Tech Update

This month we have been working on creating a Pic Collage using images from the app Scribble Press.  First, the girls learned how select a layout in PicCollage based on how many images they had.  Next, the students had to take a screen shot of each page of a book in Scribble Press then import it into PicCollage.  Once the entire book was imported, students printed the PicCollage.  We have also been working in BrainPop Jr.

Annie Oakley, Chunking and Parallel Lines

We had another famous female come to visit today--Annie Oakley!  Many thanks to Mike Cogdall for the Oscar-worthy performance.

During our language arts period, the girls learned about breaking words into chunks (aka syllables).  We taught them three different ways to break apart a word: clap it out, robot speak and holding their hand under their chin.  Ask your daughter which way was her favorite.

As we broke apart all of our names into syllables, most of the girls chose robot speak.  Here are two of our robots breaking apart their names.

We finished our syllable activity by getting into partners and sorting St. Patrick's Day words by chunks.

In math the girls learned about parallel lines.  After looking at different shapes and identifying the parallel lines on the shapes, the girls broke up into partners and groups to create human parallel lines. Finally, 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.

To end our day, we had a special Mystery Reader--Mrs. McMahon's father!  We think the girls were a little shocked to see that Mrs. McMahon actually has a dad :-)

Famous Females!

The girls were lucky enough to have several famous females come in to visit them this week.

Jim Lancaster presented Clara Barton.

Here's our smiling picture.

Life on the Pre-First battlefield--bandaged up by Clara Barton.

Lauren Colton as Sally Ride.

Many thanks for the space ice cream!

Rhonda Wright as Mae Jemison.

All doctor/astronauts give out lollipops.

In math today, we continued studying and identifying different shapes.

The girls played "Name That Shape" where they had to identify a shape with their eyes closed.

Next we created a class graph of the shapes we have learned.

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.

During our Writer's Workshop, the girls worked diligently on their How-To books.  

Geometry and Wilma

We continued our study of geometry this week by learning the different attributes of a square, triangle, circle and rectangle.  The girls had to identify each shape by its characteristics and make each shape with model magic.

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 read the book Wilma Unlimited and discussed everything that Wilma had to overcome in order to be labeled the fastest woman on earth.  After we read the story, we brainstormed our favorite facts about her and made our own gold medals. 

Many thanks to Jane Lancaster for being our Mystery Reader on this rainy day!

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.