February Lunch with the Principal and Monday fun!

Yay Ainsley!

She was chosen to have "Lunch with the Principal"

for the month of February!

Today we checked out the Scholastic Book Fair in the library.  Your child made a wish list of books they'd like to have.  You can find their wish list in the library in the blue crate when you stop by school this week for Parent-Teacher Conferences.

Each teacher also has a basket of books picked out that we'd like for the kiddos to enjoy in the classroom as well.

Mrs. Dana, from CPS Nutrition Services, came to our classroom today to teach a lesson about healthy food choices.  We learned about MyPlate (check your child's take home folder) and the 5 food groups.  We also learned how to make a yummy yogurt parfait for a healthy snack idea!

Quick, but exciting, week!

It was a short week, but full of fun and excitement!

We had fun decorating our bags for Valentine's Day today!

Career Day-our future is looking bright!

Mrs. Davison, our counselor, had her baby 4 weeks early!

The kiddos LOVED seeing these pictures!

Ms. Harris and Mrs. Roof will be filling in the rest of the year while Mrs. Davison is away on maternity leave.  Ms. Harris is our other BEU counselor and Mrs. Roof is a retired CPS counselor and former counselor coordinator, so they will be in great hands!

I forgot to post the group picture last week of everyone in their purple for Class Colors Day!  We enjoyed this fun day with Mrs. King's 3rd grade classroom and Mrs. Edgar's Community Skills classroom!

A look at our learning...

Fundations: we have learned the correct letter formation for all upper and lowercase letters.  The focus the rest of the year will be on "tapping out" words to help us read and write.

Shared Reading: due to multiple short weeks, we will continue to focus on the spelling word have next week.  We did not have a test today.  Our next spelling test will be on Thursday due to no school next Friday.  

Math: we have continued to work on addition.  We have also reviewed shapes and check out the fun we had when we reviewed measurement.  We measured a friend with yarn and then compared it to the outline of Chase's body (our teacher helper that day) to see if we were taller, shorter or the same size as Chase. They had SO much fun with this activity!

Writing Workshop: we have started our informational writing unit. This until will last until early April.  See more info in the Kindergarten team newsletter.  Our first unit of study will be penguins.  Before we immerse ourselves in learning about penguins via books, video clips, etc., we worked with a friend and wrote down what we already know (or think we know haha) about penguins.  Once we fill our brains with knowledge about penguins, we will begin learning the writing process for writing a factual book about penguins.  This is always a favorite unit for my past kindergartners, as they love non-fiction!  I'm sure many of your kiddos bring home non-fiction library books frequently.  

Happy February!

We had fun celebrating Groundhog's Day today!

Check their backpack for the cute craft, crown and graphing activity we made!

This week we were once again chosen as the K-2 winners of the Golden Broom!

The custodians think we do a great job of keeping our classroom neat and tidy!

Speaking of custodians, Mr. Jay & Ms. Kimberly have done an amazing job of deep cleaning our classroom every day this week due to the many illnesses we have had over the last few weeks.  I think about every kiddo has been out at least once over the past couple of months. If yours have stayed healthy, you are so lucky! We have really been encouraging proper hand-washing, uses Kleenexes and "cough pockets" rather than our hands when we cough and sneeze and keeping our hands out of our mouth.

If you ever stop by school and feel inclined to fill out a "Drop in the Bucket" for Mr. Jay and Ms. Kimberly for all of their hard work, I know they would be so surprised and are more than deserving!

What is a "Drop in the Bucket?" you may ask?  

It is just a quick little blue note you can fill out and drop in the silver bucket on the counter in the office if you'd like to compliment any staff member at Beulah Ralph.  They are read out loud each month at our faculty meeting and given to the recipients.  I know I wrote one for Jay and Kimberly and Nurse Kristen Lynn this week! Staff members, parents and kiddos can fill them out at any time. Just a way to spread appreciation and kindness!

Reminders:

*NO SCHOOL ON MONDAY

*Donations for our classroom Lego Basket for the BEU Circus silent auction are due next Friday, February 9th.  Our classroom has only had 2 donations so far and desperately need many, many more!  Thank you in advance!

*Box Top collections end on February 28th.  Keep sending them in!  Top class will win a pizza party and the Box Tops profits will go towards purchasing more playground equipment!

*Kindergarten's Penny Drive (our service learning project) benefiting the Kindergarten classes at Kohfeldt Elementary in Texas ends March 23rd. Thanks for all of the current donations!  We have raised $25 so far.

Next week's word wall words:
have

It's a short week and a tricky word so please start practicing this weekend.

Kindness Week Fun

Today we hung out with our buddies in Mrs. King's 3rd grade classroom.

They taught us several new math and literacy apps that we can use during our 

Daily 5 center rotations. 

*ABC Spelling Magic

*Teach Your Monster to Read (a class favorite)

*Ten Frame Mania

*Cimo Spell

Most are free and would be great to download and use at home!

They were kind to teach us these fun apps!  Tomorrow, as a way to return the kindness, we will be making and delivering thank you cards to them. They, along with Mrs. Edgar's Community Skills classroom, will be wearing purple tomorrow for our Kindness Week celebration.