Classroom Peek
Follow our blog to see what we are learning in First Grade! This blog is the student's ideas written by their teacher. :)
In December, the students were asked to create a poster about a holiday that they celebrate in their home. Each student came in with a poster and we presented the poster to the other first graders! This was such a wonderful way for us to learn about special traditions that each family has this time of year. Our class was able to rotate and hear half of the first grade classes present. After they were an audience, they became the presenter and first graders walked around and learned about their holiday. When we were the audience we learned to give the presenter a compliment, ask a question, and say thank you. If your child has not already shown you, ask them to see the sign lanugage for those three things!
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On Thursday, we built our gingerbread houses. We used graham crackers, milk cartons, and icing to make our houses. We also got to decorate a tree in our yard with an ice cream cone, green icing, and nerds! Overnight our gingerbread houses hardened and Friday we were able to decorate! Today, we used ALOT of candy, icing, and sprinkles to decorate our houses! Walkers and carpoolers will go home with their gingerbread houses today and bus riders will wait until Monday so our gingerbread houses can harden. Be sure to check out our pictures!! Tuesday, we went on our first field trip! We went to the School House of Wonder on the Eno River in Durham. We got to do two different activities.
1. Forest Ecosystems was our first activity. We learned what an ecosystem was and we learned about living and non-living things. Ms. Jen showed us two turtle shells, deer skull, bear skull, and bobcat fur. We walked through the woods and saw the river. We dug for clam shells in sand that was moved by Hurricane Matthew. We learned how to log roll and we got to roll our own logs over and look for salamanders or creatures. We had a bathroom break and ate some snack. :) 2. Native Ways was our second activity. We saw how Native Americans lived on the land years ago. Ms. Jen showed us how to make fire with a bow drill and cedar wood. Then we went back into the woods and she showed different traps for hunting. Ms. Jen showed us how Native Americans threw spears to hunt. They use an atlatl or spear thrower, the atlatl holds the spear steady while you throw it. We each got a chance to throw the spear! Miss Cregger and Mrs. Jathan got to throw the spear too! On Friday, we had our Pumpkin Investigation! We worked in small groups with 5 volunteers to investigate a pumpkin. Here is everything we learned: 1. Described the outside 2. Outside, we cut the pumpkin open and took out the seeds and pulp. 3. Described the inside of the pumpkin 4. Estimated the circumference and measured it 5. Estimated how tall our pumpkin was and measured it 6. We estimated how many lines were on the pumpkin and counted them 7. We labeled the parts of the pumpkin 8. We estimated how many seeds were inside our pumpkin 9. We counted all of the seeds! We used a tens frame to help us 10. We figured out how many hundreds, tens, and ones 11. We drew a face for our pumpkin and voted on the favorite 12. We went outside and carved our pumpkin 13. We decorated a cookie and had a special snack! 14. We watched the story of Spookley the Square Pumpkin. We learned that it was great to be different! Today we learned about Christopher Columbus. He traveled around the world exploring. He also went on three ships, the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria. We did a group project today where we had to work together as a team. We had to come up with and create an item that Christopher Columbus would have taken on his journey. Here are the steps we followed during our project: 1. We brainstormed with our team items that Christopher Columbus would need on his journey. 2. We chose one item and we recorded it onto our group paper. We had to say our group members, the item, and why he would need that item. 3. We used our devices and took a picture of our group recording sheet. 4. When everyone in our group had posted to SeeSaw, we went looking for materials to make our item. 5. All of the first grade classrooms had recycled materials in the hall. With our group, we chose the best materials for our item. 6. We went back into our classroom and made our item with our group. We used materials such as, water bottles, offices, toilet paper rolls, string, tape, glue, tin foil, tissue box, cardboard box, plastic containers, egg cartons, coffee filters, and cardboard. 7. After we built our item, we took a picture and posted to SeeSaw. We also wrote a sentence about what we chose and why. 8. We shared our group items with the class and Miss Cregger approved our posts on SeeSaw. The items we thought Christopher Columbus could use on his voyage were.... -Map: to know the way to go -Compass: he can know the right direction to go -Telescope: so Columbus could see land on the boat -Sword: so Columbus could defend himself from animals or dangerous things -Boat: Columbus couldn't fly or drive a car in the ocean -Food: Columbus needed food to have energy, there was not a grocery store in the new land. First, we had to brainstorm what we wanted to write about. Next, we drew a picture about our story. Next, we wrote a topic sentence. A topic sentence is one sentence that says who is in the story, what they are doing, when they are doing it, and where they are. Then, we shared our topic sentence with the class. Then, we wrote the rest of our story. We tried to give our story a great and exciting ending. After we were done writing, we edited our story. We used colored pencils to underline the capital letters and circle the punctuation. Finally, it was time to make our final copy! We re-wrote our story on fancy paper and colored our pictures with crayons and more detail.
When we were finished with our final copies we read our writing to the class! Miss Cregger took our picture with our first published writing piece. When we get to school, we put our devices in our drawer. This morning, Miss Cregger called three friends at a time to use our devices. The first thing we had to do was connect to the WAKE-BYOD network. We had to go into our settings and click on wi-fi. We will have to do this every time.
After we were connected to the internet, we learned how to get on on SeeSaw. We have to scan the class QR code and click on our name. We took a picture of a math problem and solved it on the picture. Then Miss Cregger approved our picture to be posted onto SeeSaw. We LOVED that parents were already looking at our work, liking it, and commenting! During Social Studies, we used our QR reader/scanner and it took us to Pebble Go. We typed in the password and got to read and listen all about fall! Tomorrow night is Open House! We can't wait for you to come see our classroom! Open House is for PARENT'S ONLY from 6:00-8:00. You will learn tons for information about our year in first grade.
We made an iPhone that describes ourselves. We also drew a self-portrait. We didn't write our name on either of these. When you come for Open House, you will GUESS which picture is mine! We thought this would be a fun game for us to play together. We also wrote you a note, it is waiting for you on my table. Miss Cregger will upload the powerpoint to our class website, after Open House in case you aren't able to come. Welcome to our classroom! We hope you enjoy it! We do Read to Self during Daily 5. Daily 5 is after lunch. In Read to Self we read our books from our book boxes. We pick a good spot so that we can stay focused. We have some rules that we follow during Read to Self. 1. Only one person reads in the book nook. 2. We sit away from the computers and toys. 3. We stay in the same spot. 4. We don't sit under tables. 5. We can lay down or sit. 6. We can sit at tables, but spread out. 7. We sit away from our friends. 8. We read the books in our book box, we get new books when we shop each week. 9. We are quiet. Each week we will shop for "just right" books. Everyone gets three books to put in their book box. We are building our stamina for reading. Today we read for 5 minutes, twice! During that time, everyone was focused, silent, and reading. Mohith likes that we get to read for awhile. Mohammed likes that we can read in the book nook. Sanvi likes that we can read in the quiet. Thomas likes that it is quiet and calm during read to self. Kaviesh likes read to self because it is quiet. Victor likes read to self because there are a lot of books that he likes. Aashna likes read to self because it is fun! Katie likes read to self because she loves reading. Rakshana loves read to self because she likes to read fairy books. Pranav likes read to self because he likes chapter books. Sarayu likes read to self because she likes to read books. Ishita likes read to self because it is quiet. Himbi likes read to self because he likes to read books. Ask your child what books are in their book boxes! In math today, we learned about a 100's board and a number line. A number line has all of the numbers in order. We learned how to count on using a number line. First, we circle the number we are starting with then jump the number we are going to count on from. On a 100's board, there are a lot of different patterns. There are patterns in the tens row and the ones columns. We have learned what a "Must Do" is in math. A "Must Do" is something that we have to do first in math. It is the most important thing we do each day. Today we also learned how to do "Math with a Partner". Our voices are whispering when we work with a partner. We sit next to our partner and we give ourselves lots of space from other partner groups. We take turns when we are working with a partner so that it can be fair to everyone! We played a game with the 100's board today with our partner. We took turns giving numbers and our partner had to put the chip on the correct number. If our partner was right, we gave them a thumbs up. If our partner needed to try again, we gave them a thumbs in the middle! |