Wow what a way to end such a wonderful year in the pre-kindergarten / kindergarten classroom!!!!  It was such a joy seeing 47 little happy faces dancing and singing on stage.  It is amazing how far all of the children grew in just 10 months.  They made friendships that they may have all through school, how nice is that!!  There is nothing more satisfying than seeing each child develop the confidence and skills they need to succeed in their next journey - “the big school”.  It is nice to see the children as the year went on, looking for new learning challenges - so many children were so eager to read out loud each day!!  We will surely miss all the smiling faces, funny stories and daily giggles that will now be echoing the classroom of their new school.

We hope you all have a happy, fun-filled summer and remember to keep on reading!!!

Thanks again for the chance to be a part of your child’s learning adventure!

Miss Stacey, Miss Jill, Miss Dianne, Miss Karen

“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more you learn, the more places you’ll go.”

— Dr. Seuss, “I Can Read With My Eyes Shut!”

“Children are made readers on the laps of their parents.”

— Emilie Buchwald

Dear Preschool Families of the 2009-2010 School Year,

WOW! Another school year is over. It feels like we just started our adventure as the preschool class of 2010.
As they say “time goes by when you are having fun!” and that was defiantly the case with us this year. It started
with learning all about each other, to learning what a fireman looks like and the seeing the truck he drives, to
celebrating the First Thanksgiving, Shooting off into outer space, watching the transformation from a caterpillar
to a butterfly, watching and growing our own plants and of course the fabulous “Wizard of Oz”.
The children have had fun and worked extremely hard all year. We are especially proud of their performance in June
at the Company Theater! Whenever we see the Wizard of Oz we will defiantly be thinking of all our little munchkins
singing their hearts out on stage!
We would like to thank all of the parents for your support this year, your children are very special to us and we thank
you for letting us have the opportunity to teach them. We love their funny stories, their eagerness to learn and
willingness to do new exciting things.

For those of you making the adventure to the upstairs classroom
next year, good luck and have fun! For those returning to the downstairs class, we can not wait for the new adventures
that lay ahead of us! We hope that you all have a safe and fun summer.

Sincerely,
Miss Heather, Miss Nicole, Miss Alissa and Miss Shealene

To All Ridge Hill Families,

The 2009-2010 School Year is almost over. It is hard to imagine only 10 months ago in September we began our adventure together in our classrooms.

This year we had an incredible time learning in our classrooms. Most importantly coming together as a class (preschool, pre-kindergarten and kindergarten) for our end of the year production of The Wizard Of Oz! I am truly amazed and speechless at the incredible performance each class put on for their families. My heart was filled with love and joy to see all the children sing their hearts out to their families. What a wonderful experience for them to be part of a real theater production. Mr. Michael is truly a special person, who’s patience, kindness, love of theater shined through on our big show nights. I am so thankful for his direction and teaching skills he has taught us.

We have a special community here at Ridge Hill School one of passion, love, dedication and teaching to all our students and families. Each year brings us a new joy of teaching because of your children and the support given by each family.

I hope you all have a great summer and share memorable moments with your children. For those returning to RHS we will see you all on the first day of school September 7th.

Thank you all for a super year!

Sincerely,
Vicki DeFreitas

The Ridge Hill School will be having a Fundraising Night on Wednesday May 12th at The Toy Box in Hanover from 6-8 pm. One of the owners Jay will be talking to parents about the importance of outdoor play and many of the great learning toys they have available at their store. If you cannot make it on Wednesday night, please feel free to stop by the store on Thursday and let them know you are from Ridge Hill. Your support is greatly appreciated. I am so excited to work with Jay and bring some new elements of play to our outside playground.
Thank you all for your time and support.

Best Regards,
Vicki DeFreitas

Upstairs May Newsletter

The month of April was a very busy month upstairs!  The children did a fabulous job on all their art work for the show - it was nice to see them all beaming with pride at their creativity.  We hope you all enjoyed the Art Show!  As a class we also learned all about the Life Cycle of a butterfly and even hatched 6 beautiful Painted Lady Butterflies.  We were able to release them over April vacation - it was very exciting to watch them fly out of their net.  Please be sure to ask your child about our butterflies.

April Pre-K Small Group - introductory addition skills w/ manipulatives, ‘one more than’ and ‘counting on’ strategy introduced with a number line; ordering numbers from least to greatest, comparing numbers, and reading 2 digit numbers in math…language - syllabication and phoneme counting activities taught to all 3 groups - sorted names, pictures and words by how many sounds they hear.  Ask your child what syllabication strategy works best for them.  A comprehensive review of rhyme, initial consonant sound and numbers 1-20 was also part of group…

During April the kindergarten class was very busy learning all about the Plant Cycle.  Each child had fun drawing the life cycle - seeds, roots, sprouts, flower.  Ask your child how the roots grow or the essential items needed for a plant to grow.  The children have been making a plant journal with words and pictures to show their plants growth.  It is amazing how tall their bean plants are getting.  Our weekly reading program has been quite successful, it is super to see how well the children are doing with their reading fluency.  Other busy choices during kindergarten have been their number scrolls - many friends are on their way to 200 while 2 friends are almost to 400 - WOW they love the challenge of writing as high as they can!  The month of May brings us to assessments for progress reports.   I will be doing a dibels and a HWT assessment on each child which will be given out with their progress report.

Our class birth year coin project has been a wonderful home-school connection.  THe children get so excited to share their coins as well as bringing in State Quarters to fill our map.  We have almost covered all 50 states!  We thought as a class we would donate the state quarters to the Hanover Food Pantry to help families in need.

During April, the children enjoyed making recycled art to celebrate Earth Day.  We talked about how important recycling is to the environment, and took a class survey as to how many children recycle at home.  We were extremely pleased to see that all raised their hands. The pre-k class joined the planting, and each child planted a radish.  The science area has been very full with visitors - they are using a magnifying glass to observe all the growing (beans, marigolds & radishes).  It is nice to hear their conversations as they compare plants with their friends.

Exciting activities for May:

We will be observing our 5 tadpoles as they grow through each stage of the Frog Life Cycle.  Miss Karen is our class nature lover and collected the tadpoles to share with the class.  Our Hygiene Drive has started - the children enjoyed decorating the box with items that will be useful to the food pantry.  We appreciate all the items that have already been brought in - the last day to donate will be May 24th - thank you so much for helping us to help families in need!

Wizard of Oz practice is in full swing!  Mr. Michael is planning on coming 1 morning and 1 afternoon a week to practice with each class.  The children are doing amazing - they are really enjoying all the cool moves Mr. Michael has been teaching - they are going to be the best Munchkins!

Looking forward to fun filled days as the year comes to a close,

The Upstairs Teachers