We are parents!!!!

Big news at camp buckaroo!!!

Well...it's happening!!!!!  The chicks are ready to enter the world and we are blessed to get to watch this miracle unfold right before our eyes!  I won't be adding captions because I want your child to tell you about each picture:)

Buckaroo News for May 18th-may 22nd

This is the time of year when countdowns begin towards summer break.  Don't get me wrong, I LOVE being able to spend hours in my garden and reading alongside my pond!  However, it makes me tear up thinking about giving up my little ones this year!  This has truly been one of those stellar years in a teacher's career and I've enjoyed all of these precious gifts so much!  It's hard to let them go but I know that they are ready and it's time.  I just may need some extra tissues on June 2nd!

I'm very wordy (as many professors have told me:) so I will try to keep this shorter and to the point.  As you know, our Farm Program is quickly approaching and I hope that all of you can make it!  It is next Thursday at 2:45 p.m. in the commons.  After the program you will be invited back to our room for our Farm Study Showcase.  Hopefully we will also have some adorable peepers for you to see too.  I will be dressing up in my western duds and hope that your child will too.  Just makes it that much more authentic:)

Camp Buckaroo will look a bit differently this year.  Instead of setting up tents because of the short amount of time left in the year, I'm asking that each child bring in a sleeping bag and a flashlight.  There is a paper coming home today explaining this in a bit more detail.  Please let me know if you have any questions at all!

If you weren't able to come to the volunteer luncheon but you've volunteered in our room, I can't express in words how grateful I have been to have you! 

Upcoming important dates:

May 25th - Memorial Day - No School
May 26th - Expected hatch day for our chicks!!!!!!
May 28th - Our Class Musical - Begins at 2:40 - You won't want to miss this!

June 2nd - Last day of school and our End-of-Year celebration

Since we were learning about chickens, S. and Mrs. McNeal read the book Interrupting Chicken and Mrs. McNeal and S. were doing a play at the same time.  S.'s mom made the puppets.

We did a bubble gum fraction activity and we learned how to blow bubbles.  S. is blowing a bubble and Mrs. McNeal got it just in time but S.'s wasn't in the right time.  Everyone tried to blow a bubble and we would raise our hand if we were able to blow a bubble.  We would count how many blew a bubble and how many didn't blow a bubble and do the fractions for each.

This is T. on YouTube which he is sitting right with Mrs. McNeal because YouTube is not a site for kids because it will take you to sites that have inappropriate stuff.  But he searched chicks and he found videos of chicks hatching.  

Y. and A. are sorting and counting the colors and did a fraction.  We were doing Skittle Fractions and we brought home all of the Skittles.  The purple ones we could eat as soon as we got them.

Chickens have a gizzard where rocks go in and the rocks rub against the food and mixes into little pieces because chickens do not have any teeth.  Chicks have something called an egg tooth to crack out of their eggs.  The first hole is called a pip.  

The eggs have to stay 100 degrees or they will get cold.  We were painting pictures of barns and this is S.'s.   The embryos are turning their heads towards the air cell inside the egg.   Chicken poop is used in gardens and you can buy it at the store.  It's called Chickedy Doo Doo:).  

Chickens have combs to help keep their temperature warm or cold.  If there comb is small then they are good in cold weather.  If their combs are big then they are good in hot weather.  This the same for the waddle.  

Buckaroo news for May 11th- May 15th

What a gorgeous day for Super Games!  The kiddos are having a blast as we speak and I've taken a few pics so that you can see the fun that they had today!  For the past couple of years I have taken the idea of Camp Buckaroo to a whole new level.  I've had parents come in with their tents and set them up in the room for us to use for a couple of days at the end of the year.  I'd like to do the same thing again this year if you're willing to help.  My thought is that we could set up tents after our program and after the kiddos have left on the 28th of May.  If you have a tent and would like to allow us to use it for a couple of days (May 29th and June 1st) that would be awesome!!!

Our program is on May 28th and I thought it would be fun if we all dressed in western attire.  Please do not go out and buy anything!  It can be as simple as a bandana wrapped around a neck. 

Because this post is so rich with great photos, I'm going to ask you to sit with your child as you view and ask him/her to share about our learning this week as they look at the photos!

Upcoming important dates:

May 25th - Memorial Day - No School
May 26th - Expected hatch day for our chicks!!!!!!
May 28th - Our Class Musical - Begins at 2:40 - You won't want to miss this!

June 2nd - Last day of school and our End-of-Year celebration

Buckaroo news for April 27th to May 8th

I can't believe that there are only 17 days left of this school year!!!  How did that happen?  I can honestly say that I've had one of the best years of my career because of your little ones!  I apologize for no blog entry last Friday but the pictures wouldn't upload and the site wasn't cooperating but we've made up for it with lots of great information in today's entry.  I think that the photographs speak for themselves of our learning this week but let me know if you'd like to know more:).

Upcoming important dates:

May 7th - Literacy Night at SCE TONIGHT from 7:00-8:00 
May 15th - SuperGames
May 25th - Memorial Day - No School
May 26th - Expected hatch day for our chicks!!!!!!
May 28th - Our Class Musical - Begins at 2:40 - You won't want to miss this!

June 2nd - Last day of school and our End-of-Year celebration

Our schedule for next week:

Monday - P.E.  Tuesday - Art   Wednesday - Music  Thursday - Library   Friday - P.E.

This is during Daily 5 and one of the things you can do is read.  L. and B. are making a reading tower.  B. is reading My First Kitten and L. is reading Magic Puppy - A Forest Charm.

This is C.'s shirt that he got on his trip in Kentucky.  He tie-dyed it but doesn't know why it's pink and blue.  He climbed a rock wall that was three stories high and zip lined down.  I put this on the blog because the values represented on the shirt are pretty powerful.  Words to live by.

These kids made an amazing contraption that moves on motors.  F.'s neighbor is in this picture.  So is S.'s brother.  They're in fifth grade in Mr. Erwin's class.  They made this out of K-Nex and they used their smart, smart brains all this year when it was indoor recess to work as hard as they can to work on this big thing.  They also made mini things too.  They made it from the bottom to the top.  They made a ferris wheel, a swing, and a car that actually moved with a motor and we can make something like this without motors with our K-Nex.  

S. made a dance floor and put her bracelet and rings inside of it during Math Workshop.  We did this during math games.  In math, we are learning geometry so Mrs. McNeal allows us to use shapes to make other things out of shapes.  

We were pretending to be mother hens because we are learning about chickens because we are hatching baby chicks.  Y. is weighing his egg with teddy bears and on the other side of it is the egg that we were practicing with. We had to take care of our egg the whole entire day and we got a little chick chart to check off if you kept it safe, warm and if you turned it.  What we mean by keeping it safe is by not making it crack.  They are eggs that have no chick inside.  

S. is holding her little baby chick in her egg with a little blanket to keep it warm.  You might look in the cup, that is it's nesting material like hay.

C. is seeing how much space her egg takes in the egg cup on her paper.

We were learning about landforms and we made a craftivity of the different landforms.  The landforms are islands, oceans, deserts, plains, plateaus, mountains and valleys.  

Now these are the eggs have baby chicks in them.  On Wednesday night, Mrs. McNeal picked up the eggs which are the real ones with chicks in them.  

This is our incubator.  It's name is Tillie.  This is a picture of the eggs in Tillie.  This is the thing that the eggs are going to hatch in.  It has to be 100 degrees warm.  See the black knob in front of one egg?  S. got to turn that knob.  Before lunch, S. got to turn the eggs.  The name Tillie we got from a book called Tillie Lays An Egg.  You'll be able to see the eggs at the program at the end of the month.  You can see the real Tillie and her friends at hencam.com  

I've added an activity to our day on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays that the children have embraced!  It is creatively writing to an open-ended prompt.  Today's prompt was asking the children to pretend they are the mayor of Dublin.   What kind of laws would they put in place?  One of my little writers had the sweetest words along with a bit of humor to describe the laws she would have.  Her journal piece is above but I will also type it for you because it is a priceless insight into how a child thinks.  
        
        "To be a good person.  Sleep whenever I want.  Eat whenever I want.
          Have things not expensive.  Don't make people kiss:).  No fighting.
          Do everything buy one, get one free.  No jail.  Everyone has to have
          a real monkey.  Don't be a pain in the butt:)).  No bad germs. Don't
          be mean to people.  Don't steal.  No littering.  Follow rules.  Don't be
          be stubborn.  Look both ways.  Don't cut down trees."

Wouldn't the world be a more pleasant place for everyone if we followed these laws?:)

B. and T. are holding their journals.  On Tuesdays, Thursdays and sometimes Fridays we write in our journals.  We call this creative writing.  Mrs. McNeal tells us the idea to write about.  Once she told us to write about our wishes.  Once she told us to write about our family.  This time she told us to write what laws we would have if we were the mayor of Dublin.