On Monday, our math message was: 'A new child visits our class. He has never seen an equal sign before. Draw an equal sign, and use pictures or words to explain what it means.' It was interesting to see the many ways that our little learners presented this to the class using pictures, numbers and words. After looking at each of the explanations together, we decided that an equals sign must always have the same amount on both sides. From here, we used cards with different equations on them, and balanced them with en equals sign, checking to see if they showed the same number on both sides. We have also been looking at doubles facts as helper facts for solving other problems. First we listed all of the doubles facts that we knew by heart. Then we looked at some quick look cards using ten frames. Students learned that it is much easier to use doubles facts and add or take away one to find the answers to near doubles facts. We are also continuing to work on our mental addition and subtraction. Congratulations to Anthony for passing all of our minute addition Math tests. All parents need to continue focusing on this skill. Addition and subtraction fluency are essential to success in the upper grades. During UOI, we have been working away studying about different types of extreme weather. First we researched the necessary information that we needed for our weather report. We used a template and our research to compose a polished news report, and then rehearsed them. Now, with your help, students are getting dressed up, standing in front of our green screen and delivering their weather reports. We will be working on reporting from now until Friday. I hope to upload each of the videos to youtube and get them up here by the end of the week.
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This morning, we began discussing time. We started by talking about all of the things we know that take about an hour. Some answers included: swimming lessons, watching a movie, grocery shopping, etc.
After this, children were told that today we will be learning about telling time to the hour. The students attention was drawn to the classroom analogue clock. We talked about what we noticed about the clock, mentioning the numbers around the clock face, the differences between the hands on the clock and what we know about telling time. We addressed that an analog clock shows the time by the positions of the hands. We discussed how digital cocks have no hands. We identified the hour hand and the minute hand, discussing the everyday meaning of hand, as well as its meaning in this context. We noticed that the hour hand is shorter and the minute hand is longer. The hour hand also moves more slowly than the minute hand. Today we focused on the hour hand. Looking at the analog clock, we compared the hours on a clock to chapters in a familiar book. When reading Chapter 1, you are still in Chapter 1 even as you get closer to Chapter 2. The last page of Chapter 1 is still in Chapter 1, even though you are only one page from Chapter 2. Similarly, even when the hour hand is close to 2 o'clock, it is still moving through the 1 o'clock hour until it reaches 2 o'clock. Using our demonstration clock, we moved the hour hand around several more times, stopping at various on-the-hour positions, letting children call out the times. After this, students used a colored pencil or marker to color the section of the clock that is part of that hour, changing colors for each number, then working with a partner, asking them what the hour was at different intervals.
Today, we began our research for our end of unit project. Students are working in three groups; blizzards, tornadoes, and hurricanes. They will be working together to find information about how their extreme weather is formed, how to stay safe in it, what it is, and other facts.
They will use their research to write weather reports. We will be filming these weather reports next week against our green screen. This is one of my favourite educational technology projects we will be doing in first grade. I will be asking you to send some weather related clothing in with your child next week, in order to make this more believable. I am hoping that I can invite parents in on Friday afternoon to view a screening of our finished weather reports. I will keep you posted on the process.
You may have noticed some words appearing on the wall outside of Mrs. Amanda's classroom. These words are our IB learner profile attributes.
At the heart of the IB is the “learner profile”, a long- term, holistic vision of education that underpins all three programmes and puts the student at the centre of everything we do. The learner profile is the IB mission statement translated into a set of learning outcomes for the 21st century. The ten aspirational qualities of the learner profile inspire and motivate the work of teachers, students and schools, providing a statement of the aims and values of the IB and a definition of what we mean by “international-mindedness”. The learner profile unites us all with a common focus: on the whole person, as a lifelong learner. It applies to us all – student, teacher, parent or administrator – for we are all continually learning. I will be addressing these learner profile attributes more thoroughly over the next month as we lead up to our IB visit. The PYP students are also working on painting a mural. I am a firm believer in the importance of these attributes and character education for every child. Please let me know if you have any questions about the IB PYP programme. I have also posted some info below for you to familiarize yourself with. In the PYP, it is believed that education must be extend beyond the intellectual to include not only socially responsible attitudes but also thoughtful action. An expectation of the PYP is that successful inquiry will lead to responsible action, initiated by the students as a result of the learning process. Actions extend the student's learning, or often have a wider social impact. Actions show our little learners what they can do with their newfound knowledge to change the world. My role as the teacher, is to encourage action and to create opportunities for action. This is done through asking questions: What could you/ we do? And making the questions specific for the unit of inquiry that we are are studying at that moment. There, Student initiated action should be seen as a voluntary demonstration of a student's empowerment in the context of the expectations laid down in the programme. The action can be a service in the wider sense of the word: service to fellow students, and to the larger community, both in and outside the school. During this unit of inquiry on weather, we learned about the power of the sun and solar energy. We learned about how some communities rely on solar ovens to cook their food and boil water. As a result of this discussion, and questions like “what can we do,” the students decided that we can use our solar oven (and our electric ovens at home) to bake cupcakes, and sell our cupcakes in order to buy solar ovens for communities that need them. Today we sold our cupcakes and made over 415,000 AR that's enough to buy 8 solar ovens! Thank you so much to all of the families who made contributions. I am so proud of our little ones for taking on this task to help the needy in local communities across Madagascar. I have asked the ADES to send photos of people enjoying their ovens as they are delivered, so that students can see the impact of thier action. This morning, we learned how to make butter-cream frosting to ice our cupcakes that we made in the solar oven. We made pink icing, and used sprinkles and chocolate chips to decorate them before selling. After selling all of our delicious cupcakes, we had to count the money we earned. We began by sorting the different notes, and then using our skip counting skills to count by 2s, 5s, and 10s. There is no such thing as a day without math in this class! After counting our money, our hearts were so full from being able to help others. We talked about all of the wonderful qualities that each one of us has. We then defined what a compliment is. Next, we went to our own desks to start writing on our own Compli-Mats. First stop, compliment yourself. We talked about how important loving yourself is. So, we asked our children to write something about themselves that they really like. This gave us a quick assessment to see that they understand compliments before they began. Next, we went to each other's desks, providing compliments to everyone in the class. Like one big valentine. Teaching our primary students about compliments is highly important in our classroom. Sometimes it seems easier to point out what we don't ilke...But, we have found that we have to purposefully teach our first graders how to see the good in one another by pointing out what they do like. After that, students sat with a partner and read all of their compliments. This gave me all the feels <3. Read through your child's compliments with them at home tonight, asking them which is their favourite and why. Finally, we began to talk about our own hearts, and what they are full of. We brainstormed things and people we love, and talked about what is important to us. Students cut out a great big heart, and began to draw and label things that their heart is full of. We will finish this task tomorrow. Can you feel the love today?
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March 2017
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