Are you starting your holiday shopping? I was looking for gifts for my own scientists and I came upon this blog post. I follow this teacher's blog and really LOVE her activities and ideas. Perhaps you will find these ideas helpful. Click here for the link to the post.
Have I told you lately how much I love these turkeys! I am so thankful for all the children in the wonderful group. This week we did some turkey themed learning. From the turkey handshake (above) to our thankful books shaped like turkeys, we love learning.
One of the student's favorite turkey activities was the turkey STEM challenge. The students had to create a shelter to conceal a turkey. They worked with a partner to design and create the shelter using classroom materials like Jenga blocks, legos, base ten blocks, or dominos. These are some clever engineers.
We are just loving STEM. I can't wait to get back in December and begin our first Project Lead the Way module and some computer science. I sure hope you and yours have a very sweet Thanksgiving. Enjoy the pie and loved ones....and here is a hand turkey parade in the spirit of Thanksgiving.
Learning about fact families takes a lot of concentration! We have been working hard at this important mathematical standard. We are making a lot of progress. Since this is a difficult concept, I want to include some resources in this post, as well as, share the ways we are practicing in class. This would be a great concept to practice at home. This is a concept valuable to both first and second graders. While first graders are just being introduced to the concept, second graders are using fact families to reach the standard of memorizing all the sums of two one digit numbers.
The students are very solid in knowing how to put together an addition equation and writing the commutative property for addition. For example, if you gave your child the numbers 3, 5, and 8, they are proficient at being able to see the equations 3+5=8 and 5+3=8. However, making the two subtraction equations using those numbers is much more difficult. A common mistake is just plugging the numbers in anywhere and making false equations like 3-5=8.
I found this teaching video by the "Teacher Tipster" and thought it was a great way to explain how to write a fact family. I used this method as soon as I had the chance. Using color mixing to remember where the numbers in a fact family go made so much sense to the students. We are having a lot of success with this method. Please watch this video and see if your child can explain this method back.
After the light bulbs started turning on with the color mixing idea, we have been practicing fact families as many ways as possible. We have been doing many games on the interactive whiteboard and practicing writing fact families on our old fashion whiteboards. We have been taking quizzes using the iPads so I get instant feedback on how the children are understanding. I am finding that the students are getting stronger everyday but we still need some practice. Another way we are practicing is with a Thanksgiving math partner game. The students have to cover three numbers in the fact family on a pumpkin. When there isn't any related facts left, the game is over.
Here is a fun website called Block Builder that helps practice fact families with an interactive game on the computer. Also the app Fact Families is great for the ipad. The app is $1.99. Please work on this important concept at home. You will notice that last week's homework was practicing fact families. Thank you for your continued support!
The children were very interested in the science investigations we did before Halloween with pumpkins. So, we decided to keep it going. Meet Jack. Jack was one of our class' pumpkins that we carved on Halloween. Then, after Halloween we put her in a plastic container with some soil on the bottom.
Our experiment began on November 1st, our first day back after Halloween. We had a bright, orange, round pumpkin. On day one we drew the pumpkin and made a prediction about how it would look in twenty days. Next, we watched. Jack has changed. He grew some white fuzz. The flesh of the pumpkin turned black. Part of his eye collapsed and fell. His smile became quite droopy. And, let's not forget about another significant change.....the SMELL! Yikes! About every three days the scientists recorded observations in their journals.
At the end of 20 days, Jack is hardly recognizable. Decay....one way things in our world can change.
We are word wizards! We earned our first popcorn party for using our vocabulary words! Students had to earn stars for using the 12 vocabulary words from our reading in their everyday speech. When a child uses a word wizard word, they tell the class the context they used the word in and they get to put a sticker up on our chart. When we collected enough stars, we won the popcorn party! Interesting note....the word coincidence was the word winner. Have you heard your child using some of the words?
While they were eating their popcorn treat, we read the book Scarecrow's Hat. See the video of the book above. After reading the book we have been studying the words, swapped, grateful, benefit, relief, delighted, and trustworthy. See if your child can define the six words and give you some examples. Try using the words in your speech and see if they notice! Of course, if you catch any word wizards at home, a quick note from you guarantees a star on the word wizard board!
This week we were engineers. We are so incredibly lucky at Eagle Cliffs Elementary to be implementing Project Lead the Way. PLTW is an amazing science resource that focuses on developing and integrating S.T.E.M. (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) skills. When I look ahead at our Project Lead the Way modules, I am so incredibly excited to watch our students experience these quality lessons that will encourage creativity and critical thinking. Here is a preview of Project Lead the Way:
To help all Eagle Cliffs kindergarten through 2nd grade students kick off this year's STEM adventure we had a guest speaker/science enthusiast come speak. Mr. Carter is also a special grandparent in our classroom. Mr. Carter really got the students excited about science. He did an experiment to show the transfer of energy....simultaneously transferring energy for science to the audience. Then, Mr. Carter demonstrated that scientists and engineers have to work smart to make things strong and sturdy. Using a 30 foot nylon rope, two students tried to pick Mr. Carter up. They could not do it. However, when 20 students were invited up to hold the rope they created more segments of structure and could easily hold the rope when Mr. Carter sat on it. Pretty cool! Thank you so much for taking the time today to come speak with us, Mr. Carter! We can't wait to show you all we do with science!
After our inspirational assembly, we had a first of many STEM challenges. We discussed the role of engineering in our lives and how an engineer studies structure and function to design things. We also talked about the engineering design process and how engineers must persevere because sometimes things don't always work as planned. Engineers learn from their mistakes and make adjustments.
The challenge today was to design a table using dominoes and popsicle sticks. The table had to hold five Thanksgiving plates. Student had to work in teams of three to create their project. They made a blueprint, collaborated on the design, and test the plan. All the students made adjustments to improve their designs. Check out the engineers at work below!
We celebrated Election Day in the Connected Combo. In social studies, we talked about the important and valuable right that we have to vote in our country. We even had our own "election." However, instead of voting for the presidential candidates, we had a vote over three election themed books.
The books were Duck for President, My Teacher for President, and Grace for President. If you click on the titles you will be taken to a video version of the book being read. In class, we read the books together and then practiced writing summaries for each book. The summaries helped us review the books when we went to vote for our favorite. On Election Day, we turned the back office into our voting both.
My election volunteers were very official. They checked off names, handed out the ballots, and had the voters sign that they only voted once. We even had a volunteer to pass out "I voted" stickers.
When all the students had voted, I had a couple more election officials count and recount the votes. For our class, the book Grace for President won the popular vote. Counting the votes also gave us another opportunity to use subtraction...but this time subtracting to compare. Happy Election Day!
The children have a real interest in sink or float, especially after our
pumpkin investigation. I took some of my son's candy (shhhh) and we
did some experimenting. First, the students made predictions. We
recorded the predictions in our science journal. They remembered from
the pumpkin investigations that things aren't always as they seem.
After making the prediction we tested each candy bar. The candy bars we
tested were Kit-Kat, Snickers, Milky Way, 3 Musketeers, Butterfinger, Crunch, and Twix. Can
you
guess the results?
