Apps This Year

Throughout the year the girls have learned a variety of tech skills using many different apps.  Below is a list of the apps that they used this year.

Art Set
BrainPop Jr.
Britannica Kids: Rain forests
Carve-a-Pumpkin
Doodle Buddy
Draw Free
Educreations
Faces iMake
Fotobabble
Hickory Dickory Dock
iMotion
Jungle Coins
JungleSpeak
J'apprends les formes et let couleurs Lite
Line 'em Up
Little Patterns Shapes
Magnabet
MoMA Art Lab
Montessori Crosswords
Montessori Numbers
Motion Math: Hungry Fish
My Story
Mystery Number
Number Sense
Penguin's Family
Pic Collage
Pixie
play2learn French
Scribble Press
Skitch
TeachMe: 1st Grade

Final Publishing Party

Today, the girls celebrated their "how-to" and penguin books with a special group of friends--Mrs. Feiss' 8th grade english class.  As soon as they heard who the special guests were, the girls broke out in a loud (!) cheer.  The 8th grade girls were gracious and extremely complimentary of your daughter's writing pieces...and they were also grateful for a break from preparing for exams.  These two books are in your daughter's backpack; make sure you pull them out and read them tonight!

Rain Forest Play

Here are your future Oscar winners!

Rain Forest Animal Presentations

Here are the presentations from today--we are incredibly proud of your daughters!!!

Ruler Scavenger Hunt & Colorful Cabbage

The girls were introduced to the ruler today.  We reviewed how a ruler is 12 inches long and how not all rulers are made the same--emphasizing that the girls must always measure from the "0" mark (whether it is shown or implied by the end of the ruler).  The girls then went on a scavenger hunt around the room, measuring different items and finding objects of a certain length.

Where does water go in a plant?  That was the question posed to our Pre-First scientists today.   The girls were given cabbage leaves and got to choose from red, yellow, green or blue colored water to put in their vase.  They predicted what their cabbage leaves would look like in one day and sketched it out.  We will observe our leaves tomorrow and record what we see....what do you predict they will look like?

Rain Forest taste test

Today was taste test day!  The girls learned about the different foods that the rain forests provide.  We watched a short video on how chocolate was made many years ago by the indigenous tribes.  After the video, the girls participated in a taste test of different spices that come from the rain forest.  The following spices were used:  Allspice, Cocoa, Black Pepper, Cinnamon, and Vanilla.  Only one spice really threw your daughters....make sure you ask her which one!

Engineering

A big happening in our classroom is the start of our new engineering unit. We started this unit by gathering ideas about engineers and technology (they believed that anything considered "technology" had to be plugged in, amazing).  The girls were shown a stapler and were told that it was technology--by working together, they discovered that anything that was created to solve a problem was "technology".  The girls were then divided into small groups and given a mystery bag.  Inside each bag was an item that they usually would not consider to be "technology".  As a group, the girls had to answer several questions, including, "What does your object do, what problem does it solve, and what material is it made of?"  The group then reported back to the whole class on what they discovered about their object.  Make sure you ask your daughter what technology she found in her bag!

Roots

Today we continued our study of plants while we discussed how plants' roots are the same and different.  First we took the girls outside and had the girls pull up grassroots.  Then the girls were broken into 3 groups and were given a beet, a carrot, and scallions in addition to the grassroots. They discussed what they observed about these 4 roots.  We then sliced the beet and carrot in half and the girls recorded the similarities and differences between the two.  We will continue this experiment tomorrow.

French: Bateau sur l'eau

This week in French, the girls learned a new song:

Bateau, sur l'eau,

La rivière, la rivière.

Bateau, sur l'eau,

La rivière et plouf à l'eau!

Click on the link to watch a video of the song: http://www.mondedespetits.fr/comptine-chanson.php?id=6

We played a game while singing. Two girls sat face to face with their knees bent and their feet touching. As they sang, they rocked back and forth. When they got to "et plouf" they fell backwards and remained on the ground for the rest of the song. C'était très amusant!

Bateau, sur l'eau...

Et plouf!

A l'eau!

Art: Rainforest Animals

The girls have started their research projects for the rainforest unit. In art they did some visual research and learned how to draw their animals considering the different body parts. Now they are adding the color with tissue paper and mod podge. Next, they will articulate the patterns they see. 

From the Library

Pre-first girls have been reading some thought-provoking and discussion-inspiring books recently. The principal in Sharon Creech's A Fine, Fine School is so proud of all the learning that happens in his school he decides to have school on the weekends, during vacations and all summer. In Max Makes a Cake we found out how to make a cake from matzoh, jam and cream cheese. We read old favorite Ferdinand, which has lots of Spanish words that are fun to say, like "picadores". In anticipation of our visiting author, Michelle Knudsen, we read her book Library Lion. We will also read Argus before we meet the author, May 15.

Writer's Workshop

This week, we introduced the girls to the writing process.  The girls were interested to learn the different steps and excited to have a "First Grade Style" Writer's Workshop.  We gave the girls different options to plan out their stories and once they had completed a planning sheet, they were then allowed to move their picture to the Buddy TAG step (a peer editing step).  Ask your daughters how Buddy TAG works!  We were impressed with how the girls were able to give and receive constructive criticism and edit their stories after suggestions from their peers.