I hope everyone enjoyed a nice holiday and a restful (maybe?!) vacation week. It was wonderful to see the children bustle back into school again. January always brings renewed energy for all the learning still ahead of us. Get ready to learn lots more about...
- Word Study: Glued sounds (am, an, all, ing, ang, onk, ank, etc.) and base word/suffixes (cat / cats; pond / ponds; block / blocks).
- Science: We kicked off a new science unit about Sound and Light last week! In the coming weeks, we will engage in scientific discoveries just like real scientists... thinking, questioning, testing, exploring, observing, discussing and recording our findings. A unit summary from the FOSS (Full Option Science System) is below. We are excited!
This module provides experiences that help students develop an understanding of how to observe and manipulate the phenomena of sound and light. They explore these dimensions of the natural world using simple tools and musical instruments. The driving question for the module is how do sound and light interact with objects?
Students learn that sound comes from vibrating objects. They explore how to change sound volume and pitch, and develop simple models for how sound travels from a source to a receiver. With light, students also work with sources and receivers. They find out what happens when materials with different properties are placed in a beam of light, and explore how to create and change shadows and reflections. Students explore how to use sound and light devices to communicate information and compare the ways that animals use their senses (ears and eyes) to gather information about their environment.
- Mystery Science: We are also accessing some very cool learning videos via MYSTERY SCIENCE to broaden our scope. We look forward to their updates each week!
- Live Bald Eagle Cam! - Have you heard from your first grader about the Berry College live bald eagle camera down in Georgia? If not, take a peek - Eagle Cam. The eagle pair have been prepping their nest and should be laying eggs any day now. We are all crazy-excited to watch this fantastic duo as they begin another nesting cycle. Fun stuff!
- Writers Workshop: We will embark upon our new Non-Fiction/Informational writing unit soon which ties in super nicely with our winter science and social studies topics. Stay tuned!
- Reading Comprehension: The children are doing an amazing job with their reading, and we are ramping up our work with reading comprehension, including lots more practice with retelling a given story part by part, identifying and discussing character traits, and distinguishing between the important vs. interesting parts of our books, both fiction and non-fiction.
- Math: We had a BIG lesson today about the = symbol, what it means and how we can use it to determine whether an equation is true or false. This may sound simple, but it was a brain-stretching discussion indeed! We continue our work on math story problems, and solving for the missing "unknown" numbers, which includes solving all kinds of addition/subtraction problems while manipulating larger numbers (within 20). Our discussions have been centered A LOT on understanding the complex language that can be presented in story problems and how that makes our work even more tricky. It's good stuff!
- Social/Emotional Learning: We continue to focus on the key themes in our Choose To Be Nice Program - kindness, responsibility, acceptance and lots more. Each day in Room 10 brings us many opportunities to celebrate (and troubleshoot) how we are doing individually, in pairs or small groups and as a whole team. Our upcoming study about Martin Luther King will open many more discussions and chances for growth.
- SeeSaw: We haven't left it behind! Stay tuned for more SeeSaw highlights soon.
We are excited to have parent volunteers join us in the classroom. As a reminder, know that your questions are always welcome at any time about any part of our work here in Room 10!