Customs, Cultures and Celebrations !

 

After reading several folktales from Russia, we spent some time learning how to read an atlas and then used it to find out about habitats in Russia. This led to exploring books about polar bears, reindeer and walrus facts as well as attempting to learn how to count in Russian. (We were very lucky this year to have Leo, a 5th grader, come down to help us on our Travel Day and assist with counting to 10 as Leo speaks fluent Russian.) One of our centers on Travel Day was a Russian counting book activity; students made matching flag amounts to a given page with a Russian number word.

After all of that counting, a trip to the Russian Polar Bear Cafe was needed to refuel with a blini pancake !   Many thanks to all of the parent volunteers who contributed their time and supplies to make all of this happen- we could not have done any of this without them!

Next it was on to making a puppet to go along with the folktale...

As students rotated to the centers, they stopped off at the postcard center to draw and record facts they learned about this country, their customs and a little bit about Russian culture.

Last but not least, all students made their own version of a gold Faberge egg- studded with the jewels of their choice. It is hoped this small Travel Day will spark reading and writing activities as we explore polar regions throughout January!

 

Let's Talk Turkey !

It has been turkey and pumpkin time this past month here in our first grade classroom. We started with a quick study of pumpkins- asking "Does a pumpkin have parts?" Before cutting into each pumpkin, we made a few guesses as to how many seeds were inside. Once we discovered that there were so many seeds, we discussed how best to count them and it was

decided it would be best to count by tens! Working in groups of 4 we quickly made some very slimy piles of 10. Half of our class had never seen the inside of a pumpkin and more than half never knew there were well over 500 seeds in these little pumpkins. Whew! Those are some big numbers to count, but most came away with the concept that working as a team makes the task that much easier! It also helped with the concept of grouping numbers into "friendly piles" or friendly numbers so they are easier to count/ add ! 

After making their "historical" turkeys telling of times long ago, students came up with some  questions they had about turkeys!

Our timeline turkeys have wings that illustrate how native Americans got their food long ago and how we get our food today! After making these turkeys, students wanted to investigate facts about turkeys- so we read aloud "All About Turkeys" and then wrote some of the facts we remembered!

 

Fall Fun and Classroom Community Building Activities 2017

   We started the year reading several versions of "The Three Little Pigs" which included "The Fourth Little Pig" and "The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig"...which led us into discussions about building a sturdy house as well as the benefits of taking your time to produce a quality product! In our room we often work in "Brain Buddy" pairs - because two brains are better than one. Below are a few pictures of buddies building a sturdy house using cardboard triangles and popsicle sticks; the task was that each partner had to show what the other partner did to assure that both folks worked together.

Some added a fence for extra protection !

 

Animal Adaptations Part 1      

                               Our Field Trip to Maine Wildlife Park 

The first graders in Gorham study adaptations throughout the year; especially animal adaptations and their unique ways they adapt to the changing weather. We were treated to a presentation by the park ranger as she explained the various adaptations of Maine animals to their specific habitats.

 

Taking a closer look before we head out to look at live animals and find out more about animal parts.

 

Taking a Closer Look and Recording Observations: Science Skills

In our science notebooks we have several pictures- all students have made a guess as to which they feel "have parts." About half of the class felt a leaf did not have parts..so we went out to collect leaves and draw what we found. In the end, we all felt that leaves do indeed have parts.

 

May- June End of the Year Newsletter

Learning the song "Zippity Doo Dah"

May- June   Dancing our way through !

We were lucky enough to go on another great trip to Maine State Ballet this past week. It is such a wonderful trip as it gives the students a first hand experience of the amount of practice,  work and detail it takes to put on a show.  First, we learned the song ...next a few dance moves... and then we went into the costume room to learn about how costumes are made! 

 

(Fun Facts : It takes about 100 hours to make ONE tutu. Those costume heads are paper mache taped on bike helmets.)

The final portion of the field trip is learning about the set and lights. And...putting on our final show on stage of course!

Pretty impressive accomplishments in just an hour and a half!

April is the time for "Habitats, Cultures, Customs and Celebrations!"

 

We had our last travel day; this time we studied Mexico with it's habitats of deserts and rainforests. Students wrote their first factual report on their favorite desert animal as well as made "serape ponchos" with math pattern blocks to show off Mexican weaving skills! 

 

Everyone had a chance to fry their tortillas to make fresh nachos, Spanish counting books, bird seed filled cascarones and a paper poinsettia to accompany the folktale "The Legend of the Poinsettia." 
 

(Note: Cascarones are like confetti filled mini- pinatas made of empty eggshells. The tradition is to crack them over their heads! We altered that to be bird seed filled and we cracked them against our mystery tree so the birds could enjoy our efforts too.)

 

As usual, we all have to thank our kind parents and grandparents for volunteering their time and donating items for our activities! We could have never put this together without their help.