Staggered Start

We started off Kindergarten with an amazing Staggered Start day for everyone! Our days were full of fun and excitement.  When we got to school, we colored a cute picture and explored with some toys on the rug.  We painted our hands for a handprint puzzle before we gathered on the rug for Morning Meeting.

During Morning Meeting, we sang a Good Morning song, looked at our calendar and introduced ourselves to our new friends.  Then, we read a book called "Pete the Cat; Rockin' in my School Shoes". When the story was over, a special note fell out of our book. We couldn't believe it but Pete the cat jumped out of our book and ran around our school! We decided we needed to go on a journey to find him! We looked in the music room, the lunchroom, the gym, the art room and the library.  We found a clue from Pete in each room.  Finally, we ended up back in our classroom where Pete left us a delicious goldfish snack.  We had the best time looking for Pete the Cat!

Then, we got to make Pete the Cat! Mrs. Feller helped us cut and glue our Pete together. We worked super hard on this project. After making our very own Pete, we went to the gym for Specials.  We met all of our Specialist teachers.  We can't wait to go to PE, Music, Art, Guidance and Media this year!! After Specials, Mrs. Deaton went over our rules with us.  We learned all about Class Dojo and how we can work hard to earn Dojo points.  We all want to follow the rules and get as many Dojo points as we can.  Our parents can see our Dojo points and all the pictures that Mrs. Deaton posts!  Mrs. Deaton also went over the rules of Free Centers.  Then, she let us play!  We love Blocks, Puzzles and Games, the Reading Center, Play dough, and Housekeeping. One of our favorite things to do was play Family in the Housekeeping Center and play with the marble run in the Blocks center!

While we were playing, Mrs. Deaton called us over to her table one at a time. We had to tell her our colors, shapes, numbers, letters, sounds and lots of other things. We drew a picture and wrote about our family.  Mrs. Deaton also had us count as high as we could for her. There are already two students in our classroom who can count to 100! We are going to learn so much this year in Kindergarten!

Lunch time was great! We learned that when our signal in the middle of our lunch table is turned to red, we have to be quiet and eat. We get to talk quietly when our teachers turn our signal to green. It was nice to talk to our new friends at lunch.

After lunch, we got to go outside for recess.  We loved playing on all of the playground structures! Boy, was it HOT outside!

When we came back inside, we got to help Mrs Deaton make play dough. Mrs. Tomlin's Kindergarten friends came to make play dough with us, which was really awesome.  We read the list of ingredients and the directions with Mrs. Deaton and Mrs. Tomlin.  Then, we worked together to make our play dough. It was so much fun! After we made the play dough, we got to play with it. We even got to play with some play dough toys. 

All day long we worked hard to learn our rules for inside the classroom and in our hallways. We know we are going to be South Superstars this year. We are going to make awesome choices, have a lot of fun and learn so much with Mrs. Deaton and Mrs. Feller. We can't wait for a wonderful year in Kindergarten!

Rylee

Nixon

Paula

Bennett

Maddie

Davis

Marklyn

Easton

Charlotte

Nathaniel

Ella

AJ

Sharez

Ian

Wesley

Marshall

Chrystin

Baby Chicks!!

We have something very exciting happening in our Kindergarten classroom! We are hatching baby chicks. Our class has learned everything about the life cycle of a chick. We know so much about how baby chicks are born.

A chick is a bird. It is oviparous. This means it is an animal that comes out of an egg. It takes a hen and a rooster to make a baby chick. The mother hen lays the eggs. Then, she sits on the eggs to keep them warm. Also, the mother turns the eggs every once in a while. We do not have a hen in our classroom. We have an incubator to keep our eggs warm. We keep the temperature at 99.5 degrees. The incubator also turns the eggs just like the mother hen would do.

It takes 21 days for a chick to hatch. There is a lot going on inside the egg while the chick is growing. The baby chick eats the yolk inside the egg to grow. The baby chick has to breathe air from the outside of the egg. There are tiny holes in the egg shell. The air from outside the egg travels through the shell and through tiny blood vessels connected to the chick. This is how the chick breathes. The chick grows and grows inside the egg. The chick grows a brain, a heart, legs, a beak with an egg tooth on the end, a body and wings.

After 21 days it is time for the baby chicks to start hatching. The chick has an egg tooth on the end of it's beak. It uses this egg tooth to break a tiny hole in the hard shell. The chick breaks a straight line in the egg. Then, it uses it's strong legs to push the shell off. When the chicks falls out of it's egg, it is exhausted. The chick will lay down and rest. The chick's down is very wet when it comes out of it's shell. The down will dry after a few minutes. The chick will grow adult feathers and will lose it's egg tooth in just a few days.

We learned that it takes about 6 months until a baby chick becomes an adult. Then, it is either a hen or a rooster.

In our classroom, we have 14 baby chicks. We have really enjoyed holding them, petting them and listening to them chirp during the day.  Our chicks are so cute! This is such an awesome experience that we will remember forever!! We love Kindergarten and we love our baby chicks!!