Mrs. Rehder's Reindeer

Happy Holidays from Mrs. Rehder's Reindeer

Mrs. Rehder's Reindeer - slideshows

Check Out Our December Classroom Decorations

Ecology Bus

Every year we are lucky enough to have the ecology bus come to our school to help us learn more about the animals that we have been learning in our reading and science units! They discuss different animal habitats, families, and what different animals need to survive. The students are always amazed at what they bring in and what they have to share! Here are a few snapshots from our day! 

Pocket Problems Video

BUILD GROUPS 

Group One and Group Two Watch This Video on Pocket Problems

It's Turkey Time!

To celebrate learning the letter Tt we made some Tt is for Turkey Hats! We also found a fun song to get our bodies moving like turkeys! Check out our Terrific Turkey Hats and Turkey Time Song! 

We hope you all enjoy your breaks and Happy Turkey Time!

Tricky Teens

There is so much that kindergartners are expected to know and do at such a young age, but when it comes down to it, they are still kids. They need to move, they need to be silly, and they need to have fun. So rather than just teaching the curriculum from a book. I am always trying to incorporate hands on and interactive ways for them to learn. In math, I started do daily stations called BUILD (Buddy Games, Using iPads, Independent Work, Learning about Numbers, and Doing Math with Mrs. Rehder). This allows the students to have a different hands on math focus every day of the week, along with our daily math lesson. 

Our biggest focus lately has been learning and recognizing those tricky teens! P.S. They are tricky because kids want to say, oneteen, twoteen, threeteen, etc.). Here are some ways that we have been learning: 

Number Recognition: 

We use wiki sticks to show different teen numbers and really focus on the direction that each number goes, as well as which number comes first and which number comes second! 

Memory Match:

For this game the students first have to put the numbers 0-20 in order. Then they have match up the corresponding dots with each number. After they are done with both parts, they can find a partner who has been checked off and flip a set of cards over to play memory match (finding a number and dots that match).

Work on Writing: 
We have written the numbers in paint, in sand, and in clay. The helps us see the number and create the numbers in various ways.

Singing and Dancing:

For tricky teens we have a rap about how numbers in the teens they start with a one! We put actions to it to get their bodies moving and grooving and recognizing those tricky teens!  Check out our Tricky Teen Rap! It helps us remember that numbers in the teens, start with a 1!

FALL PARTY 2013

Wow! What a fun and exciting fall party we had! 

Thank you to everyone who donated items and volunteered their time to make the party so successful! 

Here is a video of the fun afternoon and our fun fall stations!!  

I hope you enjoy it! The kids definitely did! 

Which Way Do I Go?

In math we need to learn direction words – up, down, left, right, over, under, through, and around. So we went outside, not only get a visual of the words, but to actually experience them! Despite the very windy day, they had such a good time! They were rock stars at saying what they were doing as they were doing this!  It was so fun to listen to and a great activity to have some fun outside! 
Enjoy the fun photos!

WaCkY HaIr DaY!

We had 100% participation in the 400 club this month!! 

That was amazing! Therefore, every student got to participate in the school wide Wacky Hair Day! Some kids got VERY creative with their hair!

 Great job our class for having 100% participation AND reading a total of 9,439 MINUTES this month! Keep up the wonderful work!

Mr. Magic

We learned about the letter Mm and to celebrate we had a Marvelous Magician come into our classroom! He was a previous student of mine, so it was fun to welcome him back into the classroom and see what his mind has learned! 

When Sam was here, we called him Mr. Magician and he performed some really great tricks for us! We were so memorized We even made him repeat some tricks for us! Thanks for coming in Sam and you were definitely a Marvelously Magnificent Magician! 

Apple Week!

We just completed Apple Week! It was such an awesome week filled with lots of yummy taste testing, apple snacks, creative projects, and apple writing! Take a look at all our work!

We tried a red, green and yellow apple. Then we each voted for our favorite one. Then we graphed our results during math class!

We made applesauce sundaes and they were delicious! The students could say yes please or no thank you to applesauce, cinnamon, mandarin oranges, and raisins! We had A LOT of "Yes, Pleases!" at this activity!

We made this fun apple project! We used our hands as scissors for the apple bites! And they each cut out their own apple design and apple color! The poem reads: ________ likes apples. Munch, Munch, Munch! _______likes apple. Crunch, Crunch, Crunch!

This was a great writing project! The kids had to retrace or some even rewrote the words to our poem "10 Red Apples!" Then they traced their own hands and dipped their finger in red paint to create 10 red apples! At the end they decorated their apples with stems and leaves!

We also did some free writing about apples this week! They used the sentence starter: Apples are ______. Some students came up with over 5 sentences. And they all wrote the sounds they heard in each word! This is something we are really working on right now and they will continue to get better at, as they learn more sounds this year! Amazing work!

Here were some example sentences: 

Apples are big. 

Apples are smol. (small)

Apples are joose. (juicy)

Apples are red. 

Apples are oosum. (awesome)

Apple are on chrebs. (trees)

Bus Safety Week

This week was bus safety week. We learned about how to enter/exit a bus safety, riding a bus properly and how to be safe around a bus. We also ate some yummy bus snacks! On Wednesday we had the opportunity to practice a bus evacuation. We entered the bus and exited normally and then we got back on and exited as if there were an emergency. One by one we jumped out of the bus and lined up quietly outside of the danger zone. They did a fantastic job and the bus driver was very impressed with their listening! 

Listening to the bus rules.

Cheering with the Bus Driver! 

 

Eating their bus snacks! 

Graham crackers, frosting for paint, cookie wheels, chex mix windows and raisin people on the bus! 

Look Out for the Gingerbread Man!

Today we read the Gingerbread Man in our daily Read Alouds. Which lead us to rap about the gingerbread man! We think the ACTUAL gingerbread man enjoyed our singing and dancing so much that he picked our class to send a gift to! 

This is what we found when we got back from Gym! 

It said: 

 I've left my friends for you to snack. 

But I bet you'll never get me back! 

Look for me where there are lots of books!

So we headed to the Library!When we got there, we asked Mrs. Smith if she had seen a gingerbread man.  She hadn't, but we did find another note that he left behind. 

This Note Stated: 
I've read lots of books, 
but I'm gone can't you see?
I'm a gingerbread man and you can't catch me! 
Look for me by a friendly face 
Who answers phones in a busy place! 

So we headed to the office next! When we got there, we asked Mrs. Yetter if she had seen the gingerbread man! She hadn't seen him either! He's so sneaky! But she was able to read us another note that we found! 

She Informed Us: 
The secretaries have a friendly face, 
And answer phones in a busy place. 
I already left, but this place was cool. 
Find me by the leader of the school!

 So we headed to Mr. Kamphoff's office. Some kiddos dashed into his office and quickly began looking around. But that gingerbread man left a note on his door. 

Mr. Kamphoff read us the next clues: 
This is the principal's office. 
He's nice, you know. 
He told me not to run, 
But walk wherever I go. 
Go find me where lunches are made. 

So we tip-toed off into the cafeteria. Right away we spotted another note left behind from the Gingerbread Man. Since no one was there to read it, Ryan read it for our class. 

It said: 
This is the lunchroom. 
These friends like us a bunch, 
And they always make sure, we have a good lunch!
I'm getting tired, as you can see
Room #223, is where I'll be! 

We weren't really sure where room 223 even was! Luckily Mr. Green, the custodian came in and gave us a clue to help us figured out where room 223 was. 

 So we headed back into our classroom! When we arrived there was a note on the smart board. 

Mrs. Rehder read the final note to us:
I've run and run and need some rest. 
I think Mrs. Rehder's Room is the best!
Enjoy my gift to you!

We felt pretty lucky that he picked our class to leave gingerbread cookies for! We had fun looking for him and decided he must be one smart cookie! Hope you enjoy our gingerbread rap!!

Greetings

Every day we start our day with a morning meeting, which means we sit in a circle and greet eachother through handshakes, high-fives, songs, tossing a ball, etc., then we all share something, next we do some sort of an activity to get our bodies moving or our brains thinking and last we read our morinng message. 

This morning our activity was a rhyme to get to learn more about each other!

#1 - Stack your thumbs.

#2 - Shoe to shoe.

#3 - Knee to knee.

#4 - Knock on the door.

#5 - Side by side.

#6 - Finger tips.

#7 - Count to Seven

(Then we pause to introduce ourselves and find out a little about each other with a prompt from me.)

#8 - Find a new mate.

Here our some pictures from our morning activity! 

Beautiful Things!

This week one of our read alouds was called, "You're Beautiful As You Are." It is fable about a crow that wants to be just like a peacock because they are beautiful. He was unkind to his friends and told them they were dull and boring. Unfortunately, once he tried to be like a peacock and look like a peacock, he didn't really fit in. At the end we learned that "It's foolish to try and be what you're not. Learn to love the feathers you've got!" 

As a class we shared what we each thought was beautiful or special about ourselves. Each student was able to come up with their own ideas and share them with the class. Then we went around and each said something that we thought was beautiful. We got into 3 groups and the groups each drew things that were beautiful. 

At the end each group presented and did a "BEAUTIFUL" job! I was so impressed with how well they showcased their work! Kindergarten artwork always makes my heart feel happy!

Our First Husky Huddle as Super Staff!

Once a month we get together as a school to have a Husky Huddle! It is a way for us to reinforce our Husky Pride rules, celebrate a student success, do fun greetings and activites together and show off our husky pride as a school! This year I was lucky enough to kick off the first Husky Huddle with Mrs. Brudwick (5th) and Mrs. Hansen (1st). We got to share with the students why we are ALL super staff at Hoover! Throughout the year we will find out why each and every student is so super too!

Partner Match

Today in math we played a game called Partner Match. The objective was so students would understand the concept of things that are shorter vs. longer and bigger vs. smaller. Each student randomly received a blue strip and when I said go, they had to find the other student with the matching strip. The difficult part for them was that they had to line the strips up from bottom to top. Some partners measured theirs in the air, while others laid them on the ground to compare. 

After finding their partner, they were to sit facing each other. Once everyone found their partner for that round, they had to answer a quiz question (Tell your partner how many siblings they had, if any. Talk about your favorite place. Share your favorite color.)

To practice at home you can walk around and find 2 objects that are the same length. Then find something shorter and something longer. Make sure that they are lining up the items from bottom to top. This helps when we get to our measuring units! 

Our First Day of Kindergarten!

This free digital slideshow created with Smilebox

Meet Mrs. Rehder's Robots

Goodbye Rangers!

We had such a wonderful year together. On Thursday, we packed up all our Rainforest Room items and gave them to another teacher, but before I could hand all those items over, I had to get one end of the year snapshot with the students in their Ranger hats and Squeezing Tom Tom the Toucan, just like they came in for entrance conferences. It was so fun to see how much they changed throughout this school year! It was a bittersweet day getting rid of everything, but I am so excited for our next year's theme! The kids came up with so many amazing ideas and thank you for all the awesome donations! I have to get really creative this summer to make it all come to life! It's going to be so hard to say goodbye to this creative and fun group on Thursday! Time to make the most of our last two days!

Free photo slideshow created with Smilebox

Creating the Robot Room

As you know, we have decided to convert our Rainforest Room into a Robot Room. This was going to be a quick summer project, but when the kids voted on it, they had all these different ideas and suggestions on how to help out! It was amazing hearing all their suggestions and ideas! So, I went with it! We decided that every Friday we are going to take something from the Rainforest Room and change it into something for a Robot/Space Room. First item up, was making planets. We did this first because we just so happened to be doing a paper mache unit in Art class anyways. 

First up, we blew up 8 round ballons and paper mached them during art class. 

 Next we invited some parents to come help us paint our planets! We were VERY lucky and had 6 parents that volunteered to help us out! Since we had so many, we decided to break into small groups and each group got their own planet. Mrs. Rehder and Mrs. Bush each took one group too, so it worked perfectly! First the groups needed to look up images of their planet to decide which color to paint their planet. 

After their planets were painted, the groups had to research their planet. They could use their books and iPads to find facts about their planets to present to the class. Kids used videos, images, and 3D images to research their facts. 

Then after was done painting, we had to get ready to present! 

They were so excited to show off their planets!

Everyone was ready to present each group came up and showed the class what they learned. It was so adorable seeing how much they learned and how proud they were of their planets! We cannot wait to hang them up and display them for next year's class! 

We even had some of the other kindergarten classes come look at the finished product! They were pretty impressed and so was I! Check out the slideshow to see how everyone worked together to learn facts about the planets!