8 Days of First Grade!

Greetings from Room 109!

Wow! It is so hard to believe that we have only been in school for 8 days - it feels more like 8 weeks because my unique firsties have already learned a bunch! (By the way, unique is our vocabulary word of the week.)

Here are some of the things we've been doing:

• building stamina when we read our 100 BC books
• problem solving
• learning to develop strong listening and speaking skills
• monitoring the progress of a chrysalis
• interacting with Oliver Button, our classroom chinchilla
• working together cooperatively with partners and small groups
• more problem-solving!
• raising money for a our Fall Fundraiser
• reading exemplary books
• exploring our number wall
• MORE problem solving
• creating an "Insect Inquiry" club during recess
• laughing and dancing
• creating memories
• and much, much more!

Here are some photos from the first week and a half:

School Starts Tomorrow!

Excitement! Tomorrow is the first day of first grade for a whole bunch of curious, friendly students. We'll get started bright and early in the morning, so everyone be sure to get a good night's sleep!

Here are just a few reminders, helpful hints, etc. to help you get ready for our first grade adventure:

• Remember to bring a small, healthy snack and a water bottle.
• All students will go directly to their classrooms on Monday and Tuesday mornings.
• Traffic will be more convoluted than a pirate's treasure map, so plan to leave you house sooner rather than later.
• Please send a note of your child's afternoon transportation will be different from what you told me at "Meet the Teacher."
• I will put together my students' binders tomorrow afternoon, after school. Those should come home on Tuesday. The binder is important! It comes home everyday and is returned to school the next day.

Finally, here is our activity schedule for this year:

Monday = Library or Guidance
Tuesday = Computer Lab
Wednesday = Art
Thursday = Music
Friday = PE  **Students must wear tennis shoes on Fridays.

See you all tomorrow! :)

Ready to Set Sail!

School supplies, backpacks, lunchboxes, new shoes ... it must be that time of the summer that inevitably comes around every year: We're heading Back to School! I'm ready to meet my new group of first graders and looking forward to an exciting year of exploration and discovery. We're going to have a WONDER-ful adventure!

Here is a little bit about me: I graduated from Converse College (a LONG time ago) with a Master's Degree in Early Childhood and Elementary Education. I've been teaching in District 2 for 21 years, and everyone calls me "Mrs. Mac." My family includes an Irish husband, two amazing daughters, three cats and a chinchilla named Oliver Button. (Ollie comes to school with me everyday to entertain my class!) I love, love, love to read, and my favorite color is blue. And most importantly, I am so blessed to be a teacher! Children are precious gifts, and I treasure my time spent guiding each new group of students through the wonders of first grade.

I can't wait to meet everyone! See you soon!

Water, Water Everywhere, and Not A Drop To Drink ...OR IS THERE?

Congratulations to my inquisitive and hardworking first graders! We completed our unit on water by creating a non-fiction magazine about water. If you remember, our Driving Question was:

If water covers most of the Earth's surface, why is only a small portion used for drinking?

Through 5 weeks of wondering, exploring and researching, we discovered that clean drinking water is a scarcity in many places around the world. My class chose to focus on the country of Kenya, and what we discovered was mind-boggling! Here are some of the facts we uncovered:

Facts About Water In Kenya

 

        - More than 4500 children die everyday because of the scarcity of safe drinking water.

 

        - Some women and children in Kenya spend spend as much 6 hours a day collecting water!   

          Therefore, many children do not have a chance to attend school.

        - 80% of sicknesses and diseases is caused by water filled with pollutants.
 

HOWEVER, after further research we found some really exciting, uplifting news!

        - In September 2013, an enormous aquifer was discovered 300 meters underground in Kenya.

          That's the length of three football fields! They have to dig wells to reach it.

        - This aquifer would be able to provide water for the country's 41 million people for the next 70

          years.

 

 

Here are links to some of the websites we used for research:

 

http://thewaterproject.org/wells-for-kenya.php

 

http://water.org/country/kenya/

 

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/10/131002-kenya-aquifer-lotikipi-groundwater/

 

And, finally.... ta da! Here are our finished products!

 

 





 

 

 

 

Would YOU drink water from a mud puddle?

Water can be polluted by many things - bugs, dirt, leaves, animal droppings, litter, etc. My class and I decided to make a water filter to see how effective it could be. Check out these incredible before and after pictures!

Gathering Water - Take Two!

Our first attempt to collect water took 18 minutes and 16 seconds by the time we got back to our village (aka: classroom). I explained that a lot of children in third world countries don't get to go to school because they spend most of the day collecting water! So, we discussed ways we could make our task easier and faster. My students came up with their top three suggestions:

           

                     1. Take a more direct route to the water source 

                     2. Use buckets with lids to prevent spillage

                     3. Find a mode of transportation that utilizes wheels

Thus, we mapped out the best route, traded our big blue buckets for smaller ones with lids, and borrowed a cart! We were ready to try again, hopefully taking less time.



Collecting water for the second time!

This takes teamwork.

 

Showing off our improved transportation.

Time is ticking off the clock!



Wow! What a race! In our second attempt to gather water, we finished in 8 minutes and 14 seconds! Congratulations to my fabulous firsties! They were so excited and proud. :) More importantly, my students really got an idea of how the daily struggle to get fresh drinking water can impact education in third world countries.

 

 

 

 

Different Bodies of Water

 

Our next BIG lesson: comparing different bodies of water. If so much of our earth is covered with water, why can only a small percentage be used for drinking? Our students examined and compared:

• fresh water and salt water
• water from a tap, a pond, a river, and a puddle
• different forms of water

In the course of our investigation, we wanted students to realize why river water was so different from pond water. So... we built a river in our Wonder Room and let the discussion flow!

 

 

 

 

 

 

A river runs through Oakland Elementary!

 

 

 

 

Students took notes on their observations.

 

 

 

 

Here is the mouth of our river.

 

 

 

My students were delighted with their river and made wonderful discoveries. Some of the exclamations overheard:

 

"Look, the river flows down into the bucket."

 

"The water is pushing the sand."

 

"Those rocks made a dam and the water is going over like a waterfall!"

 

and (after adding some paper balls to our river),

 

"When water flows over the rocks, the garbage gets trapped so the water stays clean."

 

 

Boy, talk about hands-on experience! Back in the classroom, students reasoned that river water moves and that keeps it fresh and clean compared to pond water which is stagnant! Yes - stagnant - we learned that great word!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Water, Water Everywhere, and Not a Drop to Drink

Wonderful wet water! My first graders are "soaking" up facts about water as fast as they can! We have started a quest to discover why fresh, clean water is such a scarcity. If so much of our earth is covered with water, why is only a small portion used for drinking?

We "dove" right in by watching a short video clip from a book called One Well: The Story of Water on Earth, by Rochelle Strauss. See the link below!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6m_3omxat1Y



 

My students were amazed by this video and immediately started asking a thousand questions! So I read an informational book to them and we began creating a Noticings Chart with facts about water.

Within 2 days, we completely filled up our chart because we were flooded with information!

 

 

 

Next, I showed the class a video on Wonderolpolis (see link below).

 

http://wonderopolis.org/wonder/how-much-water-do-you-need-to-survive/

 



 

We found out that it is not unusual for people in Africa to walk for 3 hours just to collect a bucket of water. 3 HOURS! We decided to have our own "water gathering" adventure. We pretended to be villagers in Africa and our job was to collect several buckets of water. We "traveled" to a bathroom on the other side of school Once we got there, we had to use smaller cups to fill up the larger buckets. Then we had to get all the way back to our classroom without spilling a drop!

 

 



The "Tribes" are ready to collect water!











Heading back to our "village"