Grant Award

1st grade received a grant for $900 from the Virginia Beach Education Foundation and underwritten by Lifetouch. The money is for purchasing digital cameras so that the students can take pictures of seasonal changes, patterns in nature, and explorations of the Frog Bog outdoor classroom. The pictures will be used to help the students to make a stronger connection with their studies and their writting. We will also be using the cameras to create our Earth Day celebration presentation. I cannot wait to see how their perspective changes as they look at their own pictures and focus in on pieces of their surroundings. What would you look for in nature?

Fall Festival

Fall Festival was fabulous as usual. I just wanted to share a few conservation notes about it. The PTA used can drinks this year so the cans could be recycled and paper plates instead of styrofoam. I am very proud of them for making the switch. The paper won't take as long to decompose as the styrofoam, so it is a better choice. Thank you PTA! I was pleased to see students who made their costumes or reused a sibling's old costume. It makes for a great tradition to create your own outfit. By the way, how do you like my newspaper dress? It is totally recycable. Finally, I want to thank everyone who was interested in the pop-top earrings and cork board that were part of the raffles. I am thrilled to know that you are as interested in reusing things as I am. It is a rewarding feeling. So if you are doing something at your house for conservation that you think is worthy of mentioning, let us know. I have heard some wonderful stories of how we have inspired families in the community to conserve and rethink how they do things. Just post a comment.

Pumpkin Exploration

We had a great day yesterday exploring pumpkins as scientist all afternoon. We measured girth, weight, and height, but first we had to make predictions. We found many ways to sort and classify pumpkins. Our pumpkins were also sequenced by size and weight. We all took part in the tradition of scooping out the pulp, voting on a face, and counting the seeds. The biggest pumpkin had fewer seeds than the medium- sized pumpkin. What a shock! Our super parent volunteers made pumpkin bread, pumpkin cookies, and toasted pumpkin seeds for us to taste. Yummy! Now all that is left to do is see who predicted correctly which pumpkin would last the longest. Last year's pumpkin didn't start to mold until mid-April. Do you think this year's pumpkins will last as long? We will just have to keep observing like a science (hopefully our eyes will tell us it is time to toss them before our noses do.)

Stretching Our Brains

We have been growing, learning, and experimenting. We learned a lot about the Earth and sun last month. This month we are learning all about plants. It is really fun because we get to do experiments. We found out that seeds won't sprout without water to soften the seed coat and warmth to signal that it is time. We talked about the parts of a plant and the functions of each part. We even did an experiment to prove that the stem acts like a straw to carry water to the leaves and flowers. When we added red food color to water in a vase the daffodil took in red all around the flower. We get to sample different parts of plants that are edible, too. Yum! What is your favorite part of a plant to eat?
We celebrated Dr. Seuss's birthday by reading lots of Dr. Seuss stories. The students' favorite story is The Cat in the Hat Comes Back. The most popular explanation is because the Cat in the Hat turned the snow pink. It was just too much chaos for me. Green Eggs and Ham was another favorite. Now, that story is fun and compelling. So where would you eat green eggs and ham?

Busy, Busy, Busy

We have been busy building fact power in math. Today we found out that we can be faster at figuring out sums than a calculator. Just ask us what any number is plus 1 or zero. Ask us our sums of 10 or our single-digit doubles. We know those faster than you can key them into a calculator. But that's not all we have been doing. We finished our motion unit and created rollercoasters. We discovered that all sound comes from vibrations and it doesn't take much to change the pitch or volume of a sound. In writing, we are using our imaginations to write stories about animals that we personify by having them do people things. Just imagine a jellyfish who has been sent to the principal or a bull driving a tractor. It's loads of fun letting our imaginations run wild. What would you write about just for fun? As for reading, we are learning to clarify our understanding of a story by retelling it in our own words using just the illustrator's pictures. Ask us to show you how at home. Now, that's all good stuff, but we also earned a popcorn party in art for our good behavior and an ice cream party for collecting the most box tops for education last quarter. There's nothing like a little something for the belly to make you forget that it is cold and wet outside.

Happy New Year

Welcome to 2011. It has certainly come in with enough snow flakes and cold air to keep us guessing. We miss going outside for walk-n-talk and recess, but we have been making the best of it. We have been doing lots of writing about snow, bundling up, and drinking hot cocoa. We have also been exploring other geographical areas. The students are split between the Arctic and Tropical Beaches for the most part, but ask them about Prairies, Deserts, Mountains, and Forests. They are quite knowledgable on these areas. We are working on a performance task where the students create an amusement park area based on one of the 6 areas we explored. I'm looking forward to checking out their final products. We have also been enjoying reading the wacky Wayside School stories. There are some strange characters in this book. What chapter do you think is the strangest?