Martin Luther King Jr. Day School-Wide Meeting

Today our class and Ms. Barnett's class led the school-wide meeting focused on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Our class spent lots of time last week learning about Martin Luther King Jr in preparation for today. We read books, watched a short video, did response to literature writing, learned a song, and discussed some big words such as racism, segregation, boycott, protest, civil rights, and equality. Our class did a really great job discussing and understanding what Martin Luther King Jr did to help create a better world for all of us today! At school wide meeting today our class and Ms. Barnett's led the school in a peace greeting (greeting each other with the sign language symbol for peace), our class led the school in a song about Martin Luther King Jr, and Ms. Barnett's class shared some writing they did about MLK. This was a really great way to spend the holiday at school learning about Dr. King. Below are a few photos of our classes leading the assembly today.

Nonfiction Writing Research

First graders are currently studying nonfiction reading and writing as one of our big focuses this trimester. Students are now familiar with the differences between fiction and nonfiction, as well the differences between literary and technical nonfiction. They have spent quite a bit of time learning to research nonfiction topics of interest (in books and online) and write the facts they find in their own words to create their own nonfiction "all about" books. Last week students teamed up in partnerships or groups of three to choose an animal to research and start work on a digital "all about" book using Google Presentation (Google Slides). Everyone is very engaged in this project and I am so excited to see the digital books take shape! The kids have been spending writing time each day meeting with their group to research their animal, take notes on their favorite facts (in their own words -- the kids have been really focused on this and doing an excellent job!), and starting to turn their notes into slides in their Google Presentation. The student groups chose the following animals for their writing research: tiger, opossum, duck, zebra, chick (kids are already getting excited about the chick hatching unit we will do in May!), mountain lion, scorpion, and shark. Stay tuned for the finished products! We hope to be able to share them online when they are finished. Here are photos of the groups doing research and note taking. It is unbelievable to me how much these first graders have grown in half a year!

This slideshow personalized with Smilebox

Mapping

Over the past week (since returning from break) we have been hard at work learning more about maps and mapping in first grade! All year we have been referring to the two big maps on our wall (a world map and a USA map) as we have been making blog and Twitter connections in the USA and globally. Then in December we started a unit focused on mapping, which we connected to different major December holidays that happen around the world. Since returning from break we have been very focused on maps of different places (earth, our continent, our country, our state, etc), and the cardinal directions and compass rose (the class thinks that the Never Eat Soggy Waffles trick to remembering the cardinal directions is the funniest thing ever and they have been making up other phrases for it). We will soon start learning about map keys and different types of maps and how they are used (ie weather maps, political maps, street maps, relief maps, etc).

This and last week our class has been adding a map each day to their "lapbook" (the folder they create for each science/social studies unit containing all of their work). As a class we looked at Google maps and Google earth learning how we can start with a map of the earth then zoom in to see our continent, our country, our state, our town, and even our school building, then zoom out again! We had a lot of fun with these tools on our smartboard and I encouraged students to try using them at home to zoom in on their home address! At school we zoomed in to see our school, the Burnham Library (where we had walked on a field trip) and the Village Scoop! Students added maps of the world, North America, the USA, Vermont, and Colchester, and our school to their lapbooks. Today we created maps of our classroom! 

Below are a few photos of students with some of their maps. Our class is having a lot of fun with this unit and I see kids spending a lot of time with our big wall maps figuring out where things are. They are learning so much!

Personalize your own free slideshow design