we continued our work with patterns, we practiced making 'border patterns'! While we were working on the lesson, I went around the room and took a picture of each child to put in the middle of their border pattern. The border patterns are hanging in the hallway outside of our classroom. The children are so proud of their work! By looking at the below pictures, it sure is evident that our students know how to show off their pearly whites :)

Last but not least, we had an amazing time at the Diamond D Ranch on Monday! The Tye-dyed shirts came out amazing and the students were so excited to show them off at school. We did so many fun things at the Ranch; we went on a wagon ride, fed billy goats and cows, went on a nature walk, fed cat fish, played in the bouncy houses, rode on the drum roll, and best of all, RODE PONIES!! Below are a lot of pictures from the Ranch. Please check back for additional photos!

Lots of updates!

We've been very busy in kindergarten and have a lot of updates!

Ms. Burns attended the second step training through the district and has been incorporating what she's learned into our class. The program is based around making the school a safe environment free of bullying. We have special puppets which help us learn how to be socially responsible. Impulsive puppy, be calm bunny, and slow down snail will help us learn how to treat others. Ms. Burns is very excited to bring this program into the classroom and we are looking forward to how it all turns out. Each week on our non-resource days, we will have a lesson. The students have already had two lessons based around the program. Ask your child about our special puppets and what their names mean.

I'm very excited to announce that Ms. Burns has been nominated for Teacher of the Year. Ms. Burns works extremely hard in and out of the classroom for New Berlin. She is truly deserving of this award. We will let you know the results after all the staff members have voted!! Congratulations, Ms. Burns!

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU to ALL of you who sent in a white t-shirt for our field trip shirts. Numerous parents sent in extra shirts which will help us with providing Tye-dyed shirts to new students who may arrive later in the year. I've picked up the Tye-dye, and will be busy Tye-dying all the shirts. We will send a note home about when the shirts will be sent home with the students. Please make sure that your child is dressed in their Tye-dye shirt for every field trip. We will always put a label in the agenda to remind you of when the field trips are. The students voted on red shirts but unfortunately the store only had one package of red. I went ahead and got green (the next color with the highest votes) and look forward to seeing how they turn out!

Book orders will go home tomorrow for the month of October. We had an overwhelming response to our September book order. There are a lot of inexpensive books that the students enjoy in the October order. Check out the book order, and if you're interested you can order online or send money into the classroom. If you have any questions, let us know! Remember, every online order that is placed, gets our classroom a free book. We are so excited for the materials we will be able to bring into the classroom. Book orders will be due on Friday, October 16! Thanks in advance for your continued support!

This week in class we are learning:

Math Investigations- We are continuing our work with patterns. A information guide was sent home on Tuesday giving you an idea of how to relate what we do in the classroom to things you do at home. Look over the guide and work on some of the activities with your child. Today we made pattern snakes with pattern blocks. The students really enjoyed the activity and we will continue it tomorrow. We learned new vocabulary words to put on our math word wall. Please review pattern, unit, repeat, and prediction with your child. They should be able to explain to you what they mean and how we use them in Math.

Writer's Workshop- Narrative writing has been constantly on our minds. Today we talked about ways to make the beginning of our stories engaging! What draws a reader into your story? How can we make someone want to read our story? The students have been working very hard to meet the narrative writing standard. I encourage you to practice writing stories at home with your child. When your child is writing a story, make sure to remind them of the following things: two-finger spaces, story book language, sight words (spelled correctly), engaging beginning, and DETAILS!! The students are reminded of these practices daily and are getting better and better at writing stories. We are very proud of their hard work.

Reader's Workshop- We are still working on our reading strategies: pointing to the words, looking at the pictures and getting our mouth ready! When reading with your child, make sure they are doing the following things. Ask what getting your mouth ready means and see how your child is able to explain it to you. Ms. Burns has started guided reading groups this week so your child will be meeting once, if not twice a week in a special group based around his/her reading level. I will be helping with guided reading as well as working in small groups to make sure the skills we are introducing are being understood by the children. Has your child talked about sequencing events in stories? Last week we worked in our reading journals to sequence the story of The Wolf's Chicken Stew and the students had to put the events in order. Ask them about the story, as they should be able to re-tell you it!

Skills Block- We are now rotating to two centers a day! This week we are learning our two new sight words- like, is as well as continuing to work with rhyming words and syllables. Ask your child about our syllable song "Hickety-Pickety Bumble Bee". They love the song. For added practice have them teach your family the song and use each family members name to find out how many syllables they have in their name. The sight words for the first nine weeks are written in the back of the agenda. Please continue to practice all of the sight words. While it isn't required that the students know how to spell them, we encourage you to practice this at home. It really helps with writing if the students already know how to spell them.

I think that's it for now! Take a look at the most recent pictures! As always, thanks for all your support! If you have any questions, send us an email, note in the agenda or call us. :)

Updates!

To kick-off reading, Maggie the reading dog came and read to the Kindergarten students. Check out our pictures below!!!

We have also been very busy in the classroom adjusting to our regular schedule. We are "Rolling out the red carpet" with out literacy centers. Soon we'll be going to two centers a day. The students have been working hard on narrative writing everyday in Writer's Workshop and are learning new strategies to help them read during Reader's Workshop. In Math Investigations we've started our unit on patterns and are exploring all the ways to create and extend patterns. Today we looked around our classroom and found numerous patterns.

Today in Science Ms. Burns gave us a plate of food to "taste our senses" we made predictions before we ate about how we thought the food would taste and then finished our activity by revisiting our predictions to see if we were correct.

Several of us have had the chance to eat lunch in the classroom with our teachers because we've earned 10 stones in our table jar for good behavior. We're beginning to earn more paws for our "paws-itive" behavior and are really working hard to get our popcorn party!

We still have a hard time settling down after lunch when we do Math and Writer's and many of us are getting too many reminders for our behavior. We're certain we're going to do better and work hard on our assignments.

Open House was so much fun! It's always so nice to meet with parents and inform them of things we are doing in the classroom. We encourage parent participation as much as possible through-out the school year. Thank you to all the parents who joined us!

Our first field trip will happen in November and we are so excited to head back to Diamond D Ranch. Information will be sent home soon, so be on the look out for that.

If you haven't sent in your child's white t-shirt for the tye-dye, please do so by October 2nd. We haven't decided on what color we are going to dye our shirts but we'll be doing that very shortly. Shirts will be sent home prior to our first field trip. We ask that every field trip each child wears their shirt. We will put labels in the agenda as a reminder.

As always, if you have any questions please email, call or send a note in the agenda. We hope your child has enjoyed the first 21 days of school as much as we both have. We are very excited for a successful and exciting school year. Thank you for your continued support!

Enjoy our newest pictures :) We can't believe it's already the end of the 3rd week of school!

Just a couple reminders... Sight words were introduced this week. Please work on these at home with your child. Homework is due on friday of each week. You should be recording books in the back of your child's agenda on their book log. Each kindergarten student MUST read a minimum of 45 books each nine weeks at home. Also, a letter was sent home about the expectations of arrival and dismissal. Please ensure you have read and understand the procedures. As always, thank you for all of your support!!

Our first week of school!!

We had a WONDERFUL first week of school. The children have been so excited about school! This week we learned our rituals and routines, went to some of our resource classes; computer lab, Media Center and P.E. We learned about earning good behavior tickets, had indoor and outdoor recess and even ate lunch with our teachers everyday! We have been reviewing our letters and sounds, learned all about the fun Math materials we will use in Math Investigations, wrote a story every day in Writer's Workshop and learned all about reading books.

Next week we will continue our work with letters and sounds, continue to practice using Math materials, we will learn how to make our stories even more exciting and will be given our "Just Right Reading Book Bags" so we have books to read!

Homework will be sent home on Monday. Please help your child complete it and send it back to school by Friday. You should have started to record books in your child's book log in the back of the agenda. We encourage you to exceed the 45 minimum books every nine weeks. We will have Art and Music this week for the first time and will try eating lunch on our own in the cafeteria. Treasure box will be given to children who have atleast 5 good behavior tickets.

Don't forget that Open House is fast approaching and we would love to see you there. We will be discussing important information about the school year and things we will be doing in our class. We also will be sending home Scholastic book orders soon and encourage you to take advantage of the low priced books. By buying books for your child, you help Ms. Burns and I to get materials for our classroom which helps us out a lot!

We hope your child has had as much fun as we did in the first week of school. Take a look at some pictures from our first week of school and feel free to leave comments at the bottom of the page!!

As always, Thank you so much for all of your support!
Ms. Ryan and Ms. Burns :)

Welcome to Kindergarten!!

Welcome to Kindergarten!

It was absolutely wonderful to meet so many of you this evening at orientation! We are looking forward to an amazing school year with your children. We have high expectations for this school year and will be setting the stage for success.

Kindergarten is an extremely important year for your child as they will start their journey of being a life-long learner.

If at any time you have questions or concerns, do not hesitate to call, use the agenda to send notes or email us. We feel that the only way to make your child's first year of school successful is by building a partnership with you.

We hope that many of you had the chance to visit the Media Center this evening and join the New Berlin PTA. We encourage those of you who have not joined, to send in money to join. It is only $5.00 and the first class to reach 100% gets a 'dream' party. PTA is not just limited to parents but also to grandparents, aunts and uncles and anyone else who would like to support our school!

We will continue to update our classroom blog to show parents and family members near and far what we have been busy doing in our classroom. Look for pictures and stories about what your child is doing as well as learning in our class.

Ms. Burns and myself are both Early Childhood Education graduates with a passion for working with children. We keep very busy with various training opportunities as well as organizations and groups within the school. We are both originally from Ohio where we left after college to pursue our dreams of teaching. We look forward to working with each of you this school year and hope you'll stop back occasionally to check up on what your child has been doing. Thank you so much for all our your support!

*Ms. Ryan*