Filling Our Buckets Through Acts of Kindness

We read another wonderful book today that reminded us about what it means to be a "bucket filler". We learned that really all it takes to help fill others' buckets as well as keep our own full are acts of kindness.  We feel so much happier and pleasant when we do kind thins for others and when others do kind things to us. Together we brain-stormed many examples of acts of kindness, both big and small.  We realized that even just smiling at someone can add some "water" to their bucket. 

In our classroom we started a "Kindness Chain" today. For their first links in the chain, each student wrote a way that they were kind to someone over the vacation week.  We hope to watch our chain grow and grow over the next weeks!!!

How Many Fingers...?

Our math challenge today was to figure out how many fingers there would be in different sized groups of hands.  For example, how many fingers would there be in a group of 4 hands?  First graders modeled the problem with actual hands, they drew pictures, used manipulatives, added groups of fives, and/or counted by fives to solves these problems.  Great math thinking!!

An African Savanna Mural

While spending a wonderful week with Artists in Residence, Jeh Kulu, first graders did a little additional learning about Africa.  They especially loved learning about the animals!  At the end of the week we read Honey, Honey, Lion! by Jan Brett.  It is set in Africa and readers meet a lot of native animals throughout the story. As a culminating activity to our week, students created a mural of an African savanna complete with a diverse array of animals.  Stop and see it hanging just outside our classroom!

Which Painting is the Best??

First graders have been learning about Opinion Writing.  Before our April break they had the opportunity to go on an art walk to look closely at three famous paintings and make the tough decision of which one they thought was the best.  Their next task was to write a piece to share their opinions and to try and persuade others to think they they do. 

Jeh Kulu

Exploring the Space

First graders have been exploring space a little bit this week.  We've been learning the names of the 8 planets in our solar system, their order from the sun out, and thier sizes. We did a sort and ordered them all by size, and then named them.  They are loving this space stuff!

Things That Come in Groups

During math this week first graders have been solving problems about things that come in groups of 2s. For example, do you know how many elbows there are in a group of 4 people?!