New W.O.W -Ridiculous!!

Our new word of the week is ridiculous!  We had such a fun time reading a ridiculous book called A Pig Parade Is A Terrible Idea. By Michael Ian Black.  This story inspired such a crazy, creative conversation that I thought I would share some of it!
Please excuse the angle of this video!

Making the best of indoor recess!

We have had a few indoor recesses lately.  Although we would rather be outside, we have had a great time inside too! Lots of creativity going on during these times!!

This detailed map was so spectacular!!

A very challenging memory game!  Everyone played with excellent sportsmanship!

Happy three day weekend!

The students and I have had a great week and a half together in school.  We are enjoying learning and exploring together.  I have been collecting some pictures along the way and would love to share them with you.

In theme, we have been studying plants.  We have been learning all the parts of a seed and plant.  We are also conducting a new experiment about what a plant needs to survive.  We have made predictions on what we think may happen to our flowers that will not be receiving all their basic needs as plants.

We began our unit with exploring parts of a seed:  embryo, seed coat, and food storage. Then we placed bean seeds in a wet paper towel and placed them in our window to sprout!  We loved watching the roots grow!  A couple of them even grew a little stem and leaf!

Most of our bean plants are off to a great start!

Our latest plant experiment:

What will happen to a plant without air?

What will happen to a plant without water?

What will happen to a plant without soil?

What will happen to a plant without sunlight?

What will happen to a plant that receives all of the above?

Stay tuned!

Roll Tens

There was a lot of counting going on in our classroom today!  Counting by tens and then adding on the single ones. We have become master counters!!  The game we played today was called Roll Tens.  It is played with a partner and each takes turns rolling the dice, finding the total, and adding that amount of cubes to the mat.  The cubes are put into strips of ten, and the goal is to collect 100 in all, filling the mat.  On each turn, the player had to count up the total amount of cubes collected, and record this.  For an extra challenge students could also figure out how many more cubes they would need to get to 100.  This was optional but many rose to the challenge!

Opinion Writing Celebration

First graders concluded their opinion writing unit with a celebration today!  In the morning they chose their favorite piece from the unit and designed a cover for it.  Then, at the end of the day both first grade classes got together to share their reviews and opinions on many different topics. It was quite  interesting to listen in and hear the many strong opinions we have amongst our first graders!

Deigning our covers...

Sharing and listening...