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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ASA First GradersWe are caring, balanced , reflective, openminded, risk-taking, knowledgeable, principled, thinkers, communicators, inquirers, explorers and learners. Archives
March 2018
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