Birds of a feather flock together

Colorful birds!

Birds have wings, beaks, make nests, and most fly, but what makes a bird unique to all other creatures? Feathers! We had so much fun this week learning about the incredible variety among birds, their specific features that help them survive in their varied habitats or features (beak types) that are just right for the type of food they eat. We did research using posters, texts, and fact cards and completed a bird report as our final non fiction writing. We also put together a bird booklet with some of the information we learned.

Taking notes from posters

Notes from our completed chart

Labeled birds

Bluebird, chickadee, cardinal, or gold finch?

Gathering notes from bird

I'll take that fact!

Everyone chose a bird from our local area to research. The choices were Goldfinch, Cardinal, Chickadee, or Bluebird. They worked together and independently to gather information and organize it into topics. Our Informational writing collection will be coming home soon along with this report.

Partner reading about or bird

We work great together!

Your turn to read!

Wow! The ids gave all this info they read about!

Everyone enjoyed their first crossword puzzle too - of course themed about birds! 

Let's get this clue!

Crossword fun!

 Since the older grades were taking MCAS tests, first grade switched our specialist time to the morning so they could still have theirs in the afternoon. That meant a very long afternoon, so we took out the paints, got creative, and made a hall display inspired by the paintings of Eric Carl!

Painting fun!

Artistic work!

Nice designs!

What a display!

As we collect, sort, and graph data in math, we learned that we could also organize data using tally marks. To remember that the fifth tally is made diagonally across the group of four, we have a poem and popsicle stick tally kids: 

Our tally poem and visuals

 But what really sent the message home was acting out the tally poem with our own friends being the tally marks. Bursts of laughter and a good workout of my arm muscles made this activity a blast!

We caught the 5th one before she fell!

Hold on tight, tallies!

Kind of fun being tally # 5!

 As we finish up graphing, tallying, and analyzing the results, we will move into geometry next. 2-D plane shapes and 3-D solids here we come!

Here is a little word work fun identifying spelling patterns and writing new words, all in cute plastic chicks:

Which spelling pattern does this chick hold?!

Have a wonderful weekend and see if you can spot a bird we learned about or hear a familiar bird song!

Mrs. Dagley