We are getting close to the end of our study of solids and liquids and the class has learned so much! This week we focused on the properties of liquids. We explored bottles of different liquids and named their properties, wrote liquid riddles (ex- I am viscous, I am opaque, I stick things together. what am I?), and did two experiments. First we did a liquid race to see which would be fastest and slowest out of water color paint, tempera paint, and glue. Today we made oobleck (corn starch and water). These experiments helped us to explore the viscosity of liquid! You can ask your child about viscosity and what the word viscous means tonight and they will be able to tell you!
Here is a slideshow of photos from the week:
http://www.photosnack.com/HeidiKelly/liquids.html
Wednesday, November 18, 2015
Thursday, November 12, 2015
Solids and Liquids
During the month of November first graders are studying about solids and liquids during our science/social studies theme time. Below are photos of students learning about the properties of solids, determining some solids that have these properties, and creating riddles for different solids using these properties as descriptors. Stay tuned for similar photos of the class working with liquids next week! Vocabulary words we have been working on so far include solid, liquid, gas, matter, mixture, solution, rigid, flexible, rough, smooth, soft, and hard. We will add words like viscous, transluscent, transparent, foamy, and bubbly next week when we focus more on liquids.
Scholastic News
Every Friday our class has been reading Scholastic News magazine together working with it both digitally and in a hard copy. It is a great, fun way to learn about nonfiction topics and text features and each week has a new relevant topic. Last Friday we read about Veterans' Day then revisited the topic yesterday on Veterans' Day!
Tuesday, November 3, 2015
Kid Blogs
Our KidBlogs are up and running! Last week students in our class started learning how to create a blog post and at this point have at least one post written. This week students are learning how to make a comment on a friend's blog post.
We have begun discussing what it means to be good digital citizens by being kind, appropriate, and safe about what we put on the internet. We have also started learning about what makes for a good post and a good comment on a friend's post.
A quality post should have a title and tell some specific information on one topic in the body of the text (keeping in mind being kind, appropriate, and safe about personally identifying information). A quality comment should be related to the friend's post and give a specific compliment, add new information, make a connection, or ask a question. Both a comment and a post should be proof read before it is published!
Kids can use their KidBlogs at home by clicking the link at the right side of this blog under "student links," clicking on their name in the drop down menu, and entering their password, which is their last name beginning with a capital letter.
Parents should be able to comment on their children's posts by viewing the blogs as a guest (kids love reading comments from family members as well as friends). Kidblog's format and privacy settings were updated over the summer so it is possible that entering comments as a guest may have changed. If you try to comment on your child's blog as a guest please let me know how it goes. I am curious to see if it still works and hopeful that it does!
We have begun discussing what it means to be good digital citizens by being kind, appropriate, and safe about what we put on the internet. We have also started learning about what makes for a good post and a good comment on a friend's post.
A quality post should have a title and tell some specific information on one topic in the body of the text (keeping in mind being kind, appropriate, and safe about personally identifying information). A quality comment should be related to the friend's post and give a specific compliment, add new information, make a connection, or ask a question. Both a comment and a post should be proof read before it is published!
Kids can use their KidBlogs at home by clicking the link at the right side of this blog under "student links," clicking on their name in the drop down menu, and entering their password, which is their last name beginning with a capital letter.
Parents should be able to comment on their children's posts by viewing the blogs as a guest (kids love reading comments from family members as well as friends). Kidblog's format and privacy settings were updated over the summer so it is possible that entering comments as a guest may have changed. If you try to comment on your child's blog as a guest please let me know how it goes. I am curious to see if it still works and hopeful that it does!
Community Helpers
At the end of last week our class finished our social studies theme unit on community helpers. Students took their lapbooks (folders of work) for the unit home and we made the iMovie below. Students chose a community helper they would like to be, drew it, wrote about why they would like to be that type of helper, and then recorded their section of the iMovie. Check it out!
This week we moved on to a science unit on solids and liquids! Stay tuned for more information on our new learning!
Monday, November 2, 2015
First Grade Curriculum Video
Check out the Youtube video the first grade teachers just put together! We created it to highlight the key information about the curriculum we teach in first grade. You can find the link on the top right side of my blog above the student links.
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