In science this week and last, we have been exploring the physical science of matter. Current thought on scientific education is deeply rooted in the belief that children are naturally curious and that inquiry is the heart of learning. The First Graders brainstormed how we could identify the properties of matter by color, shape and material it is made out of. We have been experimenting with a variety of solid objects to determine even more properties solids can be sorted by such as whether each item rolls, stacks, sinks, floats or is magnetic. The students worked in pairs at stations recording observations in their science journals. Please find their journals in their Friday Folders. The students have enjoyed singing and dancing to our unit song “That’s Matter”; ask your First Grader to sing you the chorus.
As the week went on, the First Graders explored the viscosity (how fast or slow liquid flows) of liquids and how solid matter dissolves or doesn’t dissolve in liquids. We explored how matter changes from one state to another by observing and hands-on experimenting. We found that heat or cold is required to change the state of matter through observing a lit candle (from solid to liquid) and then making ice cream (from a liquid to solid).Special thanks to the families who helped out by bringing in supplies for our ice cream experiment! Many students asked for the recipe so I will send it home Monday in the homework folder. Next week, we will conclude our studies with matter with a quick look at the state of gas.
The First Graders really enjoy learning about authors! The past couple of weeks our focus has been on Chris Van Allsburg. Mr. Van Allsburg’s books are perfect for teaching the reading strategy of inference. We infer all day long. Inferring is about reading expressions and body language but also can be applied to text. Closely related to predicting, inferring meaning is finding meaning that is not explicitly stated. For example when we predict we might ask “What will happen next?” Inferring is more like asking “I wonder what the author meant?” When we infer, we are using our background knowledge (schema) along with the clues and evidence from the text to make meaning of the text. I modeled how inference works while reading The Stranger by Chris Van Allsburg. The students realized they infer all the time they just didn’t realize it.
Through The Madeleine School’s Senior Mentor program, Mr. David Koch (pronounced cook), a retired police officer helps out with a small group focusing on the finding what is important in non-fiction writing. Mr. Koch has been helping out in First Grade every Wednesday and Friday morning for 4 years. The First Graders enjoy working with Mr. Koch and we are lucky to have him with us!
At the end of next week, we will start our community unit and I will be collecting recycled cardboard items such as cereal boxes, shoe boxes, paper towel rolls, toilet paper rolls; anything that could be used to build a community next week. No items that contained food please!
Coming up
Thursday, March 1st – All School Mass at 8:45am
- Science Night at 6:30 pm please see Friday Footnotes for specifics
- Hot Lunch – burgers
Friday, March 2nd – Read Across America Day – Free Dress and crazy
sock day. Please bring a book from home to read.
