November Citizen of the Month

Congratulations to Kiran on being chosen by her classmates for November Citizen of the Month!  We are proud of you! 

K-2 Winners for November

Monday happenings...

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving break!  Mine was great, but I am so happy to be back at school and see everyone again!  

It has been an exciting morning at Beulah Ralph!  

Meet Jack, our classroom elf!  He will be watching over us during the month of December!  I hope he sees lots of nice things he can report to Santa!

 The last Monday of the month, we sing to the friends who had birthday's that month during the school wide Monday Morning Meeting.  Zara was a November birthday from our classroom!

 Our school mascot logo was revealed this morning and they look awesome!  An email version of the order form was sent to all families this morning from Dr. Majerus and Mr. Woods and a paper copy is in your child's take home folder today. Order forms are due by DECEMBER 5th and will be in before winter break.  

Our new word wall words for the week are: and, me

Please practice nightly for our weekly test on Friday.  Your child brought home their most current word wall list last Tuesday.  They are expected to be able to read and write all words on that list (except for our classmates names).

Movie & Popcorn Day

We met our 2nd Class Dojo point goal of 150 points, so today we enjoyed the movie Free Birds and popcorn from the school popcorn machine!  Thanks to Dr. Majerus for making the popcorn for us!  What a fun way to go into Thanksgiving break!!

Makerspace Friday

Mrs. Fitch, our media specialist, is beginning Makerspace Friday's.  A Makerspace is related to STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) that we are encouraging in schools.  Makerspace provides hands on, creative ways to encourage students to design, experiment, build and invent as they engage in science, engineering and tinkering.  Signing up to do Makerspace activities is totally optional and we took advantage of the first Friday!  The class learned about several cool activities they could explore: Legos, K'NEX, Magnatiles, Zoob, Brackitz, Straws & Connectors.  
The kids had a blast exploring and tinkering.  We are able to check out these cool STEM toys from the media center any time we'd like to use them in our classroom.  They would make awesome Christmas gifts if you are looking for STEM type toys to add to your child's list.  
She said the next Makerspace would involve Ozobots, which my class experimented with a few weeks ago with Mrs. Fitch and Mr. Adams from the CPS STEAM bus!

Click on the pictures to enlarge

Veteran's Day & Grandparent's Day

I am so sad that I was sick and unable to be here for the Veteran's Day assembly and grandparent's day.  Luckily, these pictures were shared with me and I wanted to share with you!  Thanks Kasey Laughlin for taking so many wonderful photos! If you click on the picture, it will make it bigger.  Thank you to all of the families (parents and grandparents) who bought a book from our classroom wish list and donated to the classroom!  We have enjoyed reading them this week.  

The bulletin board that our class made

Beulah Ralph Timberwolves!!!

It's official!

We are the...

Beulah Ralph Timberwolves

(click on the words above to see the video of the announcement-the kids were so excited!)

Our school colors are navy, hunter green & grey/silver

Now the timberwolf needs a name! Every classroom is submitting one name to Dr. Majerus and next week we will have a school-wide vote.  Our classroom submitted the name Rosie.

Check out the awesome article and video from the Columbia Missourian newspaper

Click here for article

November Lunch with the Principal

Congratulations to Trevor on being chosen to each lunch with Dr. Majerus for the month of November.  Kindergarten enjoyed this special time on Monday.

Clifford, the big red dog

Look who came to visit Beulah Ralph! 

Clifford the big red dog!!

He's excited about the Scholastic Book Fair and so are we!  We hope you will shop before or after your parent-teacher conference this week.  You can bring your child to shop with you, or ask a book fair volunteer for your child's wish list if they aren't with you.  They all created one today when we went down to view the book fair.  The book fair will be open next Monday as well during Grandparent's day if they are interested in buying books for their grandchild!  Start your Christmas shopping early and buy some good books!

Creativity, Imagination, Oh My!

What a fun week of creativity and imagination we had!

To wrap up our pattern unit in Math, we did a STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) activity using Ozobots.  Mrs. Fitch and Mrs. Cooney, from the media center, and Craig Adams, head of the CPS STEAM bus, co-taught this lesson with me.  The kids had a blast and can't wait for Mr. Adams to come back in January to help wrap up a measurement math unit.  He will bring the STEAM bus for that activity!  Watch the video below with your child and have them tell you all about the Ozobots and creating patterns.  For more information on the STEAM bus go to STEAM BUS

A look at the rest of our week...

Fundations: we learned the letters/letter sounds v, w.

Shared Reading/Health-this week and next we are incorporating a Health lesson into our Shared Reading time.  Due to this, we did not learn a new spelling word and won't next week either.  Please continue to review the old word wall words, as we will have a review spelling test on Thursday.  

Our Health unit focuses on bones and muscles.  

A few things we have learned:

(statements from your kiddos)

"we have 206 bones"

"our bones are called skeletons"

"we need milk and vegetables to make our bones strong"

"bones protect our squishy parts"

"exercise makes us strong"

Ask your child what they have learned about bones and muscles.

Daily 5-a few conversation starters for Daily 5 to use with your child:

*tell me what you did with the Osmo's at Daily 5

*what word wall words did you practice at sight word center with your pencil, crayons, markers and highlighters?

*did you do Starfall or Myon during computer choice?

*what story did you write about during writing choice?

*what is your favorite Daily 5 choice and why?

Math-pattern and Ozobot fun!!

Writing-we are learning how to stretch out words and write the sounds we hear.  Check out how they spelled "watermelon" and "basketball" on the chart below.  Great phonetic spelling!  We will work on finishing this chart next week.  Please encourage them at home to "say their words slowly and write as many sounds as they can hear" when writing! 

Creativity Lesson with Mrs. Cardetti-this week we had our first of three creativity lessons with Mrs. Cardetti.  She works with the Gifted Center of CPS.  She goes around to every Kindergarten classroom in the district and does 3 lessons (fall, winter, spring).  Today your child used their creativity to "turn a nothing into a something."  Look for it in their take home folder and have them tell you all about it!  

Have a great weekend!  I look forward to visiting with all of you at parent-teacher conferences next week!

Remember, NO SCHOOL on Tuesday or Friday!