Monday Morning Meeting & Celebrations

Today was our first "Monday Morning Meeting" of the school year.

This is a time where our entire school comes together in the gym to celebrate successes and get an update on the week ahead.  This has been a tradition since BEU opened and truly is special given the large size of our school.  It is always so neat to look out and see everyone sitting together, decked out in their Beulah Ralph spirit wear!

 On the last Monday of the month, the entire school sings "Happy Birthday" to anyone who had a birthday that month.  From our class, Hudson and Millie were able to stand up and be recognized.

3 awards are given out every Monday as well:

The Golden Broom Award: this is chosen by the custodial staff.  They pick one K-2 classroom and one 3-5 classroom that they think did the best job of keeping their classrooms clean the week before.  Those two classes get to proudly display the "Golden Broom" in their classroom for the week.

The Fast Pass/Timberwolf Award: this is chosen by the principals and classroom aides who supervise lunch and lunch recess.  They pick one K-2 classroom and one 3-5 classroom that they think did the best job in the cafeteria and making smart, safe choices during recess time.  The two winning classrooms get to keep a stuffed animal timberwolf in their classroom for the week AND are the first class to go outside to recess after lunch!  That's a BIG deal!

The Attendance Award:  Attendance is very important at CPS.  It is important that students are at school on time, stay all day and only miss if they are sick or have doctors appointments.  Attendance percentages are tracked weekly and the class that has the best attendance each week earns an extra recess.  

Today we were one of the winners of the attendance award!!  

It was a 3 way tie: our class, Mrs. Reid's 5th grade class and Ms. K's class all had 100% attendance last week so we earned an extra recess this morning!! 

Today our class also enjoyed popsicles after lunch.  I rewarded the kiddos for doing SUCH an AMAZING job during their first fire drill last Friday!

Classroom Celebrations

This week we started some end of day celebrations, The Secret Walker and Positive Note.

Secret Walker: this "award" recognizes someone who exhibited excellent hallway behavior.  Every morning I pull a name stick out of our bucket.  The students don't know whose name is on the stick.  I watch that child in particular all day to see if they are walking quietly in the hallway with "bubbles, tails and eyes forward."  At the end of the day, if they did this all day in line then I announce who the Secret Walker was and we cheer for them and they earn a certificate to take home!  If the "Secret Walker" didn't do their job in the hallway that day, I never announce who it is, but rather put their name stick back in the bucket and let the class know we'd try for a winner the next day.

Nicholas was our first Secret Walker winner today!  He is great at being respectful and responsible in the hallway!

Positive Note: at the end of the day I will read a Positive Note (aka Happy Note) out loud to the entire class.  I choose someone to receive this note that had an excellent day!  The note is always on a fun notepad; this round it is a smiley face notepad.  Once every child has earned a smiley face Positive Note, I will switch to another themed notepad and start again.  It is my goal that each child earns a Positive Note at least one a month.  Our first Positive Note recipient was Owen!

Wow!  You guys are amazing! Everyone turned in their Be U projects today and they are great!  Check them out tomorrow night at "Get the Scoop" night.

We survived the first week of school!

This year was the first year in all 16 years that I have taught for CPS that they had Kindergartners start on a Monday for a full 5 day week!  If they are anything like me, they are exhausted, but we made it and they did great! I hope you have enjoyed talking with them each night about school.  I hope you find the handout I gave at kindergarten screenings, "Going beyond how was your day...questions to ask your child about school" helpful with conversations at home.

Here's a peek at our week:

Recess Fun!

Learning how to use our classroom tools safely and appropriately

(pencils, erasers, glue, scissors, whiteboards and markers)

Learning how to hold our pencil correctly.

This is hard for some kiddos.  Watch your child at home to see if they have correct pencil grip or if you should practice more. The kiddos below are modeling the correct way to hold a pencil.

Learning how to use the bathroom appropriately, keep it clean and the proper way to wash your hands to keep the germs away!

We learned that while we are scrubbing with soap we should sing the ABC song.  Once finished, then we can rinse with water and dry with a paper towel

Ask your child to show you the proper way to wash their hands at home!

We read the books No David! and David Goes to School to help us learn about good choices and poor choices at school.

We read the books Chrysanthemum and My name is NOT Isabella and discussed how our names are unique and special to us.  We did a torn paper craft to help with fine motor skills and celebrate our special names.  We also counted to see how many letters were in our names.

Mrs. Fitch came and taught us all about the library.  We learned how to take care of library books.  Our library check out day will be every Tuesday from 11:30-12:00.  Your child will bring home a new book every week if they returned the one from the previous week and took good care of it.

We started Fundations this week.  Fundations is a 30 minute lesson each day that helps us learn our letters, letter sounds, correct letter formation and eventually spelling words.

This week we learned the lowercase letter t.

When forming a letter t your child should use the verbal prompts "down, across."

The entire school had their first fire drill today.  My class did so great that I am rewarding them with a Popsicle party on Monday!

Today we met our 3rd grade buddies in Mrs. Freese's class.  They helped us make Chester the Raccoon puppets to go along with The Kissing Hand and A Pocket Full of Kisses books we read this week.  We will do things with our buddies throughout the school year.

Every day we have center (free choice) time for the last 30 minutes of the day.  This is a great time for unstructured play, problem-solving, working together, sharing, using kind words.....the social skills we can work on during this time go on and on!

Whew!  We did a lot in 5 days!  I encourage you to get them outside to play in the beautiful weather this weekend, get some rest and be ready for another full week next week!

Monday's are our school wide meeting day in the gym and our spirit wear day.  Please send your child to school in their BEU gear and have them meet our class in the gym rather than the classroom. There will be adults in the building to help them find their way, so you can utilize the parent drop off.  If your child doesn't have spirit wear, no worries!  Check the Friday Folder this week for an order form!