Week 9 - Egg Drop and Halloween

Halloween!

First grade worked very hard to decorate the spookiest Halloween door. Ms. Shirai made a sky and ground backdrop and put up spider web then the students brainstormed what might be found in a Halloween scene. They came up with ideas like jack-o-lantern, cat on broomstick, gravestones, haunted houses, monsters, and bats. Then they all got to work making things to put in the scene. We are so proud of what we created!

Before (Ms. Shirai sets the scene with a student-made moon):

After (all student made!)

And....we won the door decorating contest!

Our texture monsters where we explored the elements of line, pattern and texture enhanced our Halloween mood.

Us!

Egg Drop

This week the students did the egg drop STEM challenge!

Skills:

• define a simple problem that can be solved through the development of a new or improved object or tool
• develop a simple sketch to illustrate how the shape of an object helps it function as needed to solve a given problem

Problem:

To create a container that will prevent a raw egg from cracking when dropped from a high place. 

  

Steps

1. Design your own egg protector.
2. Put your designs together as a group to create a group design.
3. Write about how you used the materials and possible problems.
4. Build!
5. Look at each device and predict which will protect the egg and which might not. Write why.
6. Drop!
7. Inspect and note which predictions were correct and which weren't. Think and talk about why.

This challenge is to get our brains beginning to think about our next Unit of Inquiry: How The World Works. 

Home Learning

A common question during reading conferences was how to structure the 20 minutes of reading time every day. I suggest choosing 2 ways to read from below and doing about 10 minutes of each:

• independent reading
• listening to reading 
• reading together with a parent or older sibling (if possible)
• reading to a younger sibling

Some options for listening to reading:

Kids A-Z

EPIC has a 30 day free trial

Storyline has celebrities reading picture books.

Audio books can be found at Storynory

International Children’s Digital Library: "A library for the world's children," this site contains thousands of books in more than 60 languages.

Don't forget to check out the blog post on the weekly Word Study homework routine please!

Have a wonderful Fall Break!