What a week we had! It was full of science investigations and culminated in our trip to Growing Power where we continued that learning - such fun!
Here's a sneak peek...
During Writers' Workshop this week we continued work on our book series. I'm getting to know all of the characters in their books very well! We decided to imagine that we were calling our character to ask him/her a question or two. We then responded in the voice of our character using all that we knew about our character on the inside. Here we are on our imaginary telephones:
Then we made sure our partners were using those clues! One reading partner became the director and let his/her partner know when s/he was reading in the correct voice. If the partner missed a clue, the other partner would call, "Cut!"
We began learning about time this week, focusing in on the parts of a clock. Ask your first grader how they remember which hand is the hour hand and which is the minute.
On Thursday we created a class book called Our Busy Day. Each first grader chose a time during the day, beginning at 7:00am and ending at 8:00pm and made a page to show that time on an analog clock, write the digital time, and tell what they do at that particular time. We'll be sharing this book with our K5 friends when they come to tour our classroom and learn more about first grade! The kiddos were so excited to create this book for them and worked hard to make sure they did quality work!
During Science, we went outside to find animals for our terrariums. Some things we found were worms, potato bugs, centipedes, and spiders. After we added these to our terrariums, we also added shelter and food for them. Our terrariums have changed so much! We needed to create new maps and add new items to our map keys.
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| This beautiful critter thought it would blend in on Ben's coat! |
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| Adding water to a designated "wet" area. |
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| Adding shelter to a designated "dry" area. |
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| Adding food for our critters - crispy lettuce! |
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| This little guy loved his new habitat! |
We had an incredible trip to Growing Power! Here's a glimpse of our time spent at this local treasure...
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| Mr. Allen, Growing Power's founder, greeted us when we arrived! |
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| Andre teaching us all about Growing Power. |
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| What a BIG compost pile! |
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| Ask your scientist what was in this wheel barrow! |
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| Thousands of worms! Ask your scientist to tell you how worms help soil and plants. |
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| The goats were adorable! |
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| Andre tells us about the chicken house. Unfortunately, there aren't any more chickens. |
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| Greehouse |
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| Aquaponics system! We learned that our terrarium is a system, too. Ask your scientist to tell you how both are systems. |
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| Andre tells us all about volunteers. Maybe some of our first graders will volunteer at Growing Power someday! |
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| Looking for the fish in the aquaponics system. |
The Scholastic Book Fair and Cake Walk were this week. It was fun to see many of you there! Thank you ever so much for the many monetary donations through Coin Wars and gift certificates! I was able to purchase so many new books for our classroom as well as some items for our Brain Bins!
What a fun week! It's hard to believe that next week will be May already. The time is really flying by. A reminder that if you'd like to join us for our field trip to the zoo on May 8th, please let me know. Thanks much!
Michelle
Mark Your Calendars!
Monday, May 8th: Field Trip to the Milwaukee County Zoo 9am-2pm
Wednesday, May 10: Early Release Day
Thursday, May 11th: Guest author Lester Laminack
joins us at Stormonth!
Wednesday, May 24: Early release Day
Monday, May 29: NO SCHOOL
June 1: BMS Musical "Into the Woods"
Tuesday, June 6th: SAVE THE DATE!!!
Annual Family Picnic! 11:30-12:40
Thursday, June 8: Last day of First Grade!
See you later, Second Grader!
