An Egg-celent Baker's Dozen!

It's been a week for the birds here in SK P217 - we have all become proud mamas and daddies to 13 new eggs... Read on for more details!

Science
- Egg Delivery: The eggs arrived in a big unmarked brown box!  We peered carefully inside and were delighted to find a baker's dozen bluish-green and spotted eggs.  WOW!
- Good Guesses: Friends brainstormed what they guessed might be inside.  Snakes, chicks, turtles, rabbits, chickadees, sparrows, parrots...
- Narrowing Down: We wanted to sort out what could be in our eggs, and what could not.  We watched Reading Rainbow's "Chickens Aren't the Only Ones" and learned a boat load about how different creatures lay eggs, and what they look like!  We had to cross off "rabbits" from our list, since furry animals are born alive, and we took off choices like "turtle" since the size and shape (white and round) didn't match ours (colored and oval).
- Oviparous/Viviparous: Your SK scientists are professionals at this!  Ask your friend to sort animals for you (in a picture book, from puzzle or a game, or a list you make up yourself!), saying the words "Oviparous" and "Viviparous" to identify how they birth their young.  (Remember, "O" looks like an egg, and "Viv" sounds like "born alive" - we also know that animals with fur and hair are never oviparous...like us!)
- Turning: We're in charge of turning our eggs an odd-number of times each day (8-10-12-2-4) and making sure the air is humid enough inside our incubator.  We want it to feel like a safe, warm place - just like it would feel if mom were sitting on them!
- Egg Compare/Contrast: We had narrowed down our list to two good choices based on size and shape... chicks and parrots.  It was time to compare and contrast the look of these sort of eggs (up on our Smart Board) with what we have in our incubator.  Turns out, chick eggs look a lot like what's in your fridge (white and oval and small - not like ours!) and parrot eggs look like - also not like ours!  We found pictures of mallard duck eggs and BAM!  THOSE were our kind of eggs! 
- It's a Duck!  Turns out, we're the proud parents of 13 duckling eggs.  Quack-tastic!

Daily Five
- Word Families: This week we tackled -ug and -ut!  Tug, bug, lug and cut, gut, rut!  Our friends are such experts now; challenge them to double (or triple!) letter add-ons, like shrug or strut!
- Decodable Books: Coming home this week, we have a fresh batch of decodable books.  They have been living in your SKers' school book box and are ready to come home to roost in the black decodable book boxes you all have at home.  They include loads of word family words and star words from our word wall.  Even when the plots aren't so thick, they make for good practice at sharpening our quick-reading of these imoportant words!
- Third Grade Buddies: This week we went to our 3rd graders room and brought along books from our own book boxes to read!  We also enjoyed our buddies' choices for us, as they kept in tune with our days in SK, selecting eggs/spring books to share!
- Book Box Shop: We cleaned out our book boxes and are shopping for fresh ones first thing on Monday morning!  It's always fun to give our books a farewell in favor of exciting new stories to read and share with friends.

Language
- Journals: Our SKers have been journaling up a storm this week as we explore and take note of the exciting egg adventure we're off on!  Topics have including egg observations (what we can see... color, size, shape, feeling) and ways to care for our eggs (turning gingerly and slowly with gentle, clean hands, knowing that we are the moms and dads!)
- Printing: T/t and O/o: This week's alliteration is brought to you by the letters T and O!  Friends twisted and twirled their way through trick and terrific words to tie together, writing alliteration pages for their printing books!  They opened olives in October with oviporous octopuses!  Challenge your SKer to an alliteration-off, stringing together words that all begin with the same letter (and make good sense)!

Math
- Centers: Friends have enjoyed a few rotations of our new math centers, getting good practice and sharpening their skills.  Ask them to count forward, backward, skip-count, and more!  Ask them about teen number pairs ("Ten and what number makes 17?  Ten and four more makes what number?) and number partners ("You can make the number 6 lots of ways... like what?  1+5, 2+4, 3+3, 0+6!)
- Counting: We continue to count forward and backward, by 1's, 2's, 5's and 10's (down from 30, and up to 100!)  We count during calendar, on our number line, pairing up friends, while we waiting on the rug, anytime we can - try it at your house too!

Reminders/Announcement
- Wacky Weather: Please help your child equip himself or herself the night before school with boots (rain or snow, still!) and a coat to match the forecast.  Thank you!
- The Mother's Day Art Show: On May 8th we welcome friends to bring their wonderful moms, mamas, mommies (only!) to our art extravaganza in their honor.  We look forward to celebrating with the lovely ladies in our SKers lives!