First Grade News
End of September
Science! Here's what we've been up to:
Our trip to Colburn was a success and we learned a lot about the different ways rocks are formed. The kids enjoyed the scavenger hunt and looking at all of the wonderful gems and minerals. Randall Beavers from NC State Mineral Research Lab did a fabulous job teaching us about North Carolina minerals and mining. The kids were very surprised about the many ways minerals sneak into our everyday lives. Hot dogs! Who knew?
We shifted away from Earth Science last week to study the life cycle of an apple tree. We'll continue that this week as we taste the apple sauce we made on Friday, build a graph showing our favorite apples by doing a taste-test, and study the core of an apple. We made little according books last week showing what we thought we knew about apples, and we'll add to that this week now that we went to Skytop. We'll finish up our apple work on Tuesday.
We had a surprise science visit when a number of Black Swallowtail Butterflies came to visit our classroom on a sprig of fennel. We saw what we assumed were 3 different types of caterpillars eating the fennel, but when we looked it up, we learned that in was actually the different instars (stages), of the Black Swallowtail butterfly. We learned about the lifecyle, and watched the caterpillars change. Once they were ready to form their chrysalis, we noticed that they were disappearing! Back to the research we went, and learned that the caterpillars love to go on 'walkabout' before they shed their skin one last time to form their chrysalis. So we quickly got a butterfly house (thanks, Emily's family!), and put the last of our caterpillars inside. Now they are making chrysalis and we will probably overwinter these outside for them to hatch this spring. Stay tuned!
Next up- Finish up our Earth Science study- we need to focus on attributes and how scientist use attributes to classify. This ties in nicely to our math work coming up soon- shapes. We'll also be exploring different types of soil- sand, soil and clay. The kids have been digging up clay on the playground and we've got an experiment going by putting water in a container with the clay. The kids have made hypothesis and we're observing.... We also have tires with different soil types inside for kids to explore in the first grade garden yard.
Our first walking trip! We love our tie-dyed field trip t-shirts!
Sorting rocks by size, shape, color, texture.
Really getting a close look at our rocks.
Skytop was great- perfect weather, wonderful apples, not too crowded!
A lecture about the orchard.
The hayride.
It's fun for kids to be up in the mountains.
sheep, goats, ducks, geese, chickens, guineas, peacocks and a turkey- so fun.
Bamboo is used to make buildings and even a cool cathedral.
Sooooo tired.....
We really liked the apple peeling.
Our sauce starting in the slow cooker.
There's a link to the bread recipe below.
Math!
Fundations, writing workshop and reading groups/Daily 5
What's ahead?
September 27 NO SCHOOL TOMORROW (teacher training day)
October 12 Walk to BeBe Theatre to see Fables- a mixed dance productionOctober 13 Fall School pictures
October 22 Hickory Nut Gap
October 26 and 27 NO SCHOOL DAYS (teacher workday and training day)
October 30 class Halloween celebration
Interested in our Academically and Intellectually Gifted program for K-2? Contact Marti Sullivan at marti.sullivan@acsgmail.net orPTO President Deanna Border at deanna.border@gmail.net