American Symbols Wonder Project

I love this time of year...for so many reasons; warmer weather, longer days, American symbols! If  you are wondering how that last one fits in, read on!

This time of year (with Memorial Day, Flag Day, and Fourth of July around the corner) we start to learn about our country and the symbols that represent our freedom, democracy, and our nation. The children learn songs that they will perform during our Flag Day show and we get to partner up with Mrs. Groden in the library to work on a research project that we call the First Grade Wonder Project! Our Wonder Project helps us research, write, and share all we have learned about the American Symbols!

This is a very hands on project. Children work in groups of 2. They pick a symbol and use an online research tool called  Pebble Go and library resources to learn about a symbol. They take notes, write a short paragraph, draw a picture and share their learning using an I Pad slide show app.

Here is a sneak peak at our hard work so far!

Researchers Hard at Work:

Taking Notes and Writing Sentences:

Working on Pictures:

We are so excited to share our finished project with you at our Flag Day Open House!! Stay tuned!

Stony Brook

We had a WONDERFUL day of  learning at Stony Brook Wildlife Sanctuary! The weather was perfect and the children were beyond excited to get out and experience the natural habitats that are found all around us. We took a nature walk and looked for all sorts of living things. We learned all about the forest, pond, and meadow habitat and the organisms that live in and around each of those habitats. Each group had a Stony Brook guide that lead us through each habitat and taught us about the specific animals that call each habitat home!

Pond
This was a favorite spot! We walked along the boardwalk and looked for turtles, frogs, and fish. We learned about snapping turtles and discovered they eat lots of things like berries, insects, and even other turtles!

Meadow
The first thing we noticed here were the family of geese pecking for food. We made sure not to bother them as we walked through the field. We learned  about coyotes and foxes and that some of the things they eat are rabbits, worms, and snakes. We saw some nesting birds, a beehive, and even few garder snakes!

Forest
There was a LOT of forest to explore at Stony Brook. We learned about the different trees and how to tell how old a tree is. We looked for half eaten pine cones and little caterpillars. We searched for pill bugs and learned that pill bugs eat rotting wood and other rotting insects.

The children had a great time on this field trip! Thank you so much for the parent chaperones that helped make the day even more enjoyable. Stony Brook has so many great things to offer including summer camps and family programs. If you haven't been yet, or maybe you haven't visited in awhile, you should check it out!

What's in a Book?

Welcome back! I hope you all had a wonderful, relaxing, memorable time during your April vacation. We were lucky enough to take a family road trip this year to Myrtle Beach. We had a blast! Lots of beach time and plenty of sun. We were hoping to bring some of it back with us :)

Now onto the happenings here at school. We had a really productive week back. Throughout the year first graders continue to learn, model, and apply all kinds of reading strategies. When we read the key is understanding what we are reading. Some ways we can show our understanding include summarizing, analyzing, inferring, and even critiquing. We use these skills orally during and after read alouds, in small groups during guided reading, and independently in our reader's response journals.

Here are a few ways we are demonstrating and applying our reading comprehension skills...

Author's Purpose

This is a big one! Children learn that motivating every story, article, or text they encounter is the author's purpose. Is the author trying to persuade us, are they trying to inform us, or are they trying to entertain us? We use the acronym PIE to give children the vocabulary they need to distinguish why an author is writing a piece. It's also a great connection to the writing we have done. During small moments our purpose was to entertain. During our nonfiction unit our purpose was to inform. Now in our opinion writing unit our purpose is to persuade! It's magical when they start to recognize the reading/writing connection!

Character Traits

We continue to work on character traits throughout the year. Children learn to make connections between characters based on similar traits. We make predictions about how a main character might act based upon their character traits. We look for evidence in the books we hear and read to support our opinions about character.

After reading a book, this group is creating a list of character traits to describe

the main character.

Looking for evidence to support his thinking!

Inference

Children can think about what motivates a character, how a character is feeling, and interpret actions by inferring. We can use the words and illustrations to interpret meaning. By inferring children can also gain a deeper understanding of cause and effect. 

This group is using illustration from a text to gain a better understanding of how the character's
feeling are changing throughout the story.

Thanks for stopping by and taking a sneak peak at how we learn. You can practice all of these strategies at home too! The key is to get your child talking about stories, connecting to characters, and ultimately gaining a deeper understanding of story elements!! 

Visiting Author David Biedrycki

April showers bring May flowers! At Memorial school April brings a whole lot more! This week we had an exciting visit from Medfield's very own David Biedrycki! Mr. Biedrycki is a famed children's author and illustrator. We got to meet him, learn about his writing process, and see first hand how he illustrates digitally.

Check out our pictures AND his website!

Meeting Author David Biedrycki

Mr. Biedrycki showed us some of the books he's authored and illustrated. You may have heard of a few of these!  

We learned how he keeps a notebook under his bed so that he can write down all of his story book ideas as they come to him, even the ones he dreams about! We also learned that he does a lot of research when he's getting ready to write. He researched beetles for all of his Ace Lacewing books, bears for his book Bear Alert, and ocean animals for Dory Story!

We even got a digital sneak peak at one of his newer books called Bear Alert. You can get a copy at Park Street Books!

Anyone recognize this terrified diner?

This author's visit was so much fun! A big thank you to CSA, Mrs. Groden, and of course David Biedrycki for making this possible!!!

April, Is that You?

It's no joke...we've actually made it to April! Now if only the weather would catch up to us :) That said, we have been as busy as bees in here! This time of year brings along new units of study and renewed energy. This week has been no exception with a visit from Stony Brook, the start of our Persuasive writing unit, and an introduction to geometry.

Here is a little peak at what our week looked like:

Stony Brook
During science we have continued learning about organisms and their habitats. We have planted our seeds and are watching them closely to see the first sprouts! As we learn about habitats we focus on the habitats that are found here in Massachusetts including ponds, meadows, and forests. We will get to explore all of these during our upcoming field trip to Stony Brook.

This week we had a visitor from Stony Brook come to our class and teach us a little more about the habitats we would get to visit on our field trip. We learned about the animals that live in each of the habitats and we even got to meet a little friend.

Brainstorming about habitats...

 Working in groups to draw habitats found near us...

Sharing our posters with the class...

 And finally, making a new friend...

 Persuasive Writing
Today was our very first day learning about how writers write about their opinions and try to persuade or convince others with their writing. We started by judging our very own collection and deciding which item in our collection was our  favorite.  We started an anchor chart to help us think about how to judge fairly and how to give reasons for our opinion. The children just love this unit of writing. They get to show and tell about something that is special to them and they get to try to persuade others of their opinions! Day 1 was so much fun!

Judging our collections...

Geometry
We are learning all about 2-dimensional shapes during math! This unit is so hands on...the children really enjoy it. We will learn how to put shapes together to form new shapes and take them apart to decompose larger shapes. Children will learn how to use attributes to describe different pattern block shapes. We will look for and  notice shapes in our environment and learn language for comparing various 2D shapes.


Fill ins...

Games...

So glad you stopped by to learn more about our week! 

Enjoy the long weekend ahead and Happy Easter if you celebrate!