Field Trip to Museum of Science

What a great day!!!

A special thank you to our chaperones who joined us today - Jackie O'Doherty, Anthony Rodrigues, Taso Giannopoulos and Julie Whelan.  In big part, today went so smoothly because of all of your help.

We left Sheehan at 9:00am this morning.  After about an hour's bumpy and fun bus ride - we had a whole bus to ourselves - the 1P express to MOS, we made it to the Museum.  We headed inside and went to check out the Cosmic Light exhibit.  Many of us were comparing information about the planets to see - how many moons?  which one had the most moons? which one takes the longest to go around the sun?  which one is farthest from the sun? is there a relationship there?

After asking and answering many questions, we went to the Planetarium.  We had our own Sheehan First Grade show!   The entire show tied into our Earth Science Unit about the Seasons and the sky and the changes we see.  It also told us about the moon and how it changes and why, as well as the length of our days and nights on Earth and how and why they change.

Once this show was over, we divided into our groups with our chaperones and went off to follow our Scientific exploration schedule.  We went to the Suit Cabot Lab where we could make our own microscope slides with moss samples and see all of the tiny creatures that are actually living there.  We could also mix different solutions together to see the color-changing results! 

At the Design Challenge, the challenge was to build a sailboat using the materials and then test it out in a race.  We could try to make the fastest one or try to carry the most gems in our boats.  Some of our 1P scientists immediately wanted to carry the most gems - 4 of them with different designs prepared to race but all of the boats sank.  So, just like real scientists, it was back to the drawing board to change our design, and for some the challenge we wanted to try.  Then we could go back and try again! 

In the lighthouse, the students were able to look at mirrors and experiment with light and reflection.  They were also able to use light to make shadows.  This is continuing the science we are currently working on in 1P!

In Take a Closer Look,  First graders were working with experiments and activities that asked them to use their senses.  They were making vibrations and working with sound to complete many of the activities. 

Each group also had some free time during which the groups could decide together where to go.  Some groups went to the dinosaur exhibit, others went to the Science in the Park indoor playground and some chose to visit the Space Shuttle and see what it is like to be inside.

All groups took a lunch break to eat outside in the shade.  It was a perfect day!

Now we are all ready for Derby Day tomorrow and to make our predictions for the race!

Mrs. P :)

May 2, 2018


So sorry that it has been so long since I posted....what a busy time of year - I will try to bring you up to date on what we are working on in 1P these days.

Science  -

We have just finished up our Sound Unit - check out our rock band -

We are now working on Light and Communication.  We are talking about what is transparent, translucent and opaque.  We are also experimenting with reflection.

Math -

We are working very hard on story problems.  First how to find the important information in a story problem, how to figure out which operation to use (+, -), how to show the most efficient strategy and what to include in your answer (equation, strategy, answer and label).   We are working on problems with something missing, as well as problems with many solutions.

We are working on place value and using tens and ones to help us solve problems.  We will be working on adding two digit numbers more as well.  As always , we are working to firm up our fluency in knowing combinations to 10 in both addition ad subtraction.

Writer's Workshop

We are finishing up our Persuasive Writing Unit with some final reviews of books, toys, movies and restaurants.  We have learned about stating our opinion and why we feel that way, including many reasons and adding details.  We have also worked on good beginnings to "hook" the reader and good conclusions.

We are starting to work on writing poetry.  We began with rhyming poetry.  We will be learning about a variety of different kinds of poems and trying to write several different kinds.

Reader's Workshop

We recently had an amazing Leo Lionni day to learn all about this author and illustrator.  We read several of his books and talked about what kinds of books he writes and his very interesting and varied illustrating style.  Then we tried out some of his illustrating styles for ourselves.  We made torn paper pictures with watercolors,  Mrs. Isabella joined us for all of these fun activities.

We are also working on our fluency in reading,.  We read to our partners and practice sounding like a teacher.  We are also working on talking about characters and how to think about characters based on what is happening and how they are acting.

Thank you for your patience in waiting for a blog update!!

Happy May!

Mrs. P

February 16, 2018

This was quite a celebratory week - from 100th Day on Monday to Valentine's Day on Thursday to Chinese New Year on Friday!  Amazing all of the learning that took place this week with celebrations for each of these special days mixed right in!!

Math
This week, Math revolved around the number 100.  We worked on place value, understanding the ones, tens and now the hundreds, what they mean and how they can help us with our problem solving.  We used real life problem situations to develop ways to add up to 100.  In small groups, we had to build with 100 cups. 

Once building, we had to use equations to figure out if we had the right number of cups.  Some groups made smaller towers and added the number of cups per tower. 

Other groups made larger towers and added the number of cups per row in a large equation. 

Then we combined numbers into tens to make it easier to figure it out.

When we were all finished with this activity, we combined all the cups as a class to make a large structure and then figure out how many cups in all!!

Other 100 Day Math related activities included -
Putting 100 stickers on a page arranged in combinations to make 100 -

Estimating how many times we could perform certain actions in 100 seconds and then counting how many we actual did do in 100 seconds.

Literacy
For literacy, we wrote lists of 100 words - 10 lists of 10 words each in different categories such as- Girl's Names, Toys, Number words, etc.  We also read poems that had 100 words.  In addition, we continued our study of Presidents, focused especially on George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.  We read several books about these two Presidents and remembered important facts about each.  We made drawings of both of these Presidents, which will be hanging in the hall outside 1P. 

We continue to work on our Non-fiction animal books.  We began to use the information from our readings to create our own non-fiction books about our own animal.  We will be finishing these after vacation before moving into our unit on Opinion Writing.

Enjoy the vacation!  Don't forget to send back the moon journals after vacation.  We will be wrapping up our Moon unit in Science and starting Sound & Light!

Mrs. P

February 9, 2018

What a busy week - we are gearing up and getting ready for the 100th Day of School on Monday!! 

In Math, we worked this week on wrapping up our data unit and sharing what we learned about collecting data and reading charts and graphs to understand the data. We also worked on true/false equation statements.  Some examples are -

2 + 4 = 5 + 1   

12 = 3 + 3 + 2

The students need to see if the equations are the same and answer true or false.  For an added challenge - they can change the false ones to make them true!

Language Arts

We are still working on our Nonfiction unit in Reader's and Writer's Workshops.  This week we began to work on our research for writing our Nonfiction books on an animal.  We chose an animal book from the Sheehan Library and began to read and notice some of the nonfiction text features that are used.  We are using stickies to "stop and jot" interesting and exciting facts about our animals that we would like to use in our books.  We are working on reading and then jotting  the information in our own words on our stickies.  We have also been working on strategies to figure out some of the tough content words that we come across in these books.

In Writer's Workshop, we are learning about adding specific vocabulary to our writing.  We are also noticing how authors use introductions and conclusions in their nonfiction writing.  Next week, we will begin writing our books on our animals.  We will work to include specific vocabulary, as well as interesting openings and endings for our books.

Science

In Science, we are continuing to talk about the moon and the different phases that we have been observing.  PLEASE SEND YOUR CHILD'S MOON JOURNAL IN WITH THEM AFTER VACATION so we can share them and discuss our observations.  

Please make sure to help your child remember to bring in their Valentine's on Tuesday, February 13th!

Thank you!

Mrs. P

February 2, 2018

Math
In Math this week, we continued our work on collecting and recording data, as well as reading data and explaining our learning from data collected.  In pairs, the students had to make a plan for a survey question and how they were going to collect their data.  Then they had to collect the data and draw some conclusions. 

 When they were done, each group created a poster with the data and conclusions on it and shared it in front of the class to show what they had learned about the class from their survey question.

Language Arts
We continue to work on Non-fiction in our Reader's and Writer's Workshops.  During Reader's Workshop, we are working on reading non-fiction books, strategies to solve tricky vocabulary that we encounter in these books and noticing the features of non-fiction books (table of contents, diagram, labeling, fun facts, glossaries, chapter titles, etc).

On Groundhog Day, we read an interesting Nonfiction page about Groundhogs.  We read with partners and used our highlighters.  We looked for interesting information and for the answers to some of our important Science questions.  See below.

We shared as a whole class the answers we found for each question, and the interesting information we found!

 What a fun week!

Mrs. P