First Grade Speciality Classes
2022-2023
1st Trimester
Technology
While using Keynote students learned how to create a new presentation, change the background color, find shapes and use the shapes to build a picture. Students also learned to export and share their presentations to Seesaw. Finally used the animation tool to create a movable scene!
While using Sphero Indi students discovered that different colored squares would make their Indi car travel different ways. They worked in small groups on different coding challenges and learned to work as a team.
Next trimester students will build their Keynote skills further and will learn to use CLIPS to create exciting and engaging presentations.
Music
Students have also been practicing for their winter concert since the beginning of October. Not only have they worked on singing and memorizing the lyrics, but they have practiced choreography as well. They will perform four fun songs about animals and a famous wintertime finale with the kindergartners.
Next trimester, students will begin to read rhythms using iconic and traditional music notation. They will also begin to explore new instruments and improvise with rhythms.
Gym
1st Grade has been working on being good listeners and following directions. Each Gym class begins with a warmup activity which involves different locomotor movements as well as exercises, all of which we have reviewed as a class in the beginning of the year. We have been working on spatial awareness as we move around in open space throughout our activities.
Some of our themes for Gym have included Halloween Yoga, Animal Locomotor Movements and most recently we have been working on our coordination skills with our underhand/overhand throwing. In most cases, we rotate through different stations to complete the task(s) each day, so we have been working on being in small groups.
Next trimester, we will introduce hand-eye coordination with catching as well as other manipulative skills such as kicking and striking. This will help us segway into the different sports such as baseball, soccer, football and hockey.
Art Class
First Grade artists have been quite busy this trimester! We are learning about the Elements of Art and our objectives for the first trimester were to understand and use line, shape, color and pattern in our work. These students are experimenting with different mediums such as tempera paints, watercolors, collage, oil pastels and paint sticks. First Graders are more independent and can follow more complex steps in the art making process resulting in such beautiful variations in their artwork.
These enthusiastic artists are creative and expressive, using the mediums and tools in the Art Room to communicate who they are and how they feel.
Spanish
First Grade has been working on following directions in Spanish. They were even able to help out Pre. K with their project after they completed it. They have been working so hard to learn new vocabulary and listing to songs in Spanish. They wrote what they were thankful for in Spanish on their turkey and illustrated small drawing to match the words. They shared their family photos and displayed their work in the hallway. For the day or the dead they all worked on calaveras and listened to a book learning about the holiday.They have felt confident in speaking some words out loud and will be working on various projects their work will be seen on Seesaw so stay tuned. Most of the subject matter will be with current events and culture.