"Where a Leaf Will Land, Only the Wind Knows..."
In first grade we love to use outdoor education as a way to learn about the world around us. So on a beautiful fall day, we set off on an "Observation Hike" around the TCS campus, where we observed worms, butterflies, grasshoppers, dragonflies, and bees, and even a katydid! The campus was buzzing with life!
The first graders also embarked on a leaf hunt, and collected as many different varieties of leaves as they could find. The students took time to try to identify the different leaves: we had sassafras, red maple, oak, american beech, and more! The students made leaf rubbings, and listened to the story Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert. In this book, Lois Ehlert creates a Leaf Man as well as many other animals made entirely of leaves. Leaf Man's eyes are acorns and his mouth is a seed pod. He travels over garden vegetables, past prairie meadows, and over lakes and rivers. As Lois Ehlert repeats in her book, "The Leaf Man goes where the wind blows." The first graders took their gathered leaf collections and created their own animal creations, just as the author did in her book. It took some imagination to discover which leaves looked like chicken's legs, or whale's fins, or fish swimming in the ocean! Come see them in our classrooms when you get a chance!
In October, first graders also dove into pumpkin carving! In STEAM you could find the students carving eyes, noses, and mouths, and even cutting off the top of a pumpkin and scooping out the insides (because it's interesting to discover what's in there)! The students also used pumpkins for math by weighing pumpkins and measuring the circumference. Because it was Halloween, Mrs. Lariviere even concocted a scary witch's brew, complete with a floating eyeball (see picture)!
Inside the classroom, first graders are equally busy. Our current math unit focuses on number bonds, which provide a visual representation of the relationship between a number and the parts that combine to make it. Students are learning how to tell an addition story, and use their stories to make number bonds and addition sentences. As the students explore addition in first grade, they learn how to make sums in many ways. Here are the students figuring out how to make the sum of 10 in different ways.
We are looking forward to a busy November with lots more learning! We will be studying Native Americans and taking a voyage on the Mayflower!
