Where in the World?

Since returning from winter break, we've been working on a geography unit in social studies.  Ask your first grader to share their learning about the globe.  They should be able to tell you about the poles, the Equator, the hemispheres, and the continents.  

Today our focus was the continents.  This catchy little tune helped us to remember the 7 continents.  

First graders, we identified that we live on the continent of North America.  Have you visited another continent or do you have family that lives on another continent?  Post a comment to share with us!  

That's a Fact!

During our short two-day week, my language arts group was quite busy!  We launched our penguin study and learned about fact and opinion.  Let us show you some of the facts we identified in our recent Scholastic News Magazine.  We worked in partners and used Educreations on the iPads to demonstrate our learning.

Sam & Asuman

Ejaz & Francis

Henry & Roisin

Hannah & Eva

Dylan & Ben

As always, we enjoy trying new things and reflecting on what worked well and how we can improve.  Please know that these are not polished or professional works by any means.  Mr. Hanes and I thought they turned out pretty well and were pleased with how well our first graders worked together!  

First graders in my language arts group, what do you think worked well with this project?  How do you think you can improve?  If you're willing, please post a comment to share with all of us.  We will talk about these questions on Monday.

Who Could it Be?

We enjoyed another Mystery Reader on Friday.  See if you can guess who this might be:

• I am not originally from Baltimore.
• I spend a lot of time at Friends.
• I grew up in the South.
• We have a lot of twins in our family.
• Our last name means prince in Italian.

Do you recognize this Mystery Reader?  Sam figured this one out pretty quick and knew it just had to be his Mom, Mrs. P!

Mrs. P read the book Frederick by Leo Lionni with her assistant, Sam!  It was another GREAT visit. Thank you, Mrs. P! Thank you, Mr. B (our sub) for assisting with pictures since I couldn't be there.  

First graders, I hope you've enjoyed our snow days!  I hope we're back at school tomorrow so we can share all about them.  Have you read any good books over the loooonnngggg weekend? If so, please post a comment to tell us about a book you've read.  

The Parts of Art

First graders enjoyed a field trip to the Baltimore Museum of Art on Friday.  Mrs. Weiss, our art teacher, set this trip up for us so we could learn more about the parts of art by looking at real art in a museum.

Here's a few photos from our trip thanks to Roisin's mom and Mrs. Derengowski.  As you may or may not have heard, I was at home snuggling with Mason, who wasn't feeling so well.

First graders, what was your favorite piece of artwork that you saw at the  museum?  Post a comment to share with all of us.  

Thank you to our parent volunteers for going on our trip with us!

National Hat Day!

Did you know that January 15th is National Hat Day?  It isn't a true National Holiday, but simply a day to celebrate the hat.  First grade donned our chapeaus today and celebrated in style.

Happy Hat Day!

"+" Day!

Students in room 230 started off the day with a winter art project.  Using Q-tips, we made dots to create the beginnings of a snowman.  

We didn't quite finish this project, but hope to tomorrow. 

The main event for our day was going to the middle school for Madi-Gras.  Seventh and eighth graders along with their math teachers prepared a celebration of Greg Tang, our visiting author.  Our first stop was the Greg Tang Living Museum where "Greg Tang" told us about some of his math tools and games.  

Note..... this isn't the REAL Greg Tang.  We'll see him tomorrow!

practicing a helpful addition strategy.

Next we assisted with creating a few math murals.  Mrs. Derengowski and Mrs. Barney explained these activities to us and helped us get started.  

 

 

Then we enjoyed doing some of the activities including some math poems from Greg Tang's books with a group of 7th graders.

                            

                         


                         

                          

                            

 

                     

Finally, we played some of Greg Tang's math games with a group of eighth graders.  

All of the games and activities can be found in Greg Tang's Books (also available online) and/or on his website under the various links.  

http://gregtangmath.com/

THANK YOU, Middle School Students and Teachers for creating such a FUN math afternoon!  You definitely got us excited for our time with Greg Tang tomorrow!  

First graders, what was your favorite part of Mathdi- Gras this afternoon?  Was there a game you enjoyed, an activity, or something you helped create?  Post a comment to share with all of us.

Parents, if you'd like to purchase any of Greg Tang's books, Mr. Scott has a few extras.  Get in touch with him or Ms. Thomsen ASAP (especially if you'd like to have them signed).  Hopefully a few of you were able to hear Greg Tang speak this evening.  It was a treat to hear him this morning when I saw him.