Experimenting with Mr. Hall

We had the honor of having a special guest scientist today to do a science experiment with us! Liam's dad, Jonathan Hall works at NC state and came in to conduct an experiment involving microrganisms. He explained how there are smaller organisms than even bugs that we can't see, like bacteria! The students predicted what areas in the classroom are the dirtiest or have the most bacteria. Then, They swabbed the various areas to put the specimen on Petri dishes. Mr. Hall is going to put them in an incubator for a couple days to see what grows and bring it back to test our predictions. We are looking forward to having him back and learning more from our experiment! 

Skype in the classroom

We tried something new and exciting today! We were able to skype(video call) another first grade classroom across the country in California! The idea of the conversation between classes was to guess each other's "mystery number". We did this as a math warm up for number sense. The game involves asking questions that focus on greater than less than, place value, two digit vs one digit numbers, odd/even, doubles and number range. We were able to guess their number and they guessed ours, as well. We will continue to practice and get even faster guessing with experience while building math knowledge!! 

Leadership day!

If you missed leadership day on Twitter here's a link to see all the greatness that occurred!! https://storify.com/lakemyra/lake-myra-leadership-day-2015?awesm=sfy.co_p0Pca&utm_content=storify-pingback&utm_source=t.co&utm_medium=sfy.co-twitter&utm_campaign=

Getting ready to perform!

Singing about the habits 

Habits presentations! 

Love these leaders!! 

Leadership day thinglinks

Our leader in me presentations!

Check out the thing links the first graders made for today's leadership day presentation!

The writing process

Now that students have learned a variety of writing formats; informative, opinion, and persuasive, they are getting to choose what they want to write this quarter, using the writing process. The options are; persuasive letter, friendly letter, small moments story, how to, all about book, recipe, song, or poem. They started by brainstorming a list of ideas and what writing paper they would need for each. After,  they chose a writing idea.  The next step in the writing process is to make a plan(they have been creating web diagrams or planning it out in steps using a hand drawing). Then, they draft-write, edit using a checklist, and publish! The editing process involves them editing their work using a checklist of writing skills they need to look for. Such as; punctuation, capitals, spaces, sight words spelled correctly, and interesting details. The checklists vary depending on the writing (I.e all about books need an introduction and closure page). The publishing step involves students reading it to a partner who can also make suggestions to make it better. The writing process will continue to be reinforced through out this unit in the variety of writings the students choose from.

Creating a terrarium!

For science this quarter we will be exploring living things. We started this unit off with investigating how plants are living things! We examined seeds and made predictions on what they need to grow. They planted them and are waiting to see what happens. Here, they are finding rocks and leaves for the bottom layers of the terrarium. A layer of soil was added, then moss and even a little baby tree was planted. The students write down their observations in their science notebooks.