Happy Spring and Happy April! Can you believe we have just over 40-some days of first grade left??? It's not that I'm counting to see how quickly summer will come, but I'm panicking about how much we still need to accomplish! It is truly amazing how quickly the time flies and how much the children grow and learn throughout the year.
In February and March, we studied Ghana and learned about the homes, music, folk tales, clothing, food, and more. We were fortunate enough to have all kinds of special events toward the end of our unit. We tie-dyed our shirts and were able to "batik" them using beautiful stamps that were made for us by Ethan Michael's mother (Jessica Michael's is an upper school art teacher here). Ethan's grandmother (pictured above) also came to work with us as she was a first grade teacher for years and years who just happened to also study Africa! She taught us some dances, let us wear some costumes, and played authentic music as we explored the different musical instruments and moves. We also got together with the middle school music teacher, Mrs. Altman, and some of the fifth graders and Mr. Piper. We were able to do some drumming and dancing there too. Mrs. Altman visited Ghana a few times, so she shared some slides and personal stories with us too. Overall, our trip to Ghana was a bit quick, but we learned many new things - especially about how HOT it is there!
Our reading is buzzing along beautifully. As the children read during our Daily-5 and Cafe rounds, I meet with them and we discuss their strengths and the strategies they need to work on. We all continue to work on checking for understanding as that is the backbone of all reading. The kids all have personal skills they are working on also. Ask your child to see if he/she remembers their skill - they should work on it whenever they are reading either at home or at school. We have been focusing on descriptive words and using those in our writing. The kids wrote a descriptive how-to piece about making a snowman and now we are working on using descriptive words in a cinquain about our favorite food. The Junie B. Jones book we are reading aloud has the children writing cinquains in it, so this is fitting beautifully together.
In math, we finished chapter 6 before break and started chapter 7. This week we will finish chapter 7 and will be taking the test (it was a very short chapter). Chapter 7 focused on geometry and the names and characteristics of both 2 and 3 dimensional shapes. We even made shapes out of straws and twist-ties. We also talked about symmetry during this unit.
Overall, we are back and have started our last stretch of the school year with a bang. We will be packing for our trip to Brazil this week and getting ready to learn about the rain forest and it's inhabitants. The children came back from break rested and ready to work. Hope you are all doing well!
Mrs. Ptak
1 comment:
Nora just shared her cinquain about candy with me this evening. She really loved learning about them and was so excited to tell me about the ones you read in Junie B.
I also heard all about symmetry and she found everything she could in her room that was symmetrical. She may have been trying to avoid going to sleep, but it was fun to hear about all the great learning going on in first grade nonetheless!
Thanks for all your hard work!
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