MathMath this week was so hands on and involved, that I was too engaged to think about snapping a photo or two. We compared length, ordered numbers from least to greatest, collected data using tally charts, and explored 2D shapes. I had a few discussions this week with parents around the purpose of data collection in first grade. In response to this, I told them that young children collect data every day. They note who has pink sparkly shoes and find out who will share the ball on the playground. Children are interested in collecting data if the topic is important to them, such as recording their favourite colour. We collect data daily with our 'question of the day' board in the morning. What's equally important as data collection is looking at what we do with data once students have collected it. This week, we had whole group and small conversations about patterns we saw in data. We also noticed different representations of their observations We talked about the importance of any new questions that come up when looking at data. Language ArtsThis week, our phonics focus was on silent letters. Silent letters can be tricky to grasp for young students. We began by assuring students that there are not infinite possibilities of silent letters, this helped those with spelling woes. For example, if a word begins with the /n/ sound, but not the letter n, then there are three possibilities of spellings: gn, kn, and pn. Since pn words are commonly medical terms such as, pneumonia, students will likely not encounter words beginning with a silent p. As for words that begin with a silent g, there are a few common possibilities: gnome, gnat, gnu, gnarl, gnash, and gnaw (and their extensions e.g., gnarly, etc). The other words are less common. There are however, over 200 words that begin with a silent k. Some examples are: knack, knife, knight, knob, etc. Assigning students the task of finding as many kn words as possible helped further their understanding of silent letters, this helped students understand that if they are searching for a word that begins with an /n/ sound, but not the letter n, they should try searching out kn words first. Once students were comfortable with silent letters at the beginning of words, we moved onto silent letters in the middl and at the end. It was also a great way to introduce several new vocabulary words. We spent the rest of the week playing games, sorting and reading to become more comfortable with this. We will continue working with silent letters next week, while reviewing common digraphs. Unit of InquiryWe began this week of our UOI time by reviewing the life cycle of a butterfly. This was important, as we were preparing students to make connections between the bee life cycle and the butterfly life cycle (both life cycles that involve cocooning and metamorphosis). With some help from our phenomenal design/technology teacher Mr. Joe, students created stop-motion claymation videos of the butterfly life cycle. It was such a great way for students to show their understanding while learning a new tech skill. You can watch your child's video by clicking on their name below. Angéle and Soyane Imara and Gabriela Imran and Tifanny Juliana and Emmy Luca and Nina Seoyeong and Enzo Lia, Sohan, and Anastasia This week we began our last life cycle inquiry on the life cycle of a honey bee. Our provocation for this unit was watching 'The Magic School Bus: In a Beehive.' We learned about how bees collect nectar with their proboscis and use it to make honey in the cells of their hive. To make this process understandable for our little ones, we all went outside and collected 'nectar' (water dyed yellow) from flowers (green containers) around the playground using our 'proboscis' (a pipette) and brought it back to our 'hive' (an egg carton).. Students learned that there is a reason for the term 'busy bees;' It takes a lot of trips back and forth to flowers to get just a little bit of nectar. After several trips from lots of sweaty, buzzing bees, we fanned the nectar with our wings, while stirring it to turn it into honey. This was a really fun, first hand way to see many of the jobs that bees do. Our friend Imran also found a hive of some sort on the playground this week. It was so neat for all of us to be able to see all of the hexagonal cells that the insects produced. It was also a great way to review one of the shapes we learned about this week! We also learned about another important job that bees do; pollinate. We went outside first to see if we could see it in action, and we did! First we walked around the school, looking for flowers and examining the pollen, and discussing its importance for helping fruits, vegetable and seeds to grow. Next, we learned about how bees pollinate flowers by using their furry legs to collect pollen, and moving it from flower to flower as they drink nectar. To better understand this, each child was given a cotton ball to represent a bees furry legs, and a little finger bee to attach to their hand that was holding the cotton ball. Students were instructed to fly from flower to flower to drink nectar, while stopping in the pollen (glitter) that was in the centre of each flower. After buzzing around the class, students started to notice that the glitter (pollen) from each flower that was once a single colour was getting all mixed up. They realized that at every flower they were stopping on to drink, they were not only picking up more 'pollen,' but also leaving some behind. At the end of this activity, we took a close look at each of the flowers, and noticed how bees pollinate by spreading pollen from flower to flower. At the end of the week, students worked in groups to research about bees and their life cycle, and began to find ways to display and record their knowledge. We are so excited about our field trip to Mr. Kresko's bee hive next Tuesday. You can find out more about him and his bee keeping here, and/or watch the video below. Other...Thank you so much to all of you for coming out and supporting Mrs. Van and your little one's at the concert this week. We are all so proud of your lovely children, who looked so cute!! I received a lot of thank yous, however they should be sent Kristen's way, as she did all of the heavy lifting for this one ([email protected]). We also discovered a 'new friend,' on campus this week. It was a great way to make connections to our inquiry on camouflage a couple weeks back. Too cool not to share. Looking forward to all that we see at La Ferme d'Ivato next week as well! Here's to another jam packed week of learning,
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Sorry for the doubled up post. It has been a very busy week an a half together. With our chick hatching, me out for a sick day (which has only happened twice in the past 5 years of my career), and the shortened week with the Thanksgiving holiday, things have been a bit wild (and amazing) to say the least. This is a bit of a long one, but I have tried to document our learning pretty well with photos. With that in mind, I will try to keep the words to a minimum (which is hard for me), and let the pictures tell you all about our learning journey over the past two weeks. MathIn Math, we have been looking at linear measurement and data collection. Students have been working on ordering and comparing objects by length. The photos above are of us ordering objects from shortest to longest. I encourage you to try this at home. We are also learning how to measure things using non-standard units. Students used paper clips, tooth picks, and cubes to measure objects in the classroom. We learned that when you measure you need to start at the top or bottom/beginning and end of an object. We also learned that we need to measure things in a straight line, and that objects need to be touching. We learned that we can measure using just one object, by using our fingers and then laying the same object down again. We used a pencil to measure a variety of objects. Please practice this skill at home. I received an awesome email from Nina's mom Candice this week, or her collecting data at home with their baking. I love seeing how learning at school translates to home. How do your children collect data at home? Language ArtsIn Language Arts, we have been learning about the ow/ou and oi/oy digraphs. We have been watching the alphablocks and playing games to practice reading words with these sounds. Unit of Inquiry/Design TechnologyThis year the elementary school classes are taking turns hosting assemblies on half days. On Wednesday, the third grade class shared their learning about their rice unit of inquiry with us. It is so great to see the different learning that is happening in other classes, It's also great to see other students modelling presentation skills. Last week, we wrapped up our learning on the butterfly life cycle. Students used play dough to model the life cycle. In the makers space, we built several things for our butterflies. The students used information that we found on the internet to build a puddling pool for butterflies (pictured above). They also built butterfly feeders to draw butterflies to our gardens to pollinate our vegetable and fruit plants. Some students helped me follow instructions to make nectar with sugar and boiling water. There was a lot going on in our makers space. Right on time, one of our chicks hatched on day 21. It was so exciting! We had lots of visitors come to meet our new friend, and we named him Luno. We talked about how squished he must have been in that egg, and got a box and some bottles to make a home and feeders for him. We had a lot more questions once the chick came, and did lots of research to find answers. The chick had to stay in the incubator to dry off over night, and on the weekend, me and 'my helper' came to move him to his home that we created. We used a brooder to keep him warm like a mother would. We spent the remainder of the week taking great care of little Luno. We were sad that none of his brothers and sisters hatched. We learned that not all eggs are fertilized, and that like seeds, not all things grow. Students were sad that he was on his own, so they brought in mirrors and toys to keep him company. He (or she) is moving to Mr. Joe's house and will be friends with some of his little chicks there. Hatching our chick was a great provocation for exploring eggs. We hard boiled eggs and looked at all of the parts. We were amazed to find out that the embryo survives on the yolk for 21 days. We then cracked open an egg, and looked at all of the different parts. We were amazed to see the germinal disc, and how small it was. We couldn't believe that a chick began as such a little spec. Our egg-sploration concluded with a 'save the egg' design challenge. Students designed a contraption to keep an egg from breaking when dropped from off the balcony. We took a look at the design cycle and remembered that we need to begin with a plan. Students then brought their plans to life by designing their egg drop contraptions. Above are our finished egg drop contraptions. We learned that plans change as people build, make and produce projects. We ended by dropping our eggs off of the balcony. I am happy to say that even off of the high high school balcony none of our eggs broke. As I have mentioned before, we have some very talented engineers in our first grade class.
MathThis week, we introduced Frames and Arrows, a routine that encourages children to find and apply mathematical rules based on counting, addition, and subtraction. Students were shown a Frames-and-Arrows diagram. It consists of frames connected by arrows. Each frame contains a number, and each arrow represents a rule—the arrow rule—that determines which number goes in the next frame. The children were asked to help me fill in the missing numbers using the arrow rule, for the example above to begin. I explained that counting up by 1s is like adding 1 to each number to get the number in the next frame. The rule could also be written as "Add 1" or "+ 1.". We wrote an addition number sentence to help us make this connection and also to see that finding the next number in the sequence is like finding the unknown in an addition or subtraction equation. For example, after we filled in the fourth frame, we wrote 5 + 1 = 6 under the Frames-and-Arrows diagram. After that, we looked at another Frames-and-Arrows diagram with the rule "Count back by 2s." We filled in the first two frames, then the children were asked to help me fill in the missing numbers. We figured out that counting back by 2s is like subtracting 2 from each number to get the next. The rule could also be "Subtract 2" or "– 2." We connected counting back to subtraction with a number sentence. After we filled in the third frame, we wrote 10 – 2 = 8 under the Frames-and-Arrows diagram. We repeated this with several other problems. After some guided practice as a group, partners worked together to solve some problems using a number grid to help them with the more difficult problems. Later in the week, we looked at frames an arrows diagrams with numbers in the frames, but no rule. We worked together (often using the number line) to figure out what the rule was. To support children at home when trying these, provide sentence frames such as:
I always look for meaningful ways in Math to look at the calendar. Measuring time, and elapsed time is an important, yet difficult skill for little learners. Connecting our Math and Literacy to our unit of inquiry, we read 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar,' and mapped out the time that it took the caterpillar to turn into a butterfly. We had to look at the days of the week, talk about what it means to let two weeks go by, and then finally counted the days that it took for metamorphosis. This led to so many other deep questions about how many days there are in a month, as well as some vocabulary questions about the parts of a caterpillar and butterfly. Language ArtsThis week, we wrapped up our learning about soft 'c' and 'g.' We played a lot of games, sorted many words, and also looked for these sounds in our guided reading and around the room. Please continue to look for 'Cinderella C' and 'Gentleman G' when you are reading at home. This week our phonics focus was on the short 'o' sound produced by /aw/ and /au/. Our ability to hear the difference between a short o vowel sound (as in tot) and an aw vowel sound (as in taught) is dependent upon the particular word, upon regional accents, upon the correctness and clarity with which the speaker enunciates, and upon our own hearing acuity. We continue to expect students to spell short 'o' words phonetically, but this is an important digraph to teach so that students know what sound to make when reading. Unit of InquiryAs we are trying to move forward from the plant side our our life cycles unit, we looked back at our 'wonder wall' to make sure that all of our questions/musings about plants had been explored. We noticed that Gabriela and Angéle both had questions about how plants 'eat' or use the sun to make energy. This led us into a simplified look at photosynthesis and the process plants use to create sugar. Students discovered chlorophyll, a key ingredient in photosynthesis. In the simple activity of hammering out leaves, pine needles and other plants and parts of plants, we learned about chlorophyll's role in the process used by plants to make food. We also used some videos to help us develop our understanding of photosynthesis. We learned that plants require light as a form of energy to develop and grow. The way this energy transfer happens is by using chlorophyll. Chlorophyll is the green pigment in plants that is used to trap energy from the sun. Each green part of a plant contains chlorophyll. Chlorophyll helps plants absorb light and convert it into sugar through photosynthesis. It serves a key purpose in the food chain, not only by making food for plants, but by creating food in plants for animal and humans to eat. We hammered leaves over the surface of a paper. The leavess chlorophyll was transferred to the paper. We evaluated this by having students explain orally what, and what colour, chlorophyll is We used a bunch of different leaves. We loved trying the fuzzy ones, long skinny ones, and the fat ones. We even tried pine needles. The kids loved making a gooey mess. I am well aware that this learning is above a first grade level of understanding, but one of the things that we try to do during the inquiry process/cycle is value students questions, musings and inquiries. This type of learning also scaffolds them for learning in the future, and shows our little learners that there are always answers to their questions and ways to explore finding out. Though we are moving on from looking at plants, we will continue to care for our garden for the remainder of the year, looking at various plant life cycles, and how they repeat. Our little learners are very excited to begin looking at insects and animals. This week, we used our research from last week to write information reports on pumpkins. Many of you have asked me about what research looks like in first grade, or how such young students can actually research. I think that research comes naturally to little learners because of their amazing ability to inquire and ask questions. Research is something that I am working on as a teacher this year, and every year, in fact, I do not think that I have ever taught it the same way twice. In the past, my attempts at reacher research have been weak, mostly in "Go Find Out About" types of assignments. This year I really want to work on developing a research process that will help form the building blocks for assignments in upper grades and beyond. Research is truly a life-long skill and it is important to teach a process that caters to young students. The term, “Information Literacy” has been around for some time. There are lots of forward thinking folks out there creating processes and resources for teachers. The problem is that all of these proposed processes seem to be geared toward middle and high school students. In my research, I have found that there is very little out there to help elementary teachers prepare our kids for this vital life skill. With that said, I am taking the following steps (modified from Doug Prouty) this year as a process for guided research projects with your children 1. What do they know? 2. Fill in the Gaps 3. Establish a Desired Understanding 4. Where, What and Who can help us? 5. Explain Assignment and begin Guided Research 6. Discuss Findings, Organize Info, Produce and Share Product 7. What Did They Learn? I encourage all of you to help me in the research process by helping your children find answers to the questions that they ask you. Use YouTube, and picture books to fill in the gaps; help them come up with an essential question (www.questioning.org.) to establish desired understanding, discuss where, what and who can help you find answers (twitter, web searches, and our librarian, Mrs. Lanto are a good start); decide what the best way to share information with your audience is (please feel free to send me photos, videos, posters, or presentations of your home inquires/research, I always make time for sharing). I hope this helps. We will continue to look at this process throughout the year, and create some skilled little researchers in first grade. Please continue to come to me if you have any questions about the process. This time, we have all shared our research in the form of a written report, as this was a guided process, but moving forward, I will be giving your children the agency to make choices for their own research. We dove into learning about the life cycle of a caterpillar this week. We read books, did math, sequenced the cycle, researched, and asked some wonderful questions. Tiffany and Imran even got to experience what it is like to be inside a chrysalis (a student inquiry, photos below). This inquiry also taught us about camouflage and metamorphosis. Design TechnologyI continue to learn so much from our amazing design tech teacher Mr. Joe. I know that I brag about him weekly, but he certainly deserves the praise; he is making me a better teacher, and your children ready for a future where technology is blended into everything that we do.
This week, Mr. Joe brought in his Apple TV so that students could connect their iPads to the projector to teach each other how to use the book creator application in order to document their learning from last week's pumpkin challenge. Students learned about voice recording, formatting photos, using google drive, sharing files, digital publishing, collaboration, making style choices, etc. If you click on your child's name below, you can access the final publications that they made in the Book Creator app. We downloaded them as video files and put them on our Google Drives. I encourage you to download the book creator app on your devices at home and see what your child creates. Seoyeong Sohan Luca Enzo Juliana Soyane Emmy Imara Tifanny Angéle Gabriela Nina If you do not see your child's name above, it may be because they were absent when we did the pumpkin challenge. If that is the case, ask them they who they worked with when putting this together. Some students collaborated very nicely. Happy Halloween
On Halloween, the ASA had a costume parade, pumpkin carving, and door decorating contest. We had so much fun dressing up, and participating in the fun events. Congratulations to Nina for winning 'the most creative costume' award for her cherry pie costume. We were also so proud of Enzo for winning first place in his division for pumpkin carving. Thank you to the parents who sent in sweet treats for us to enjoy on Halloween as well. We had a great day. This week we had an amazing opportunity to Skype with our friend Noah, who will be spending some time in Rome with his family while they are on maternity/paternity leave. It was nice to make global connections to how different things are in different places. We were surprised to hear about how the weather is so different in Rome. We are using Noah's absence as a time to develop our literacy, questioning skills, and international mindset. Students are encouraged to write letters to Noah in his absence. It was so great to reconnect with Noah. We all miss him so much, and are looking forward to when he rejoins us in January. MathOur Math program this week connected so well with our unit of inquiry. We talked about shapes for carving pumpkins, measured our pumpkins, weighed them, and wrote several number stories about pumpkins with unknown numbers in all places of the equation. We continued to focus on using different strategies to solve problems. This week, we continued to focus on the number line and the number grid. We learned that when adding or taking away 10, we can move up and down on the number grid instead of having to count 10 hops forward or back. Language ArtsOur phonics focus this week was on soft 'c' and 'g' sounds (or Cinderella 'c', and Gentleman 'g' as we call them). Student learned that when a 'c' or a 'g' is followed by e, i or y, that they make their soft sound. (c sounds like /s/, g sounds like /j/). Our pumpkin learning took us in a direction that I had not intended to take our literacy program this week. We were supposed to be starting our personal narratives unit, but instead, students were inspired by all of the pumpkin non-fiction books in our class, and some non-fiction features that we have found when researching about them. I wanted to keep the momentum going, so we began to research about pumpkins and write reports. We will finish these next week, and then return to personal narratives. With the intention of writing fiction this week, I reached out to the twitter community to find an author to speak with our class about the writing process, and what it means to be an author. I was so happy to be able to connect with Liz Haske, author of 'When Worry Takes Hold.' She read us her book, and then answered several questions from the first grade and second grade friends about being an author, and writing. It was an awesome experience that I hope to use again in the future. Our little learners loved video chatting this week. Unit of InquiryWe continued to explore the life cycle of a pumpkin this week. On Tuesday afternoon, I had our students use a modified version of the MOSCOW method to plan their own afternoon. I was inspired by a colleague this week to look at what learner agency looks like in my class, and give my students more voice, choice and agency over how, when and what we learn. Moving forward, we will begin to plan our days together in the morning looking at what we must do, should do, could do, and want to do. The new 'enhanced PYP' framework that is being released next year has a large focus on student agency, and I want to get the ball rolling for our little learners to ease them into this new focus.
that's what they saw after several hours, when our submerged leaves started to bubble up. We learned that the leaf is still using the sunlight as part of the photosynthesis process (where leaves convert sunlight to energy). As a leaf created that energy, it needed to get rid of the items that it no longer needed, so it expelled both the extra oxygen during photosynthesis along with water (the release of water from a plant is called transpiration). The process of photosynthesis is what allowed us to see the bubbles -- as the leaf released its' extra oxygen while submerged, the oxygen was seen as bubbles in the water. This was a great way to remind students that plants are living, breathing things. With that said , we had to talk about how a plant, tree or leaf doesn't have any lungs or respiratory system like people. We also looked back at our avocado seeds from before the break. They are starting to grow roots. We learned about how different plants grow at different rates. Design/TechnologyWhile terrifying, with the encouragement from my amazing colleague Mr. Joe, I allowed students to carve their own pumpkins this year (with very close, nail biting, supervision). I was so impressed by how quickly our little learners have become collaborative design thinkers. Your children worked in groups, made a plan, negotiated and communicated, and then took turns to carve, and stabilize their pumpkins. It was a very proud teacher moment for me. By the end of the week, our pumpkins were rotting, but we wanted to learn with them once more. Students again worked in groups to design a machine or catapult to make their jack-o-lantern travel the furthest. Again, your amazing children exceeded my expectations. I couldn't believe the designs they came up with....in fact, it was quite daunting. I think we certainly have some future engineers, scientists, and mathematicians in our class. We also had a lot of fun! Like I said, a lot of learning in a little bit of time.
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March 2018
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