Women in History Unit Begins!

Many thanks to Durke Wright for being our Mystery Reader on Wednesday.

We had our last hibernation presentation and have officially completed our hibernation science unit.  We hope your daughters had as much fun as we did!

We began our latest social studies unit today with a bang!  The girls will be learning about famous women in history for the next several weeks and they got their first taste this morning by meeting Amelia Earhart.  Our special guest had to fly a long way to tell the girls her life story; girls especially loved learning the mystery of her disappearance.  Here are a few moments from her visit.

Tech Time

We have been working hard in Pre-First during Technology!  We started this month by working in an interactive story app called It Was a Cold Dark Night.  After reading a story about hibernation together, the students retold the story using features within the app.  We have also been using an app called iMotion to create a still picture video.  Each girl worked with a partner in order to take still images of their clay animals "moving" in their hibernation habitats. Once the images were taken, each student created a video that was shared with the class!

Digraphs, Hibernation and More!

Over the past several days, the girls were introduced to our last digraphs, "wh, th, ch". We brainstormed some wh, th, ch words as a class, then the girls went back to their seats to write several words on their own.  The girls partnered up and completed a digraph worksheet together.  We will continue to focus on all the digraphs we have learned (wh, th, sh, ch) in our word study period.

Last Friday, we continued with our graphing unit in math by teaching the girls how to analyze a picture graph.  For the past few days, the girls have been reading and working with simple bar graphs.  Today the girls learned a different way to gather information - by using a picture graph. Many thanks to all parents who sent in pictures of pets (and to those who did not have a chance, do not worry, your daughter sketched her pets).  We used these pictures to create our own class graph titled, "Pre-First Pets."  Our new graph is hanging in our classroom, so please feel free to come by and check out what pets are famous in Pre-First.

Many thanks to Arameh Rothwell for being our Mystery Reader last week!

Friday afternoon we started talking about St. Patrick's Day and the girls exchanged ideas about why they are lucky.  They then returned to their seats, wrote about what made them feel lucky (one of our favorites is "when my brother says 'I love you' ") and made their own leprechauns.  These funny little men are hanging on our classroom bulletin board.

We began our geometry unit today by reading Perfect Square  by Michael Hall and the girls brainstormed the attributes of a square.  They also learned some new vocabulary words that we will be using quite a bit during our unit. (Make sure to ask them what a vertex is?)  They then returned to their seats and had to create squares out of yarn.   This was a difficult task for some, as the girls had to be creative in order to make a square with equal sides.

The girls are almost finished presenting their hibernation dioramas.  We were extremely impressed with how the girls spoke clearly, displayed confidence and gave interesting facts about their animals.  The girls learned a lot from each other and were greatly supportive of their classmates.

100th day

Welcome back from an unexpected winter break!  As the girls filed into our classroom this morning, we could tell that their 5 days off were certainly exciting.  

Many thanks to Kate Cogdall who came in as our Mystery Reader last week!

Last Thursday we celebrated our 100th day of school!  The girls walked into our room this morning through streamers, with "Celebrate" by Kool & the Gang as their soundtrack.  Our day was filled with different activities, all centered around the number 100.  Take a look below to see how Pre-First celebrated.

First, the girls listened to 100th Day Worries.  

Then we took a picture of the girls and used the app Aging Booth to fast forward time and get an image of what the girls will look like when they are 100.  The girls--and their teachers--got a huge kick out of seeing each other as 100 year old ladies.  They then wrote about what they will look like, what they will be doing and where they will live when they turn 100.  This was, by far, their favorite activity of the day.

Here are some of the center activities the girls completed:  

• 100 Chart--the girls had to color in certain numbers on their 100 chart to create a picture.  Make sure you ask them what it was!  
• 100 Exercises--the girls did 6 different exercises, each exercise was a 100 count.  Some of the exercises were jumping jacks, twists and hops.  Needless to say, there were a lot of water breaks taken during this center.
• 100 Dots--the girls used 10 different paint colors to make groupings of 10 Q-tip dots.
• 100 Cup Structure--the girls were given 100 cups and had to build a structure out of them.  This was one of their favorite centers.  Make sure you ask your daughter what her structure looked like!

Today, we began our day with a language arts lesson that focused on the "sh" digraph.  The girls watched a funny Electric Company video that highlighted the digraph "sh."

After the video, we brainstormed more "sh" words.  Then the girls returned to their tables and made a large "sh" out of seashells.  They wrote some of the words we brainstormed onto shells and glued them around the "sh".

Here are some more hibernation presentations.

Graphing, Presidents' Day & a Hibernation Presentation

We have spent the last few math periods working with bar graphs.  Earlier this week the girls learned how to gather and sort information, put that information into a graph, and then analyze the data in the graph.

For the past two days, the girls have been learning about Presidents' Day.  Today, we read Let's Celebrate Presidents' Day and discussed why Presidents Washington and Lincoln were two significant presidents.  The girls brainstormed what they would do if they were president and they each made their own American flag.  

After spending the last few art periods perfecting their animals, today the girls started presenting their hibernation dioramas.  We are proud of the girls for doing an outstanding job of informing their friends about their animals.  Here's our first presentation!

Transition Words & Frozen Food

This week the girls have been learning about transition words such as first, in the beginning, second, then, after that, next, finally and last.  Today the girls made melted crayon hearts and created a How-To class book using the new transition words they have learned. 

First, the girls peeled the crayons.

Next, the girls broke the crayons into smaller pieces and placed them in heart shaped (oven safe) holders.

After that, Mrs. McMahon baked the girls' creation in the oven at 230 degrees for 15 minutes.

Finally, Mrs. McMahon took the holders out and let the new heart shaped crayons cool.  The girls will each get a heart to take home with them today!

The girls worked in pairs to write about and illustrate one step in our How-To book.

To start science class today Ms. Burr read  Time to Sleep by Denise Fleming.

After that, we did an experiment on reasons why some animals hibernate in the winter.  The girls were given fresh pieces of pineapple and were given the green light to go ahead and eat them.  We talked about how the pineapple smelled, what it tasted like and how easy it was to bite into and eat it.  Then they were given pineapple that had been frozen in an ice cube.  They had to attempt to get to the pineapple and eat it--the girls discovered that this was not an easy task.  As they were gnawing their way through the ice, we talked about how difficult it was to actually get the food out and how hard it must be for animals to find food in the winter.  The girls realized, at the end of the experiment, that one reason some animals hibernate in the winter was the difficulty to find and eat food; it is not easy to smell, find or eat!

Math Centers

The past several days the girls have been learning place value by working with base 10 blocks.  They have learned that a cube represents one, a ten cube rod represents ten and a flat block represents a hundred.  The girls have been writing and modeling numbers using these blocks.  Today, they worked around the room in four centers: base 10 matching, a place value computer game, Montessori Numbers app and a hundreds chart mystery picture.

From the Library

In Library we read a series of books by Norah Dooley in which  Carrie travels through her neighborhood looking for her pesky brother, trying to round up kickball players, and collecting ideas for a gift for her mother. Everybody Cooks Rice introduces the Darlingtons from Barbados, the Diaz family from Puerto Rico, the Tran family from Vietnam, the Krishnamurthys, the Huas, and the Bleus. Carrie tastes black-eyed peas and rice, turmeric rice with pigeon peas, nuoc cham, fried rice, biryani, tofu with vegetables, rice and beans and her own grandmother's risi e bisi. Recipes are included. Many of the same families appear in Everybody Bakes Bread and Everybody Serves Soup. Check out these books with recipes!

Transition Words & Base 10 Blocks

We have begun planning our next Writer's Workshop book.  The girls will be writing a How-To non-fiction book using the transition words that they were introduced to today.  We sorted the different transition words (first, after that, etc) according to where we would use them in a story.  Then we used these words to help us arrange the steps of how the girls get ready for lunch.

Next, the girls listened to Tell Me About Your Day Today by our Author of the Month (Mem Fox) and sequenced the events of the story using transition words.

Finally, the girls used the Popplet Lite app to plan out the steps of how to build a snowman.

In math, we have been working on place value using base 10 blocks.  The girls have done an excellent job of grasping this concept and have even graduated to using the hundreds blocks.Watch out first grade!

The girls are loving our Mystery Reader time--thanks so much to all of the parents for taking time out of your busy day to read to the girls.

Penguin Pic Collage

After learning all about penguins, the girls have been working hard on penguin collages in the Pic Collage app.  We learned how to change a background, search for and add images based on the topic, and add and edit text.  They included a variety of facts about penguins such as:  penguins can't fly, blubber keeps them warm, and penguins can swim.