Why Do Leaves Change Color?

First graders were treated to a special lesson by our UVM intern, Ms. Evenson, on why leaves change color in the fall.  They listened to a very informative book on the topic, and observed some creative visual props throughout the reading to help further their understandings.  After the lesson, they colored a paper leaf either red or orange, and then colored over it with green. This was a concrete way to reinforce the concept that the color pigments are in the leaf even when the leaves are still green.  Then the students scraped off the green with a coin to reveal their original color.  Comments were heard around the room such as, "Wow! I learned so much about leaves today!"  

Empathy and Compassion

Our guidance lesson this week focused on having empathy for others as well as showing compassion.  Mrs. Caron, our guidance counselor, lead a great discussion about the importance of the words we choose to use, as well as our body language and tone of our voice when we are interacting with others. She read us a wonderful book called Words Are Not for Hurting and had the students do some role-playing.

Pumpkin Seeds!

One of our math lessons this week focused on estimation and counting large quantities.  We broke up  into two groups, and each had its own pumpkin to use.  The first step was to look at the pumpkin and think about its size, as well as the size of a pumpkin seed, and make an estimation of how many seeds might be inside it.  The next step was to take off the top and look inside, and then make a new estimate, if getting this glimpse changed any of our thinking.  The third step was to count out 50 seeds and again, reassess our estimates based on this new information.  Finally, we got our hands dirty and counted up all of the seeds by putting them into groups of tens after separating them from the "guts"!  

Adding up all of our individual groups. 

And then the students wanted to know how many seeds in all with both pumpkins!!

Wow!!!  That's a lot of pumpkin seeds!!!

Earlier in the day we had read the story of Pumpkin Jack. This inspired the students to do our own experiment of watching our pumpkin carcasses slowly decompose over the year. We placed them behind our classroom just over the fence and are crossing our fingers that they don't get completely eaten by some furry friends!

Skeletons on Display

Her is a sneak peek at our skeletons hanging in the hallway!  Stop by, check them out, and read the great advice our first graders would give to this character to get rid of the hiccups!!

Halloween Math

It may have been a day late, but who doesn't like a little fun Halloween math with ghosts and pumpkins?!  Students filled a booklet with addition equations that were built by taking handfuls of tiny ghosts and pumpkins and dumping them onto a haunted house mat.  Next, they counted up the totals of each, wrote an equation and figured out all of the sums.

As a challenge for their final page, they could dump the entire bag of ghosts and pumpkins onto the house and find the (big!) totals!!  Lots of fun in our room today!!

Skeleton's Hiccups

Today first graders listened to a fun story about a skeleton who just couldn't get rid of the hiccups. After many suggestions from his friend, Ghost, he was finally able to get rid of them (ask your child how!). Students came up with and wrote their own suggestions to give Skeleton, and then created their own skeleton art!  Look for these fun projects to be hanging in our hallway soon!!