Shark Research Continues...

We are having a blast learning to research sharks in room 5! We started by reading lots of books about sharks and taking notes as a class. We then moved on to writing down our lingering questions about sharks and trying out internet research to find answers to our questions. After a couple weeks of research we identified chapters we would want to have in an "All About Sharks" book and organized our class notes under those headings (types of sharks, body parts and teeth, shark pups, food, cool facts, and parts of a shark/diagram).

This week students began using our organized class notes to write pages for their own individual "All About Sharks" books. You can see some of the pages from one student's book featured below. We are planning to finish and bind these books at the end of next week to take home!

Today we started an additional, techy part of our grand shark project. Colchester schools have individual Google accounts for every student in the district and students make use of these more and more as they progress through the grades (I will begin teaching this class to use their individual accounts after April break -- for now they all work on one class account). I began working with groups of students on their first ever Google Slides presentation today! They will be working together in groups to create digital "All About Sharks" books that we will share online before April break. Below are some photos of the two groups who met today to begin work on this collaborative tech project. Be sure to ask your child about our shark research at home! We are learning so much and having a fantastic time doing it!

Erupting Volcano in Mexico!

First graders have been learning many fascinating things about Mexico over the last month and a half. Our main focus during the unit is on Mexican culture and how it is similar and different to our own. We have a connection with a first grade class in Monterrey, Mexico and we have been communicating with them through email, photos, and video. We are planning to Skype with them before April break.

In addition to learning about Mexican culture we are also learning some neat things such as what the weather, land, and animals are like in Mexico. Today we read and watched clips from a PBS video about the migration of monarch butterflies from Canada and the USA to Mexico each year. We also learned that one of Mexico's volcanoes, nicknamed Popo, erupted this week! Here is a short video clip of Popo erupting hot ash and gases!

Popo erupting

Research in Action

We have been researching sharks as a whole class for the past two weeks and today kids partnered up to try doing some research on their own! We came up with a list of shark questions kids were interested in researching and partners used Chromebooks and the search engines "Kiddle" and "Kidrex" (there are links to these at the right side of this blog) to try to find some of the answers. We had lots of fun and learned many new things! Next week kids will begin writing their own "All About Sharks" books with information from all of our research.

Blog Buddies

Today our class started blogging with buddies! I have a connection with a first grade teacher in Danville and our classes are going to be pen pals via blog for the rest of the school year. This morning we did Skype with their class so the kids could meet their buddy and this afternoon I taught our class how to connect with them via blog. Kids can certainly do this from home over the weekend if they want to give it a try! 

Kids all have one day a week where they blog in class and are welcome to do more outside of school too. We are very excited to now have an authentic audience to write to beyond our classroom! Thank you, also, to the parents who have joined us on Kid Blog!

Kids can access Kid Blog under Student Links at the right side of this blog then log in as usual. They should then scroll down to where there is a section called "Connections" on the right side of their Kid Blog. Danville School First Grade is listed as one of our connections! Students can click on that then find their buddy's name to check out their posts. The buddies are listed below.


Blog Buddies

Alex, Hannah

Kayden, Liam C and Addison (Addison is a girl)

Alyssa R, Zoey and Jacey

Nolan, Liam F and Paige

Brennan, Michael

Gunnar, Boden and Jayson

Ella, Madison and Milla

Austin, Grayson

Madison G, Allie and Eli

Nick, Jackson and Lucas

Gracie, Lucy

Carly, Mattea and Aubrianna

Keagan, Isaac

Aiden, Ethan

Book Fair

Just a reminder, the UMS spring book fair is next week! Monday and Tuesday during school are the preview days then Tuesday and Wednesday evening and Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday during the day are times to purchase books.

Shark Tracking!

As we research sharks in class for our nonfiction reading and writing unit we are also doing a few other "sharky" things! I want to quickly share the website http://www.ocearch.org/ which we are using to track sharks! Check it out!

Circus Smirkus

Last week UMS had two professional circus artists from Circus Smirkus here at school teaching kids about circus arts! Many of the kids were part of the performance on Friday night though, sadly, a number of us (including me) were quite sick and not able to go! I am including some photos taken at school during practice, some from the show (sent to me by another teacher), and a video of the school singing their circus song (also recorded by another teacher. Enjoy!


Circus song video

 Opening Assembly

Practice during the week

Performance