Once again, our reading series led to some wonderful learning! Our story last week was Tadpole to Frog, a non-fiction selection detailing a frog's life. Nathan took his learning into his own hands and brought in some friends for us to observe! Hopefully he will continue to watch his friends in his backyard and let us observe some more as they transform.
This week provided several wonderful opportunities! First, on Tuesday, the Cocoa Beach Fire Department came to visit and talk about fire prevention and safety. Always a favorite, the children demonstrated terrific knowledge on the subject! Also on Tuesday we experienced the thrill of dramatic play!
Mrs. Henry was gracious enough to lend her services to our classroom in the creation of our first shadow puppet play. The students worked with her to create their own shadow puppets using plastic donated from Publix. These colorful puppets depicted animals of the student's choice. We then practiced our play "I Went Walking", based on our story from last week by Vera Williams. The students each had a turn to be an animal 'following' the main character.
All this week the students practiced and performed the play for several audiences. Our fifth grade big pals especially enjoyed our performance! The pictures show Mrs. Henry's shadow puppet theater. When you open the pictures bigger, you can see a hint of the puppets.
We enjoyed this experience so much! We thank Mrs. Henry for providing the opportunity to express ourselves in a creative and fun way!
As we conclude our Days or Our Lives unit, it is interesting to hear the children's perspective on history and the people who came before us. Most of the students understood our central idea; people in history have an impact on our lives today. They understood the importance of their families, inventors, and of course presidents. When discussing our questions posed at the beginning of the unit, only two remained unanswered! (How is metal made? & How did Luci die? This is the documented first person ever to have existed.) Both of these questions will elicit some research at home I suppose!
Our discussions in class, ranging from the definition of the term history to why someone is named they way they are, were meaningful. I learned perhaps just as much as the children. This unit last year sparked in interest in reading biographies for myself, and thus I have ventured into the lives of George Washington and Ben Franklin. These kids amaze me everyday! For this, I am thrilled that they are a part of my "Days of Our Lives" episode!
Finally, it is interesting to synthesize the information gathered from the parent interviews. When asked if anything significant has happened in your life that is important to history, the following resulted:
Challenger Explosion
Martin Luther King Jr.
Columbia Explosion
The creation of the Internet
Creation of the European Union
First space shuttle
Fall of the Berlin Wall (3 responded)
9/11 (3 responded)
Neil Armstrong on the moon (6 responded)
Thank you for adding to our classroom discussions. These ideas sparked many different conversations in our classroom community.
We discussed yesterday, the importance of details. While introducing the term adjective, (to add to our budding vocabulary), we talked about how authors paint pictures in our minds with words. Thus, our fantastic learning experience!
First, we illustrated the sentence The dog ran. After our comparisons, we realized that we all drew different dogs. Gabby had spots and John S's dog was very large! Then we illustrated the sentence The large black fluffy dog ran. Wouldn't you know, our dogs looked similar? The magic paintbrush of words!
We will continue to study this idea, of adding words or what authors commonly call "elaboration". Students will be encouraged to add details and be specific or elaborate, in their writing. Nathan's story about a friend named Gus has already improved!
As we continue to work on our writing, we will publish student pieces! (Oh, excuse me...First grade author's pieces!)
