Thanksgiving Service Project

Thanksgiving Service Project

Students in 1L participated in a service project this month, as a part of the Sheehan citizen challenge. With the help of KT, we made special table cloths for the cafeteria with positive affirmations and thank you notes to our janitorial and cafeteria staff. Each table at each lunch had a beautiful cloth to eat on yesterday! It was quite a feat! We also thought that it would be a great way to spread positivity to our classmates! This Thanksgiving, we are so thankful for the happiness and joy that Sheehan brings to us each day.

Happy Thanksgiving from the 1L turkeys!

Love,
Mrs. L

Super Failures!

Scientists here in 1L are working on a developed understanding of sound and it's association with vibration and waves. We did an experiment with tuning forks and water, and another experiment with rice and sound speakers. Students are beginning to ask amazing questions about how and why sound works and have even begun associating waves with sound, can you believe it? I have to say, I was really pumped! Of course, feel free to recreate these experiments at home to keep the inquiry going!

Most importantly, 1L scientists are also working hard to refine experiments based on questions they develop during the experiment process! We have talked about only changing one thing at a time to test different claims. With this process, has come some pretty super scientific failures! Helping students to see failure as a tool and opportunity is a huge part of our new science curriculum. Watch this video with your students at home to continue these conversations.

"Cheers" to a lifetime of brilliant failures!!

Love,
Mrs. L

PJ DAY!

PJ day is tomorrow!

Wednesday, November 23rd

(no slippers or stuffed animals please) 

Can't wait to see everyone's jammies!

Love,

Mrs. L

Word Detectives!

Word Detectives in Training!

1L students have launched a new reading unit this week titled, "Word Detectives!" Each day this week, students have been given a new "secret mission" from the Super Secret Word Detective Agency. Missions arrive in a special, confidential envelope. 

In order to earn their status as "Word Detectives," and receive official badges, students have been focusing on using word solving strategies during Reading Workshop. 

Some strategies include:

Look at all the parts of the word 

Get a running start (re-reading the few words before helps)

Check the picture (it has clues)

Try it 2 ways (try long and short sounds)

Do a double check

and a student even made up her own strategy...

Shake it off and re-start! (for when you mess up a sound while tapping) 

As Word Detectives in training,

"We ain't afraid of no words!"

Love,

Mrs. L

WANTED: Musical Greeting Cards

ATTENTION First Grade Families!

WANTED: Musical Greeting Cards

1L is in need of some "musical greeting cards" ASAP! 

We need 5-6 of them.

These are the ones that when you open them, they play a song! 

If you have any at home, we can black out the messages! 

We will be using these for our Sound experiments coming up! 

Our little scientist are going to have so much fun exploring this month!

Thanks for your help and endless support! 

Love,

Mrs. L

Sound Unit

Sound Exploration

First graders are beginning a wonderful physical science exploration this week in the area of Sound. 

Here are some of the key verbs and nouns of the unit:

VERBS (What students will be doing):

• Plan and conduct investigations: Think and do a project to answer questions
• Provide: Supply or have to share
• Vibrate: When things shake quickly

NOUNS (What students will be learning about):

• Sound: Energy from vibrations that you hear
• Matter: Stuff that everything is made of
• Evidence: Information that proves a point
• Material: What something is made of

We look forward to having some help at our Science lab in the coming weeks! If you are interested in joining us, please email our room parents and take a look at this 

Important 

Volunteer Guide 

before joining us!

As students are learning about Sound over the next few weeks, here is some background for your home conversations:

Sound is created by vibrating objects. Unlike water waves or vibrations of a string, which move up and down as they travel sideways, sound waves travel in the direction of their motion, compressing and rarefying (expanding) the air as they go. If there is no air, like in the vacuum of space, there is no sound. Sound waves travel when matter is present in the gas, liquid or solid phase.

There are many different types of sounds. Sounds can be loud, like a siren blaring, or quiet, like a whisper. The more air that is moved, the louder is the sound. Loud sounds have higher amplitudes and quiet sounds have lower amplitudes. Higher pitches vibrate the air at higher rates than do lower pitch sounds. Sounds can be high-pitched, like an alarm, or low-pitched, like a tuba; these are examples of high frequency sound waves and low frequency sound waves, respectively (Stemscopes Curriculum).

Use the following websites to guide and insight some conversations about sound:

https://www.brainpop.com/artsandmusic/makingmusic/woodwinds/

https://www.brainpop.com/artsandmusic/makingmusic/brassinstruments/

https://www.brainpop.com/artsandmusic/makingmusic/strings/

https://www.brainpop.com/artsandmusic/makingmusic/percussion/

Feel free to explore for homework options this month!

Love,

Mrs. L

A Sheehan School Election

A Sheehan School Election

Different from some other grades here at the Sheehan, students in 1L participated in a smaller, mini unit of study on the election process in the United States this month. 

We discussed important election vocabulary.

We determined the different things that a candidate would do in order to "run" for president.

We brainstormed what values a president should have and what actions would be important for them to do or have done.

We even participated in an school-wide student election organized by the 2nd grade. 

It was also a great opportunity to weave in some ideas about leadership that we have been discussing.

Please find some additional resources on brainpop to extend student thinking about the topics above.

Love,

Mrs. L

A visit from a Pilgrim

A Pilgrim Visit

This week started with Halloween festivities and ended with First graders jumping right into their study of Pilgrims, Plymouth Plantation and the First Thanksgiving.

Students were visited by "Constance" today! She was a cheerful and knowledgeable Pilgrim from Plymouth, Plantation 

We learned about how Pilgrim children played, what they did for work, how they dressed, what they ate and even discussed some important similarities and differences about our daily lives.

Students are quickly gaining knowledge of the contrast between past and present events, recognizing some key differences between our lives and those of the Pilgrims.

Please reference the brainpop video titled, "thanksgiving" to learn more about the content students are experiencing in 1L.  

Love,

Mrs. L

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween! 

Students have been really excited for Halloween over the past few weeks! With it's arrival this Monday, we decided to celebrate by doing some super fun, curriculum connected activities.

We read Maurice Sendak's, Where the Wild Things Are. 

We practiced visualizing those terrible "wild things" and then tried to make our own monsters. We described them using adjectives with labels in our Monster diagrams too! 

Pumpkin Bats

We also had fun making "pumpkin bats" with some AMAZING parent volunteers this week.

These served as perfect models when we finished up our bat informational books this week too!

 

We synthesized information from multiple sources to create our very own bat teaching books.

 These nonfiction readers become nonfiction writers before my eyes!

Witch Visit

To finish off the Halloween day with a really exciting treat, we had a special visit from Mrs. Erwin! She flew into our room with her witches hat on, ready to read us a spooktaular story!

I hope everyone enjoyed a wonderful Halloween!

Love,

Mrs. L