Beloved, Jane Goodall

Over the past few days we have been learning about the life of researcher, Jane Goodall.
We started learning about Jane a few days ago by reading a book about when she was little:

We also learned that she had a stuffed chimpanzee that she loved, named Jubilee.

Today we read the book The Watcher, which told us more about how Jane accomplished her dream to work with and study chimpanzees.  She traveled to Gombe, Africa.

She was also a writer, and made piles and piles of notes and research in the years she spent researching.  We realized that this is just like how we keep research in our Think Books!

We learned that one of her favorite chimps was named David Greybeard.

However, after many years Jane realized that the chimps were in danger of becoming extinct.  She realized that the best way of helping the chimpanzees was to go across the world to share their story.

Jane Goodall is an excellent example of the 3 A's:  Activism, Awareness, and Aid.  When we work on our inquiries this year, Room 408 will be trying to keep these 3 A's in mind.

What inspires you about Jane Goodall?

Revising Our Writing

Today we worked on adding parts to our writing to make it even better.  Sometimes, we found that we wanted to add parts and we didn't have enough room!  Enter: flaps.  Here are some pictures of Dane sharing his story about going to the waterpark.  He decided to use a flap to add in a part to his story about how his heart was beating fast when he was standing at the top of the slide with his dad, getting ready to go down.  This flap he added to his story made it even more powerful!

We found out that flaps are a great way to add parts to your story, even when there is not a lot of room.

Authors in Room 408 get feedback on their current piece of writing.

Aaron used flaps in his writing today, too.

Way to go, Room 408!

Making Ten on Number Racks

We have been using rekenreks, or number racks, to represent numbers and combinations of numbers.

On Tuesday Room 408 was given the challenge to find all the possible combinations for ten on the rekenreks and record them.  There are eleven possible combinations and many of the mathematicians in Room 408 persevered until they figured out all eleven possibilities.

What is your favorite way to make ten?

Tech-Savvy First Graders

This afternoon Room 408 was introduced to the exciting world of email.  They had so much fun emailing each other back and forth, practicing our reading and writing skills in action.

When we discussed their thoughts and reflections on the possibilities of email, they were bubbling with so many ideas.

"We can send stuff to people are far away!"

"When can we get our parent's email addresses?!?"

"I like getting email."

"What is the difference between texting and email?"

"We should make sure we send emails to lots of different people so no one is left out."

"We will be stronger readers and writers if we email."

And my favorite:  "We can write a sentence to someone instead of walking across the room and talking to them!"  :P

On tomorrow's docket?  Emailing attachments such as screen shots and photos to show evidence of our learning.

What do you think is cool about email?

Discovery

On Friday we started learning about Jane Goodall.  We read this book and learned about how she was curious and patient as a little girl, and she loved to go outside to discover and explore.

We also talked about the book One Small Square: Backyard:

Armed with our Think Books, our pencils, a magnifying glass, and a black square, we headed to the woods behind Hillcrest to "be like Jane" and discover.

We explored and found lots of cool stuff.

Then we found a spot for our "small square study."

We wrote and drew about our observations and discoveries.

We even had a Philippe Petit-inspired moment:

What a beautiful afternoon!

What was your favorite part of our woods exploration?

Jill's Cuddly Sharing

Jill's dad brought in bunnies for her sharing late last week.

We got to ask lots of questions and cuddle!

If you want to buy bunnies, contact me and I'll put you in contact with Jill's family.

Popsicles!

Room 408 has been busy counting by 2s and showing numbers in different forms.  We have been doing some work with the idea of "twinpops" (the kind of popsicles that have two sticks).

We are working on sharing our thinking with fellow mathematicians.  We talked about how it is easier for others to understand our thinking if we use pictures, numbers, and words.  We also realized the importance of double-checking our work.

We worked to solve the following problem:
If each student in Room 408 ate a twin pop, and each twin pop has two sticks, how many popsicle sticks would we have altogether?

Some of us used actual popsicle sticks to solve the problem:

Some of us drew pictures:

 Some of us represented with different number forms:

And some of us used numbers and words to represent our thinking:

Good work mathematicians in Room 408!

Mission Wonder & Rescue

Friday morning was very rainy when I walked into school, and I saw worms, worms, everywhere.  What a perfect way to discuss wonders with Room 408!

We got our Think Books today.  We will record our thoughts, ideas, and wonders in these notebooks.  It has a picture of Einstein on the cover to remind us about the kind of learner we want to be.

We studied the worms with magnifying glasses and then settled down with our Think Books.  We wrote some wonders that we had about the worms and their precarious situation.

Here is a video of our Worm Wonders & Rescue Mission:

What was your favorite part of our Worm Observations?