Welcome to First Grade!

We have an exciting year ahead of us! First grade is a time of incredible growth academically and socially. This year the seeds that were planted in preschool and kindergarten will continue to grow and develop. First graders will become more confident and fluent readers and writers. Their knowledge of math concepts will become more complex and abstract. They'll develop academic skills that will provide the foundation for the rest of their school lives. First graders will also work to develop creativity, critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and citizenship throughout our curriculum. Most importantly, our goal is to continue to develop a true love of learning.

This year will be fun, challenging, exciting, and full of growth. I can't wait to go on this adventure with you!

Matter

In science we've been studying matter. We learned all about the properties of matter and now we are conducting experiments to prove that solids, liquids, and gases are matter. To do this we've been using student designed experiments to prove that each state of matter has weight and takes up space. 

Students observe the balance scale comparing a balloon without air and a balloon filled with air.

Students observe as a balloon fills with gas.

Students compare the weight and density of two liquids.

Students show the tightly packed molecules of a solid...

The molecules of a liquid...

And a gas.

 

 

 
 

 

 

Leprechaun Traps

We set our traps to catch the mischievous first grade leprechaun, and....we came in Friday morning to find all of our bait stolen and no leprechaun! Lucky for us later that morning we were reading a story in the library when we heard a mysterious noise. Our little leprechaun was hiding out, and we got him. No more mischief until next St. Patrick's day!

 

3-D Shape Riddles

Check out some of the shape riddles that our class wrote! See if you can guess which 3-D shape answers each riddle. (A couple are still on there way!)

My shape has one face and one vertex. What is my shape? -Lily
My shape has 6 sides and it has 8 corners. What is my shape? -Luke
This shape cannot roll on it's bottom. It has no straight edges. -Ben
My shape has 8 vertices. My shape's lines never touch because they're parallel. The faces are rectangles. -Eli
My shape has 8 vertices. All faces are squares. What is my shape? - Joseph
My shape has 8 vertices. My shape has square faces. What is my shape? -Emma
My shape has 8 vertices. My shape has square faces. What is my shape? -Morgan
My shape has 6 faces and it cannot role. What is my shape? -Seona
My shape has 6 faces. My shape has triangle faces and rectangle faces. What is my shape? -Maia
My shape has 6 faces. My shape has 8 vertices. What is my shape? -Ethan
My shape has 6 faces. It has rectangular faces. -Leighton

Science Fair

Congratulations to Ben and Roy who participated in the science fair! Ben investigated how different shapes float and learned about density. Roy created magnetic goo. It is always great to see the creativity and hard work that goes in to the science fair and invention convention. 

Geometry

In math we're studying geometry. We began by reviewing 2D shapes and have moved into studying 3D shapes. Our focus has been on shape attributes and discussing shapes using mathematical language. Students have done an amazing job using math vocabulary to talk and write about shapes. We've done shape sorts, pattern block puzzles, and a variety of other geometry games to help build a solid understanding.

 

Read Across America Day

It was wonderful to spend a week celebrating the fun in reading! We got to enjoy many well-loved Dr.Seuss books, dress up, read with our stuffed animals, and welcome mystery readers to our classroom. On Read Across America Day my mom and my aunt came to our class to read a couple favorite books to us. They stuck around to play some reading games as well. We had a great week enjoying our favorite books.

 

Free Writing

In writer's workshop we've  spent the last two weeks practicing free writing. In free writing students are given the choice to work on any genre of writing that they'd like. During free writing I conference with students on their individual pieces and we work on building conventions of writing and writing habits that apply to all genres. To kick off our free writing workshop we worked on building banks of ideas. One way that we did this was by creating heart maps. We filled in our heart maps with things that we love, we do, or we know a lot about. These heart maps help us to come up with writing ideas that are important to us.

 

Penguin Experiments

In math we've been practicing problem solving and measurement while we learn about penguins. We've studied rockhopper penguins, king penguins, and emperor penguins. Students have practiced measuring themselves and comparing their heights to each penguin. We've charted the class measurement data and used it for discussion and problem solving. To wrap up our study of penguins we did some penguin experiments to learn about how penguins stay dry and warm in the arctic. We covered our hands in crisco and then dunked them into ice water to see how the oil insulates our bodies. We also combined oil and water to see how the two separate. This showed us how the oil on penguin feathers helps to keep them dry.

 

 

100th Day of School

We've been first graders for over 100 days now! To celebrate the 100th day of school we shared the vests that students created at home with each other. I was so impressed with the creativity students put into their vests.

 

 

 

January Reading Challenge

First grade tracked our at home reading in the month of January. Our goal was for each student to read at least 200 minutes. All students met their goal, and many exceeded it! In total our class read 2,916 minutes in January! We celebrated with outside playtime!

 

 

A Creation

Enjoy this pattern block castle created by some of the students in our class! It was requested that I post it on our class blog. :) 

 

Science Day: Animals in Winter

On Wednesday our class had our first science day with Sue Harrington, a science instructor who comes to Southeast to do special activities with each grade level. We learned about how animals survive in the winter. Some animals migrate, some hibernate, some insulate, and some congregate. One activity that we did was to test how insulation works. We went outside and measure the air temperature. Then we compared it to the temperature of a student wearing a jacket, a student wearing 2 jackets, and students huddled together inside a "cave" that we made out of blankets. We found the insulation keeps animals much warmer than the outside temperature.

 

 

Happy Holidays!

I hope you all had very happy holidays and a wonderful New Year! 

My resolution is to post more regularly on our class blog, so stick around for some more news from our class in 2017! :) 

Holidays Around the World

In the month of December our class took a trip around the world with Globe Trot Scott. We got packages each week from Globe Trot as he visited different countries and learned about their holiday traditions. Throughout the month we read literature from different cultures, reflected on traditions that are similar and different to our own, and did a variety of holiday activities based on what we learned. This is one of my personal favorite units that we do in first grade. We had lots of fun as we learned about the world around us!

A huge thanks to Mr. Hartman who came in to teach about Hanukkah, Ms. MacKenzie who skyped in with her class of third graders in Denmark, Ms. Salvato who skyped in from Argentina, and Ms. de Sousa who shared photographs from holidays in Brazil!