Penguin Science

Hi everyone! When we came back from our winter break, we "dove" right into penguin studies.  This is a "all inclusive" study as we are using penguins to learn more about reading, writing, researching,  mathematical concepts  (such as measurement, data collection, temperature, addition, subtraction) geography and weather.  Being able to learn about one topic from many disciplines adds depth of knowledge and helps the brain turn neural circuits (concepts) into into neural networks ( language).  The more neural networks we gain as learners, the easier it is to learn new concepts in the future.

Here are some pictures of our shared research.  We are also viewing many ideas about penguins - many scientists have recorded penguin antics.  We have also kept a science notebook with our written learnings about penguins.  Much opportunity for reading, writing, and calculating everyday! Soon will be puppet making and sculpting!

December 2019

Hi everyone!
This post is woefully overdue, but I did not want to neglect December!
We spent this month learning more about Fairy Tales together.  We read, listened, viewed, spoke, drew, wrote and created ideas about these fairy tales:
Goldilocks, Red Riding Hood , Jack and the Beanstalk, The Frog Prince, and The Gingerbread Man.  We compared the Fairy Tales to determine what they had in common to decide if there were some things the same about all fairy tales. 
Your children had a great time learning about some new and familiar stories.  I hope they were able to show you all the great projects they made!

In these pictures we were creating pop-up scenes from Jack in the Beanstalk!

In math, we learned more about fact families - which help us understand how addition and subtraction relate to each other. As we move forward into adding and subtracting larger numbers, this becomes and important concept to understand.

The week before break was pretty high energy and exciting - we heard many versions of the Gingerbread Man - then we were able to decorate our own gingerbread man!  YUM YUM!  A huge thanks to all of the parents who donated supplies and helped out with the decorating!

Here's hoping you had a lovely, restful break - Happy New Year!

Wonderful Insect Learning

We have come to the end of our "at school" insect learning, but of course learning never stops and you and your young scientist will continue to explore insects in your own ways!  Take a look at some of the great learning we have been engaged in over the past few weeks...

We researched to find out why we should even care about insects?  What would the world be like without them?


We created posters for the hall so we could teach others about why they should care about insects.

Finally, we complied all of our good learning into our own science book about insects.  Then we invited our parents to be part of our learning. We taught our parents what we had learned.









This week we also had some good working time with third grade buddies as we created a project about what we are thankful for.






Finally, ask your child about playing "Gobble, BUMP!"  This is a great game to help students add three numbers together.

Getting started as insect scientists!

Hi everyone!
We have had a few busy and exciting weeks in first grade as we begin our study of insects. 
During back to school night, we talked about how learners acquire new information when the learning is meaningful, purposeful, and has value...so the work we do in first grade together is based around science concepts.  This also helps us learn importance life science concepts as we read, write, think, speak, view, listen and calculate - the processes of literacy.  The more concepts we learn in any subject areas, the more neural connections we make, and the better learners we become!

Here are some of the things we have been doing:

All learning begins with what we already know, so we began by telling our stories about bugs and sharing them with each other.

Then we decided how scientist learn new things - and how an entomologist would learn about insects - this is what we decided we could do to learn more about insects







We decided that we need insects to observe - so here are the mealworms!



We researched by reading books to find out where insects lived, the drew and wrote about our ideas.




After learning more about bats, we decided to research other insect predators - we read, spoke, listened, viewed, drew, and wrote about insect predators.

We have had a great two weeks starting our insect learning - stay tuned for more!

Our First Open House!

It was wonderful to see so many families yesterday - thanks so much for coming.  The kids were super excited to "show off" their space, Special Person books and posters.

You may have head that we have begun our study of insects!  Things are going to get exciting!

Enjoy some pictures from the event and have a great weekend!

Moving along with math

Hi everyone!
We have been working hard in math, and there have been some big concepts we have been covering.  One of them is combinations of 10.  Understanding combinations of 10 (1+9, 2+8, etc..) is foundational as student begin to add larger numbers such as 20+80.  We use a mathematical model called a Tens Frame to help us visualize these combinations:



Using a Tens Frame can also help young mathematicians to "trust" certain numbers.  For example , when holding up 8 fingers (5 on one hand and 3 on the other), many children will count the five fingers on their hand ,then the 3 on the other- we want them to trust that their hand is five, the count one from there "5 - 6,7,8".  Tens Frames allow children to do this by trusting that if the whole frame is filled, then, using the above example, we can say "10 - 11, 12, 13, 14, 15" instead of counting every dot.  Of course, some children would see the 10 and 5 and immediately see that it is 15.

So, we have been playing games with Frame cards and exploring how many combination, such as odd and even numbers, look on these cards.
 Here are a few pictures of "Make 10's" concentration - a big hit!

Have a great week everyone!