Bye bye, chickies!

Friday was bittersweet. The children spent lots of time cuddling chicks and enjoying their company for one last day. We marveled at the fact that they arrived in an egg carton on Monday, only to grow into wiggly, cheeping fluff balls!

We have been making observations all week, just like real scientists do. Here are a few pages from the students' booklets:

We spent the afternoon celebrating the chicks and all they have taught us about needs of living things! We created brightly coloured chicks to decorate our classroom. Then we danced, clapped and flew around the room to the Chicken Dance! 

After a wonderful afternoon, we gave the chicks their final farewell, said a prayer filled with good wishes, and sent them on their way to their new chicken coop.

In one short week, these chicks found their way into our hearts. We deepened our understanding about many Science and Language Arts concepts, but more importantly, we learned a tremendous amount about new life, respect, patience, and compassion. 

Blessings, little chicks! 

You will be missed!

Chicks like stories, too!

Today the chicks were spoiled! The children treated them to many stories throughout the day! 

This week we have been illustrating a rhyming book called "5 Little Chicks". The students learned how to create a chick out of torn construction paper, and created colourful pictures to match the silly text! 

Listen to the class read the book together to our chicks. Can you hear how much the chicks are enjoying it? They are so noisy!

listen to ‘5 little chicks booklet’ on Audioboo

Watch for your child's booklet to come home tomorrow!

Fluffy Fun

Just when you think Grade One doesn't get any more exciting, we have a day like today!

The chicks have been moved into their box, as their feathers are all dry. When the children arrived, we gathered on the mat and each took turns gently cuddling the sweet little baby chicks. It was such a special experience for the students and a wonderful way to start the day. The awe and excitement was priceless!

Here are several very special, memorable moments from today:

As one student was holding a chick, he exclaimed, "Mrs. Beliveau, I can feel it's heart beeping!". 

Welcome chicks!

As the students rushed in this morning, they were very excited to see many eggs with little cracked shells! The chicks were trying to peck out! We attended a brief assembly in the gym and rushed back to the classroom so as not to miss a moment of the action. Within minutes of our return … TA DA! We saw a chick hatch! 

Looking inside the incubator at our first chick!

As this first little one laid down to rest, moments later another chick hatched! By lunchtime, five little chicks had made their way into the world and our classroom was filled with excited chatter and lots of cheeping!

Marveling at the new little chicks

The chicks remain in the incubator until their feathers dry and they become fluffy, and then they are transferred to a box with dry shavings, food and water, all beneath a heat bulb. We prepared the box with food and water, and also removed the egg shells from the incubator. By day's end, we had eight chicks drying off in the incubator. 

While the chicks rested, we spent some time learning about the parts of a story in Language Arts:

• Beginning: The characters, setting, and problem are identified
• Middle: Main character tries to solves the problem
• End: The problem is solved!

Together we read Pig's Egg, and practiced identifying parts of a story using wipe off boards and markers (so we can practice over and over). Be sure to ask your child about pig's egg and the surprise that hatched!

This evening, the chicks that were dry were moved to this box ... while yet another hatched! Nine new friends!

The Beliveau boys gently transferring fluffy chicks to their new home.

Tomorrow is sure to be another exciting day! Please keep us in your prayers as we continue to experience the miracle of life.

They're here! They're here!

Today our dozen eggs arrived! Our journey experiencing new life has begun! 

We reflected on what we knew about chicks already. Here are a few of the students' comments:

"They are yellow."

"They come out of eggs."

"Chicks are fluffy."

"They drink water."

"They live on a farm."

"They grow into a chicken."

We also generated a list of what we wanted to find out about chicks:

This afternoon we examined the life cycle of a chicken by reading several books and making these little crafts (adapted from  I {heart} crafty things) :

Please listen to a student explain the life cycle of a chicken:

listen to ‘Life cycle of a chicken’ on Audioboo

As we eagerly awaited the arrival of our eggs, we prepared the incubator. We plugged it in so it would warm up and added a little water to make it humid. Once the dozen eggs arrived, children took turns gently placing them inside.

Below a student explains the purpose of our incubator:

listen to ‘Incubator ’ on Audioboo

We are only one day in and have already learned lots! Who knew a dozen eggs could be so exciting? Tomorrow the energy level is sure to be through the roof! Here are a few more facts we learned today:

listen to ‘Facts day 1’ on Audioboo

How do we know something is living?

This week we have begun our Needs of Plants and Animals Unit! In preparation for the arrival of our eggs next Monday, we are focussing this week on what it means for something to be living. 

We began by gathering any and all ideas about what makes something living. Then we thought about something we knew for sure was living, such as a dog, and crossed off ideas on our list that didn't fit with what we knew about dogs. After going through the list, considering a tree, elephant, child, and snake, we were pretty sure we determined what makes things living:

To ensure we didn't miss any elements of what makes something living, we looked at a few more examples (courtesy of Kathryn Warner) and realized we needed to add "It can reproduce" to our list. Reproduce means it makes more like itself.

To reinforce what makes something living, we enjoyed a clip from our pal on Sesame Street:



Then we double-checked to make sure our list of what makes things living was accurate:

Today an up-close, hands-on examination was necessary! Thrilled beyond measure, our  scientists compared gummy worms and earthworms. We were able to see many elements demonstrating that the earthworms are indeed living and gummy worms are non-living:

We enjoyed eating the gummy worms, but were careful to to throw out the ones used in the observations and eat fresh ones.
No "germ worms" for our tummies!

To conclude our week examining living and non-living, the students will be using the computer program KidPix to sort clip art of living and non-living things. Watch your child's Kanga for this activity!

We are ready for Chick Week! The children can hardly contain themselves as we prepare for the arrival of our eggs on Monday! Please keep us in your prayers as we explore the miracle of God's creations. Watch the blog for frequent updates and pictures, and please feel free to drop in and learn alongside us!



Elements of the lesson were inspired by Kathryn Warner's lessons at Kindergarten ... kindergarten.... Mrs. Warner, thank you for sharing your creativity!

Spring into Spring!

Yoo hoo . . . Spring?

Spring? 

Where are you?

Spring peeked out at us a few times over the last week or so, but the recent pile of snow over the weekend had hidden it away. Regardless, we have been learning about signs of spring and have been eagerly looking for these signs outside our window!

In Science, we examine all four seasons. We look at what people do, what animals do, what trees and plants do, and what the weather typically does during that season. 

We spent last week learning about spring and compiled a list of words describing spring. Then,  students made their own personal mini-list of the spring words to turn into word art. Their list needed at least one word from each category: People, Trees/Plants, Animals, and Weather. Using wordle.net, students worked in partners to help one another enter in eachother's spring word list. Then students picked the font and arrangement of the spring words before proudly hitting "print". 

With some teamwork, patience, and creativity, this is what the boys and girls created:

Picture slideshow generated with Smilebox

The spring word art is posted in our hall and looks beautiful! It makes us feel like spring is just around the corner!

Wordle is an excellent web-based tool that is a simple way for the children to interact with text. It would be a fun way to practice spelling words, especially if you have a colour printer!

Grade 1 . . . now available in 3D!

No need for 3-D glasses here! We are into our Geometry Unit in Math and have been having fun identifying, describing, comparing and sorting 3-D solids. 

3-D solids are FAT, not flat. We have been examining the sphere, cone, cylinder and cube, and this song has been helpful (although stuck on our heads all the time!):

We were inspired to hunt for 3-D solids ourselves, so with camera in hand, we set off to explore Holy Redeemer. Children worked in teams to identify objects in our environment that are shaped like spheres, cylinders, cubes and cones. 

Here is what we found:


Super searching, boys and girls!

The 3-D solids "posters" used in the slide show are from Mrs. Ricca's Kindergarten Solid Shapes Powerpoint.

A Library on Wheels!

We LOVE reading in our class and will read anywhere! We read in the halls, in the classroom, in the gym, and if you can believe it, today we read on a BUS! We had a special visit from the Bookmobile, a library on wheels! 

We piled onto the big bus, which came to us from the Strathcona County Library. Here we met Diana, an energetic book-lover who got us all excited to read, read, and read some more! With Spring in the air, Diana chose to share stories, songs and rhymes all about bugs. We really enjoyed singing Walter the Waltzing Worm (can you see our wiggly yarn worms?) and re-telling The Very Hungry Caterpillar using food props from the story. 

L to R
(1) Reading The Crunching Munching Caterpillar (2) Enjoying I Love Bugs
(3) Singing and dancing along to Walter the Waltzing Worm (4) Retelling The Very Hungry Caterpillar using food props

Then the boys and girls received colourful book bags and were given time to choose 5 books to take home. They were thrilled and quickly got to work hunting! Books were signed out and students were encouraged to read them and bring them back next Monday, when the Bookmobile returns again. 

For every book the students read and return, a sparkly little jewel is earned. Each student got a plastic Easter egg to store jewels in, and we will keep these eggs here in the classroom. Jewels can be traded in for prizes on the Bookmobile (please see the sheet in your child's book bag for more). 

The boys and girls were so happy with their new bags filled with books! It was nearly impossible to tear them away from their new books!

The bookmobile will return each MONDAY in April. Please take time to read these books with your child and kindly return them in a week so that new books can be taken out next Monday ... and jewels can be earned!

Sticky Labels and Egg-cellent Behaviour!

Welcome back from Spring Break! 

To get everyone moving our first morning back yesterday, we started our day with a silly language activity. Each student was given a name tag with a word on it. The students' task was to go around to all of their classmates and write down everyone's words. The words the children were given to wear were Word Wall Words (Spelling Words) many still struggle to spell or read. Some of those "w", "wh" and "th" words are really challenging!

Here is some of the fun we had:

If you can believe it, we are now in the home stretch of Grade One! Very rarely do prizes or incentives enter our day, however to keep the students motivated, a simple incentive system has been implemented to accompany our clothespin behaviour board. We have a basket of eggs filled with fantastic rewards inside. Throughout the day, at any time, a name is drawn. If that student is on task, they can open a prize egg! If they are not on task, their name is discreetly returned to the basket (and that name is not revealed to the class). So far, the students are working hard, making smart choices and are crossing their fingers that their name is drawn! Way to go, kids! 

Our basket of prize eggs and certificates!

While I do not rely on tangible prizes to motivate students, such as stickers, candies, or trinkets, I do believe in positive experiences that are free and fun. Here is a glimpse of some of our rewards offered in the basket:

If your child's name is drawn, watch for a special certificate in his or her Kanga! One lucky duck's super behaviour earned him the opportunity to be Class Photographer tomorrow!

The word wall word game we played is adapted from a math task featured on I {Heart} Teaching. Our Easter egg reward system and certificates are  from What the Teacher Wants and the prize eggs are filled with rewards adapted from Seusstastic Classroom Inspirations and were designed on rainbow frames by Ashley Hughes.