Intro to Research: Skateboarding

Last week in reading we worked on an introduction to research: asking relevant questions and finding answers in text to those questions. With this lesson, we read Skateboarding from WeGiveBooks. If you have not visited WeGiveBooks, you should! There are so many current and classic books online for FREE! Before reading, the students shared what they already know about skateboarding which we recorded on a KWL chart under the K for what we "know." The students then divided into groups and wrote down questions they had or things they "wondered" on post-it notes. We added these to the KWL chart. We then read the book, including taking a close look at the parts of the book such as the table of contents, glossary, etc., to find answer to the questions. We then added the information under the L for what we "learned." The students then created their own skateboard out of construction paper and wrote at least one answer they learned from the book.

Ocean Animal Research

The students went to the library in small groups to research with our librarian, Mrs. Jepsen. Each group had a different ocean animal to research. After researching and taking notes, the students turned their notes into sentences using sentence stems which they then used to write a research paper. The students made ocean report covers for their research papers. They also created a scuba diver face to go with their scuba diver which holds and displays their great writing.

Santa Study

Yesterday our librarian, Mrs. Jepsen, taught a lesson to all of the first graders about the role of Santa Around the World. We learned that in the United States he is Santa Claus, in France he is Pere Noel, in Germany he is Saint Nicholas, and in Russia he is Grandfather Frost. They also learned that in Mexico they have The Three Kings. The students learned how they traveled, what they brought to boys and girls, and where they lived. After completing the Santa study, the students used the chart to help them write sentences about what they learned in their Santa book.

Open House: Ocean Adventures

This is a little late coming, but thank you to all of the families who came to Open House. We had a great time. Over this last six weeks the students explored the Ocean Habitat in cross-curricular lessons. The students began by researching about a specific ocean animal in the library with Ms. Tricoli. They then used their research notes to write, edit, and revise research papers. Using their research papers, the students created slides on the computer about their animals. After creating their slides, the students typed and recorded themselves reading one fact about their ocean animal. The slides were compiled into an ocean video. (The video will be posted at a later time after modifications are made.) The students also read numerous books about the ocean, created math word problems with fish, and reviewed the parts of a plant with a study of Kelp. Students were able to experiment with the ocean habitat by making an "ocean in a bottle." Below is a quick video of the students' hard work.

This digital scrapbook created with Smilebox