Two Announcements

We are proud to announce that we have come up with a name for our leopard gecko...Spots!

The second announcement is that Spots is shedding.

We also observed that he rubs himself against things to help get his skin off.  We saw him using his mouth to pull the skin off his feet and legs. We also noticed that he eats the skin he sheds.  Ew!

Manfish

Today we learned about Jacques Cousteau.

Most of Room 408 predicted that he was an artist because of his hat.

We read two books about his life.

We learned that he had a hope and dream to be able to breathe underwater and to discover more about the undersea world that he loved so much. This dream sounded impossible, but he eventually invented the Aqualung!

He also bought an old war boat and turned it into an exploring ship.

He went on to invent other wonderful ways to explore under the sea.

Even though his dreams seemed impossible, he didn't give up until each one became a reality.

Later he realized that people were harming the ocean with garbage and chemicals.  Jacques Cousteau decided to educate the world so everyone could help to preserve the waters in our world.

Here are some videos, if you'd like to learn more about Jacques Cousteau.

What a great example of inquiry in action!

Apple Taste Test

Since we had the apple from the crabapple tree, we collected other apples (Thank you, Mrs. Zoll and Dru!) and had a little taste test.

We had an unknown apple that Dru brought, a Pink Lady, a Macintosh, a Granny Smith, and the apple from the crabapple tree.

We each took a sample and did a taste test.

Overall, we thought Dru's apple was close but not quite the same as the Pink Lady.
We thought the apple from the crabapple tree was *really* sour, like a lemon or a lime.
The Pink Lady tasted like a "normal" apple.
The Granny Smith was sour and juicy.
The Macintosh was sweeter and softer than the others.
Next we voted on our favorite apple taste.

The results are in!

I was shocked that everybody's favorite was the one from the crabapple tree!

We loved our taste test!

Wonder of the Week: Why are apples red?

We took a wonder off of our Wonder Window for our Wonder of the Week.

On Monday morning we predicted why apples are red.  Later in the week we did a mini-inquiry to see if we could find out why apples are red.

First we brainstormed different sources that we might be able to use to help us find information.

Then we got to work and searched for interesting facts (leaving tracks of our thinking), as well as for clues to our Wonder of the Week.

We used Brainpop Jr., PebbleGo, books, posters, and real apples as our sources.

We found out that all apples are green when they are growing, but some change to red and even yellow.  We also learned from a Gail Gibbons book that different types of apples are specific colors.

  We got to see a youtube video of a pear growing, which is very similar to an apple.

We posted our new learning on padlet.

We are still wondering about those apples that grew on the crabapple tree, though!

'Wonder'ful Parent Ed Night

LEADS teachers led a parent education night about curiosity and wondering.  We talked about open versus closed questions and passed out a bookmark to help us have conversations of wonder and curiosity with our children.  We used Padlet to keep track of the wonders we generated.

Here is a video from that evening.If you didn't get a chance to join us for our parent ed night, maybe you'll be able to join us next year.  It was a great night!

Here is a link to the padlet wall, which is full of wonders!

Wonders

We have practiced looking closely and have drawn diagrams of our observations.

Now we are wondering about our world.
We went outside near the garden to make observations and wonder.

We even got to dig up the potatoes that some of us planted last year with Mrs. Heins!

Noah's mom told us about a crabapple tree that their nursery planted on the school grounds that surprisingly had real apples growing on it.  We headed out to wonder about that, too!

After we came back inside we learned about the Wonder Window in our classroom.  We added lots of wonders that afternoon!

Here is a video of our afternoon of wondering:

What do you wonder?

First Grade Student Report

At our October LEADS board meeting, Room 408 was in charge of the student report!

We decided to teach the board about Jane Goodall and her work as a scientist.

Grady did a wonderful job sharing our research that we did during our mini-inquiry about Jane Goodall.

Great job, Grady!