Chickens!

 Chickens!

We have a chicken coop at Beulah Ralph!  Many schools around CPS are doing this, as a way to encourage Place-Based Learning.  It ties in nicely with our living and non-living science unit. It is located within the kindergarten playground at the front of the school.  You can learn more at this website https://flashsegg-cademy.weebly.com/

A look at our learning...

Fundations: we learned the correct name, sound and letter formation for lowercase r and e this week. 

Please use the following verbal prompts (and make sure your child is saying these verbal prompts as well) when practicing at home:

r-down, up, curve

e-across, over, around, open

Some have asked for guidance on how to properly make the letter sounds.  I appreciate you wanting to reinforce their learning at home!  Check our class Facebook page for a video we made this week that models the correct sounds.  It is easier to post on there, than within this blog.

Writing Workshop: we are working on organizing our thinking and writing this week.  We made this anchor chart to help us know the steps of the Writing Process. I'm seeing more and more children trying to add labels and words to their stories! 

Ask your child what they wrote about during writing time this week!

Math: this week we focused on circles, rectangles, counting to tell the number of objects, organizing the things we count to make sure we only count an object once and using 10 frames to make numbers in different ways (example: 7 red counters and 3 yellow counters in a 10 frame makes 10, but so does 5 red and 5 yellow, etc.).

Friday Craft: we made Candy Corn Bandits!  Watch out!  These sneaky guys like to steal your Halloween candy!  The kids loved these guys!

Social Skills: we read the book A bad case of tattle tongue. We've had a bit of tattling occurring in our classroom, so we are learning the difference between tattling (telling a teacher to get someone in trouble) and reporting (helping someone who is hurt/sick or if you are hurt/sick).  Sometimes it's hard to understand which is which in Kindergarten.  We are working on using our words if it is a kid size problem and knowing when we should get an adult. 

Heroes Day: we have been sharing about the heroes special to us as students have been bringing them in to display for the upcoming Heroes Day.  You can still turn these in next week if you know a veteran and would like their picture displayed for Heroes Day on November 5th. 

Science: our new chicken coop has tied in nicely with our living and non-living science unit!  The Kindergarten chicken has officially been named Cotton Candy, lol.  Our class voted for Oreo to be the name on the ballot representing our class, but Cotton Candy was the most popular vote in the final election among all Kindergarten students at Beulah Ralph. 

It was also an exciting week because we were able to "chick sit" baby chickens from Ms. Cohen's 3rd grade classroom for a short time on Thursday!  Every year, third grade students hatch chickens and are kind enough to let us see them for a bit!  

STEM activity: today we did a fun STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) activity in the Media Center with Mrs. Fitch! We listened to the fun book Room on the Broom and had to figure out how to balance the witch and all the animals on the broom!  They had to draft a plan and work with a partner to try out their plan.  If the plan didn't work, they had to revise and try again.  Great teamwork and problem solving skills during this time! 

Ask your child to tell you about this and what materials they used!  Room on the Broom was also turned into a short movie and available through various streaming services if you want to watch it at home! 

Pumpkin decorating: it was so fun seeing all of the creative pumpkins that families decorated to display in the media center this week and next!  We had two of our own families participate!  Missed out this year?  No worries, Mrs. Fitch does this every year!

Life is more fun with friends!