What's the Weather?

Through our study of the weather, we are practicing many things such as: reading for the main idea and looking for supporting details, writing poetry (see a previous post), and learning about different types of measurement tools and what they are used for.

We learned about key ideas and details while reading our Scholastic News.  It was an article about the good and bad things that the wind does. 

We also read some books about rain and used excerpts from the text to discover details used to support the main idea.  The boys and girls got into groups and used highlighters to discuss and look for repetitive words that would give them a clue as to the detail the author was emphasizing in that passage.

                    

We learned about the water cycle and made a diagram.

We wondered about clouds and practiced writing questions.  Later we read some books about clouds and used an internet site Weather Wiz Kids to answer as many questions as we could.

                          

We also learned different types of clouds and the type of weather they bring.  Then, everyone created examples of four cloud types.

 

We also learned about many different instruments meteorologists use to measure and predict the weather.  

 

We will be finishing our weather unit this coming week along with learning about Earth Day.  Stay tuned!

Fun with Fractions

Fair shares, equal parts, and fractions have been on the minds of my first graders lately as we have been practicing with these during the math portion of our day for the past couple of weeks. We wanted to share just a few of the activities we have been using to deepen our understanding, and to give you an update of what we've been up to in math lately!

The boys and girls created some cute fraction pictures and wrote about the fractions that were used to make them.

Everyone had fun playing matching or sorting type games with a partner or in a small group.

Individual seat work was also used for a practice activity.

Of course, we continue to practice problem solving, addition/subtraction strategies, math facts, telling time, and much more each day through our daily math journal activities, practice, and timed math fact tests.  Next, we will be learning more about measurement!