Our class is paired up with Ms. Maguire's class again for Reading Buddies. Each week, we meet and work on literacy skills that match up with specific holidays or themes. The students LOVE to see their reading buddy each week!
This week (in our pictures), we worked with popcorn and writing down describing words for the popcorn (adjectives). It was a good lesson to work with adjectives for both the third graders and the first graders. The first graders really enjoyed learning about the moon throughout August and September. We did many hands on activities, watched video clips, read books, created charts, and worked in small groups while learning about the topic. They had a lot of fun learning about this topic!
On Friday, the first grade classes attended their field trip at LegoLand. The kids were SO excited! It was a very, very fun field trip that included hands on areas, rides, an indoor playground, a 4-D movie, a pizza lunch, and a Science class on tall towers and structures. In the class, the kids were broken up into groups and had to use team work to build the tallest tower. After building their first tower, they were taught why it is important to build a secure structure and how to do so. They then were given a second chance to not only build a tall tower, but use what they were taught to make it secure. Friday's field trip was definitely a memorable one.
Room 117 uses a lot of technology during the school day! We use different types of technology during our reading groups, with learning sight words, and with learning our math facts.
We also love to play games, do research reports, and work in small groups and with partners! First grade is fun! Children love Science and our students sure proved that with our pumpkin investigation. Ms. Riplinger gathered a few different types of pumpkins: small, large, orange, and green (yes, a green pumpkin!), and the students made predictions about the pumpkins. The formed a hypothesis about how similar and different all of the pumpkins would be. They also predicted if the green pumpkin would look the same or different than the orange pumpkin. We then made Venn diagrams before and after we cut the pumpkins open and discussed the results. Look at the pictures to find out what we learned.
Next, the students were able to get into groups and dig into the pulp of the pumpkin to dig out the seeds! October was filled with many learning opportunities with our reading buddies. In October, we learned about Christopher Columbus and wrote about what we would do if we found new land and we investigated ways to use our adjectives to describe apples through our 5 senses. We used those adjectives to create a web and then formed sentences in an apple template to talk about apples. Our reading buddies were a great help, since we are just starting to learn how to write! Our projects turned out great!
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AuthorMs. Riplinger, a second grade teacher in the Chicago-land area. Archives
May 2016
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