First Grade Student Board Report

This month LEADS first graders were in charge of the Student Board Report at our LEADS School Board meeting.

Mason represented our class and shared what a day is like in Room 408.

Great job, Mason!

Google Classroom

We are trying out Google Classroom this year!

We practiced by accessing a Jane Goodall video that was sent out through our Google Classroom.

Next, we wrote down what we noticed about a painting about the Mayflower that was sent through Google Classroom.

We gathered all our learning together.

We had a lot of noticings!

Personal Word Walls

Each child in Room 408 has a Personal Word Wall filled with words we need to know in a "snap."

Words that each child can spell in a "snap" are highlighted on their Personal Word Wall.

  

We also work on reading these "snap" words by reading our Rainbow Words.

Each week the student chooses a word to work on that is not highlighted.  S/he makes the word in a variety of ways in hopes of learning the word so s/he can access it in a "snap" when s/he is reading or writing.

Hazel worked on 'said.'

Peyten worked on 'because.'

Jacob worked on 'to.'

Brennan worked on 'even.'

Then we take pictures of our hard work to document on Kidblog.

Today was our first day exploring our Personal Word Walls.

I think it was a success!

Drawing with Scissors

We studied the life and art of Henri Matisse.  We read a book about him called Drawing with Scissors.

Of course, the first question was, "How can you draw with scissors?!?"  We read the book and looked at his art with this question in mind.

Matisse started out as a painter and painted things so they looked real.

Soon, Matisse painted with more imagination.  He used brighter colors and bigger brushstrokes.

Some people who saw his art like this said that his paintings looked like "wild beasts" had painted them.  

As Matisse got older, he was often sick.  He had to stay in bed a lot and couldn't stand up for very long to paint.  So he started cutting out paper shapes and called it "drawing with scissors."  Here is a picture of Matisse cutting out his shapes!

Here are some of our favorite Matisse cutouts.

La Gerbe

The Snail

Les Codomas

Icarus

We decided to give it a go and create our own Matisse-inspired cutouts.

Watch this video to see our creations!

Manfish

Today we learned about Jacques Cousteau.

We started the day by making predictions on the Morning Message out what this object was:

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!

Celebration!

At the end of each day on our Daily Communication Folder sheet we reflect on our rules of "I can take care of myself," "I can take care of others," and "I can take care of our place." 

For each classroom rule, we self-evaluate how our day went by scoring ourselves on a 3 (right on target), a 2 (I could have done better), or a 1 (Today was really hard for me).  

Today was the first day all year that *everyone* got all threes all year! 

Good job, Room 408!

October Learning Mural

Even though October went quickly, we still got a lot of learning done!

We partnered up and collaborated to represent our learning.

Here is our finished Learning Mural: