1L Happenings-BreakoutEDU and Animal Adaptations!

Breakout Math and Science Review!

Students in 1L have joined the "escape room" craze! We participated in a "Breakout" Math and Science review activity this week. Students had to use QRI codes, teamwork and knowledge from our math and science units to unlock secret boxes filled with an awesome prize! 

"Escape rooms have been popping up all over the country. That’s where a group of people are willingly locked in and given an hour to “break out.” They follow clues posted or hidden in the room, sidestep the red herrings, and work together to beat the clock.

The startup Breakout EDU has developed a way to use this playful, exciting model in the classroom environment with kits. These items can be used to create puzzles and treasure hunts for your students to discover content.

Breakout EDU founder James Sanders designed the student experiences after visiting those popular escape or puzzle rooms. As an educator, he realized that these activities “teach teamwork, problem solving, critical thinking, and troubleshooting by presenting students with challenges that ignite their natural drive to problem solve,” he says on BreakoutEDU.com."

Check out more from Phil Goerner's 2016 Article in SLJ here 

or 

go BreakoutEDU for more information! 

Animal parts, survival, habitats and inheritance! 

Students have been learning about animal adaptations and how animal parts help them to survive! Check us out as we describe animal characteristics, experiment with different bird beaks, and create super animals with our favorite animal adaptations.

To enhance our learning about animals and their habitats, as well as the important themes of Earth Day, our class has decided to "adopt" a Panda! See the letter below for information!

Animal Adoption

Dear First Grade Families,

       As we prepare for Earth day in the coming week, the students have been discussing ways to help, protect, and care for the Earth and it’s many living things. A special way we feel we can help our environment is protecting the animals that roam our planet. With that in mind, 1L has planed to adopt an endangered animal. As a class, we voted and decided to adopt a Panda through the World Wildlife Fund. Our class donation will go towards keeping the Panda safe and living free in the wild. We have decided to make a goal to donate at least $2.00 per student to the fund. But of course, any spare change is welcomed! We are so excited to play a role in helping this species live happily on our planet. Please return your donation by Friday April 28, 2015 so that your child can be a part of our class Earth Day Service Project.

Here is some information about the Panda:

Giant pandas are found only in the temperate forests of China. Although classified as a carnivore, the panda’s diet consists almost exclusively of bamboo. Despite being one of the most popular animals in the world, giant pandas are threatened by habitat fragmentation and unsustainable development. It is estimated that 1,800 pandas remain in the wild. WWF is the primary international conservation organization protecting pandas and their habitat.

http://gifts.worldwildlife.org/

Homework for this week!

Homework for this week is already in boxes! So if you celebrate any holidays this week, take those nights off and save it for later! 

All the best,

Mrs. L

Aquarium Volunteers

New England Aquarium Field Trip!

We are looking for volunteers for our annual field trip to the New England Aquarium. 

Please let me know if you are interested in chaperoning a group of students on May 25th 2017. 

Chaperones will be expected to: 

• Come to 1L at 8:30am for a brief meeting with me about field trip expectations
• Bring a backpack to carry lunches for your group
• Supervise students throughout the day 
• Guide children in important science conversations that will extend and enhance learning about animal parts, inheritance and survival.

 I will be picking 3 volunteers at random to join us on our trip to the New England Aquarium on May 25th 8:30am-3:00pm.

Please fill out this form if you are interested! 

Animal Parts!

Animal Parts Science Unit

Students in 1L have begun a new unit on the parts of animals this month! We will be doing experiments that help us to research animals and their parts, but also be doing some investigation about how animal parts differ, helping us to draw conclusions about the important differences among animal species.

Check out some background from our science curriculum to guide your conversations at the dinner table, on your weekend trip the zoo or aquarium, or even on your walk outside in this beautiful spring weather!

BACKGROUND:

Animals have external characteristics, such as body covering, color, body shape, or size, that are related to where they live. The cheetah, an African grassland wild cat, has a sleek body and long. muscular legs that allow it to run quickly to catch prey. The cheetah’s spotted fur helps it hide while hunting. The Antarctic penguin is covered in very dense feathers to keep warm. The penguin’s slender body helps it walk upright on webbed feet, swim underwater, or slide on the ice. The penguin’s black and white color protects it on both sides from ocean predators. The desert rattlesnake is the same color as the sand and has a long body to wiggle quickly across the hot surface. Each animal on Earth has special physical structures that help it survive in that region.

Animals have external characteristics, such as wings, flippers, hooves, or paws, that are related to how they move. Different limbs allow animals to move through water, land, or air. Eagles and flamingos have wings for flying. However, the large, strong wings of an eagle allow it to fly long distances to hunt food and swoop quickly to catch it. The wings of the flamingo, a wading bird, are intended mainly for migration flights. The penguin has flippers instead of wings and has webbed feet to swim. The snapping turtle also has webbed feet for swimming. In the north, reindeer have hooves to protect their feet from the hard arctic surfaces. Cheetahs have padded paws on strong muscular legs that allow it to be the fastest land animal.

Animals have external characteristics, such as teeth, claws, beaks, or eyes, that are related to what they eat. Although the cheetah, shark, and snake all have specialized teeth for eating meat, their teeth are quite different. The cheetah has a set of teeth typical of a large cat with strong, sharp, front fangs for ripping meat. The shark is unique in having multiple rows of razor sharp teeth used for biting other fish and sea creatures. The rattlesnake has two large fangs that inject poison to paralyze the prey, usually small rodents, which helps the predator to swallow its prey whole. The penguin also swallows its food whole (krill and small fish), which it catches at sea with its strong beak. The flamingo has a beak, but turns its head upside down in the shallow water to catch small fish in the hooked beak. The cheetah uses claws for catching and ripping meat. The eagle also has claws, called talons, which are long, razor sharp, strong enough to carry prey, and can be used to kill. The eagle also uses its incredible eyesight for spotting prey, which it can see up to a mile away.

We will be focusing in on these nouns and verbs:

The Verbs: What should students be doing?

• Use materials to design: Use items to create something
• Mimic: Copy something or someone
• Survive: Stay alive
• Grasp: Hold on to something

The Nouns: What key terms are found in the standard?

• Organism: A plant or animal
• External parts: Parts on the outside of something
• Body parts: Parts of the body (arms, legs etc.)
• Stability: Resistant to change

Love,

Mrs. L