Exploring Our "Adopted" Tree

This week we began a unit on Trees. We will study trees over the next 2 weeks as well. On Tuesday we went out to observe our tree. This tree is right outside our classroom, too! Check out these curious, excited first graders as they made observations of the tree.

Insects!

This week we had the privilege of working together with all of our first grade friends! To meet our new CCSS writing and technology standards we had students create a video presentation about insects. This project has been one of my top favorite integrated projects we've done this year. This included science, reading, speaking, listening, writing, teamwork and technology all into one fun project! Students created a written plan, took photos, chose speakers and recorded this presentation. We used a free, easy to use app called 30 Hands.  We hope you enjoy our presentation titled, Things About Insects.

Bugs! Bugs! Bugs!

Last week we began a 5-week unit on insects. Students have learned that ALL insects have 3 main body parts: head, thorax and abdomen. They also have 6 legs, antennae and some have wings. We looked at how Eric Carle creates illustrations. He cuts apart pieces of painted-on tissue paper to make each pages illustration. We cut out different shapes to make our insects. Then we wrote a poem about bugs using adjectives and nouns. Take a look at their art below!:

Grass Seed Day!

If you didn't know, we live in the Grass Seed Capital of the world. Last Thursday we had the privilege of local grass seed farmer Nick Bowers from Tydan Farms visiting our first grade classrooms. The students enjoyed a presentation where they learned how grass effects their lives. We learned that Farmer Nick makes grass, cows eat grass, cows make milk, which makes cheese, ice cream and so much more! He did a fabulous job showing our young students why grass is important and it connects to them.

After that we rotated through three areas. In one room we planted grass seed. In another we read a story about a boy who found out where each vegetable in his soup was grown and enjoyed a cheese stick snack. This story, Who Grew My Soup by Tom Darbyshire was given to us through Oregon's AITC, Ag In The Classroom. Outside we got to look at 2 huge combines and a disc. The students loved seeing the farm equipment! Take a look at some pictures below from our day!

Local news station, KEZI 9 came to watch and aired this clip from our day. Click below to see the movie:

Students Learn About Grass Farming

Here is what our grass looks like just 1 week later! Our hair is getting wild!

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Recycling Creations

This past week was all about recycling! Our days included reading about recycling, listening to stories about recycling and making our own creations from recycled materials! On Wednesday I started taking pictures of the students while they were working on their creations. Kids quickly started noticing saying "Mrs. Bowers is taking pictures of us!" My favorite comment to follow was by Albert, "Put them on the blog right now!" I told him I couldn't right away, but I definitely would! All the kids were excited to share their creations with you. 

On Tuesday we made our plans. Here are a few of their plans:

On Wednesday we began building our creations:

On Thursday we finished working on our creations:

 On Friday we shared our creations! They were very creative creations:

Thanks to everyone who sent in recycled materials to help us make our creations!