First Grade Newsletter - September 19, 2013 Unit of Inquiry Updates This is the final week of our unit on friends and families. Next week we will begin a unit on water with a focus on protecting water resources. Due to missing some school for flooding, we had a couple of short weeks in a row, but still managed to pack in lots of fun and learning! I hope all of you are staying safe and dry in the floods! Over the past couple of weeks students have practiced the skills they need for working together and being a good friend. We spent some time on the low ropes course learning about how good communication and collaboration is important for success. Students brainstormed and role played strategies for how to make a new friend, how to solve a conflict, and how to help someone when they are sad. We returned to certain frozen scenes in each dramatization and talked about how body language says a lot even when you aren’t speaking. Students made posters to teach someone how to be a good friend. Then they worked together to write songs about how our relationships affect who they are. We Skyped a family in Northern England and asked them some interview questions. Then they asked us some questions. Students loved learning about a family in another part of the world! I hope you enjoy going through your child’s unit of inquiry binder this weekend with them and letting them show off how hard they have worked and how much they have learned!
Quote of the Week: “Well I think we should use one of the strategies we learned to solve a conflict for this problem because we practiced it so much that I think we’d for sure be able to solve our problem!” - Sebastian
U of I Math Students continued to make math quilts in applied math. Students practiced cooperation and communication as they worked together to make a complex quilt and analyze it through math.
U of I Science Students continued to explore genetics and DNA. They learned about homozygous dominant, homozygous recessive, and heterozygous gene combinations and what that means. They played a game to determine baby monster’s traits by flipping a coin for if the mother contributed a dominant or recessive gene and then if the father contributed a dominant or recessive gene. Then they used that information to determine the baby monster’s genotype and phenotype for each trait. For example, if baby monster had 2 legs, 4 legs, or 6 legs or what color fur it had.
Other Fun Stuff We visited the fourth graders’ Earth models museum and students learned all about the different layers of the Earth and some cool facts about Earth. Mr. Robertson and Mrs. Bachtel came in and led a design lab project for our class and the kindergarten class. Students interviewed a child, a teacher, a parent, and an administrator to understand their perspectives and what they want. Then based on what they found out in the interviews, students collaborated to brainstorm ideas on how we can improve the experience of families entering the school building. We had suggestions of everything from putting worms on the floor in the front hall to touch as you come in to decorating the banister outside. Next week we will reconvene to decide on an idea and make it into a reality.
Upcoming Dates September 23- Water Unit Begins! October 3- Field Trip to the Denver Aquarium October 15- Field Trip to the Denver Aquarium
Photos Front Page (top to bottom): Collaborating on a complex on a math quilt, practicing teamwork on the low ropes course, scientists determining baby monster DNA Back Page (top to bottom): Skyping with a family in the United Kingdom, brainstorming in a design lab, Sebastian reading to the entire class in the morning, visiting the 4th grader’s Earth models museum