Edible Parts of a Plant

Today in science, we labeled and discussed the different parts of a plant.  Next, we placed plates full of of edible plant parts in the middle of each table. The girls worked as a group to select a plant part from each plate and sorted them into the correct box on their sheet. The girls recorded their observations and had a great time discovering that they could eat many different parts of a plant.

How-To Books and Shapes

The girls are almost done writing their How-To books.  This week we created a rubric for our books and one of our authors got a chance to sit in our Author's Chair and shared her work.

In math, we continued studying and identifying different shapes. The girls played "Name That Shape" where they had to describe a shape by it's attributes and identify that shape with their eyes closed.  After that, the girls returned to their seats to create bar graphs of the various shapes' vertices and sides.  Finally, the girls made the 2-D shapes on the geoboards.

We also discussed parallel and non-parallel lines. Using the Educreations app, the girls took pictures of items in our classroom that have parallel lines.  They then recorded themselves "teaching" their friends why these objects had parallel lines.

Your girls are all about to grow green thumbs.  The girls were introduced to their newest science unit today which will focus on seeds and plants.  We read From Seed to Plant by Gail Gibbons and each student was given a plain flower pot to paint and make completely "theirs."  Next week we will be digging in the dirt and planting seeds.  Over the next few weeks we will be observing our plants as we feed them water and let them grow in the sun.

Many thanks to our mystery readers from the past two weeks. 

Beginning Geometry

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 Model Magic.  This was a difficult task for some, as the girls had to be creative in order to make a square with equal sides. We also moved on and discussed the attributes of a triangle.

French: Notre Défilé de Mode

The girls have been learning all about clothing vocabulary in French. In recent classes, they put their knowledge to the test when they had to tell me what clothes they would like to wear for our défilé de mode (fashion show). Each girl then struck a pose in her new outfit. Enjoy the pages from our fashion magazine below. Elles sont très à la mode!

More Famous Females

Marie Curie came to visit our girls yesterday.

Later, we had another mystery reader.

Today, the first two females who successfully completed Army Ranger school came to visit--Kristen Griest and Shaye Haver.

They spoke about how tough they had to be--both physically and mentally.

Our girls were given a mental challenge.

Finally, we finished with two stories from Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls--this is a fantastic book and I highly recommend you find it for your daughters!

Art_Matisse Portraits

Matisse is a wonderful inspiration for portraits because he combines people, patterns, and props feeding the viewer with lots of clues. The girls have fun telling the imaginative stories of the subjects' lives. 

 

The girls began by doing an observational drawing of a doll from the collection in the studio. 

They focused on drawing large shapes first, then medium, small and them the tiny details. 

Next, they blended colored pencils to get the colors and textures of their dolls and their costumes.  

To make the patterned backgrounds, they took a close-up picture of a Matisse painting and selected a shape they liked and turned it into a stamp. They stamped the shape multiple times on paper to make an all over pattern. 

Then, they made those patterns more complicated by painting on the papers. They became the  wallpaper and rugs for the background of the painting.

Next, the girls will choose a prop to paint for their portraits and add it to the composition.  A layered masterpiece! 

Jane Goodall

Many thanks to Jane Goodall who came to visit the girls today.  We heard a wonderful biography about her and then the girls became primatologists and made observations on monkeys in the "wild."

We concluded our mini-unit on graphing today.  The girls are able to collect information, create a graph, and analyze the data.

Famous Females

Many thanks to our first famous female visitors--Julia Child and Gloria Steinem!

We continued with our graphing unit in math today 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, however, 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.  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.

We also read a story and discussed another fearless female---Supreme Court Justice, Sonia Sotomayor. 

Famous, Fearless Females!

We started our latest social studies unit this week and will be learning about many fearless women throughout the month of March.  Yesterday, we read The Story of Ruby Bridges and discussed the impact that 6 year old girl can have on a country.  The girls fell in love with Ruby's story and we had a wonderful conversation about how resilient she had to be.

Determined. Brave.  Amazing.  These are just three of the words that your daughters used to describe Wilma Rudolph, our second famous female we studied in our latest social studies unit on Women in History.  We traveled down to the first grade room and read the book Wilma Unlimited.  As a group, we discussed everything that Wilma had to overcome in order to be labeled the fastest woman on earth.