First Grade Math, Science, and more.......

The K/1's came back to the warmth of the classroom and the cool snow covered fields and woods.  Snow was such a welcoming sight!

Back in December the first grade mathematicians began exploring geometry.  They brainstormed what they know about shapes and what they would like to know.  They described pattern blocks and explored creating geometric designs.  The first graders loved reading The Greedy Triangle by Marilyn Burns and explored the possibility of turning the story into a play. The children explored describing and drawing triangles. They enjoyed reading What's Your Angle Pythagoras?  They searched for angles in the classroom and discussed how the size of an angle might help in constructing things. The children are continuing to investigate finding combination of shapes to fill in an outline.  They use pattern blocks to fill in different parts of an outline. They find ways to keep track of how many of each kind of pattern block they used, and find the total number of blocks.  Presently the children are exploring rectangles and are moving into exploring and describing the characteristics of 2-D shapes.

In Science with Kate the K/1's are exploring snow.  The children had fun looking at snow through a magnifying glass on a sunny day, which led to the discovery of rainbows also. In the classroom the children investigated ice cubes.  They also hiked to the creek to look for ice.  They are looking forward to going back to the creek next science class.  The K/1's will continue to explore crystals for a bit longer then will begin investigating rocks and minerals.

In Language Arts, among the usual activities, the children are also taking turns writing the morning message.  This is one way for the children to work one on one with the teacher on writing.  Also The K/1's are enjoying studying Jan Brett.  They are excited about acting out The Hat.  We will be working with Susie in art to put it all together and act it out for an audience.  I will let you know soon about the day and time of performance.  We have a word wall of winter words and the children are playing games to learn the words at everyone's instructional level.  We will continue to explore our unit on winter and will keep you posted.

Have a wonderful week everyone!

My own Show of Work!