Mrs. Dagley's First Grade Classroom: Who doesn't love a science experiment?

Baking soda and vinegar blow up a balloon!

There is always a little trepidation while awaiting the result of mixing two ingredients known to interact in interesting ways (even for me who kind of eyeballs how much of each to use!). This week we continued writing informational 'How-To' papers, sequencing the steps for an activity. We tried this experiment and wrote the instructions one step at a time. It was really awesome seeing the baking soda and vinegar react, fizz in the bottle and result in blowing up the balloon! On this 'How-To' we would add a few cautions- wear goggles, don't overfill, and be close to a sink just in case! here we are writing down the steps as we began the experiment:

First steps in the experiment

We continued to made 'How-To' writing interactive this week by writing how to make a clay creature, after actually making one!

Let's choose our clay colors!

Our mentor text and clay creatures!

A lot of muscle needed in softening the clay!

We did a little research writing this week as well, as everyone chose a penguin they were interested in, worked with others who chose the same penguin, researched info to write, and finally presented and read them aloud.

Using penguin booklets to research

A sunny spot for our researchers

Lots of mini posters to reference too!

Presenting Little Blue penguin

Presenting the King penguin

Emperor Penguin reports

Macaroni penguin reports

Listen to our Rockhopper Penguin report

I was interested in the Chinstrap Penguin!

Our weekly spelling words were a little tricky as we differentiated between words spelled with /ai/ or /ay. Remembering that /ai/ is usually found in the middle of words, and /ay/ is at the end, helped. Role playing "Two Vowels Go Walking" and watching fun mini videos about the same, were great ways to practice.

Role playing phonics!

We are spelling 'rain'!

We are spelling 'pain'!

You may have heard rumors of a 50 word spelling test coming up...and it is true! This test covers 50 sight words (most frequently used words and not necessarily phonetic). We have been practicing, learning tips to remember tricky spelling, and singing songs with the words. This list goes through the end of the year, so for this report card, we are hoping to spell at least 35 correctly. As far as the length of the test, rest assured we will break it up with some movement activities in between!

In Social Studies, we learned about George Washington, our first President, his childhood, career as a General, and his life as President. We also learned about the White House with its bowling alley, movie theater, 132 rooms, rooms named after colors or shapes (The Red, Blue, Green room and the Oval office). More to come next week. In the meantime, the school store gave a chance for kids to show Abe Lincoln on their pennies and five dollar bills, and George Washington on their quarters and one dollar bills!

In honor of Dr. Seuss' birthday (March 2nd) we had loads of reading fun with his delightful books!

Dressing up in story characters

Our Read- Aloud!

After reading Bartholomew and the Oobleck, we made our own oobleck! What a crazy substance to seem wet, yet be able to break apart as if dry. Lots of fun, a massive mess, but always volunteers to help clean up!

Oobleck fun

It started out as big globs...

We also read There's A Wocket in my Pocket and made our own creative wockets to show:

Like our wockets?!

Our wockets in pockets

Having fun with Dr. Seuss!

What is really exciting at this point in the year, is that everyone can read the Dr. Seuss collection! We have a nice big selection to choose from and the kids have been busy reading independently and then reading aloud a favorite page to the class. At our STRIPES assembly, we nominated one child in class to represent us for perseverance in focused reading and skill, so congratulations to Aidan!
Here we are reading: