Amazing Water

Wondering about water:
I wonder if water comes from God? -Quintin
What needs water besides plants and animals? -Marina
How does water get to lakes from the ocean? -Gavin
Does water come from a machine in a factory? -Cora

New discoveries:
If you blow on water, you can make it separate. -Maddy
Sometimes it is apart and sometimes it is together.  How does it do that? -Tilman
It can go through paper.  -Tony

Zoo Trip

Mackenzie, Kelsey and I agreed that we were lucky to visit the National Zoo today.  

Can you spot the gorilla in the background?

                                                                          Big Gorilla    
                                               

Nimble Orangutan

Working in the Garden

What a glorious day to work in our courtyard garden!

We planted lettuce with gardeners from Monticello.

Some Plants Produce Food

 Students wrote grocery shopping lists.

We tried some foods that come from plants.

We used paper to make collages of edible plants.

Spring Inspiration

We are discovering the seasonal changes of spring and noticing that some plants have flowers and other plants do not have flowers.

Collaborating with Kindergarten

We worked with Kindergarten students to create "a boat with a  sail".   This challenge came to us in the form of a Tweet from Mr. Thornton's kindergarten class at Merriweather Lewis Elementary School.

Academic Choice

There are so many things I absolutely love about this photo!  Jack has taken charge of his own learning.  He is exploring with magnets, using a fun tool to practice his Word Study words and has found a space where he can be academically successful!

Flexibility with the use of classroom space and tools empowers students to make sound academic choices!

Moving and Shaking!

Inventors Solve Problems

We have seen how famous inventors like Benjamin Franklin and George Washington Carver solved everyday problems with their inventions.

Here are some of the problems that we brainstormed:

I can't throw the ball and hit it at the same time.
My sister/brother is mean.
I don't know where to sit on the bus.
It hurts when I put my earrings on.
I'm not tall enough to dunk the basketball.
I can't reach my own snack in the car.
I get carsick.

Stay tuned as we attempt to design and build inventions that will solve some of these problems.

Start Your Engines!

Fun with physics!  Force, gravity, pushes and pulls, momentum, friction.

Citizen Science

We are thrilled to be part of Project Budburst.  Along with citizen scientists all over the country, we will  observe a plant, collect and submit data.

"Project BudBurst is a network of people across the United States who monitor plants as the seasons change and submit ecological data based on the timing of leafing, flowering, and fruiting of plants."

You can be a part of Project Budburst at home or at school.

We have chosen to follow the maple just outside of our classroom door.

Exploring Motion

Measuring Length

We use non-standard units to measure length in 1st Grade.

Pajama Day

Our class was a ZOO today.  Fuzzy, cuddly, well-loved animals helped us through our day.

Letters to the President

We read the following non-fiction story about a young girl who wrote a letter to Abraham Lincoln, suggesting that he grow a beard.  Mr. Lincoln listened to her advice, grew a beard and wrote a letter back.

Today we wrote letters to our current President.  We hope to receive a letter back from him.  Below is a letter that Cora wrote.

Building Monuments

We worked with kIndergarten children from the Giraffe Class today to create monuments out of clay.  Students could choose to build a monument that represents George Washington, Abraham Lincoln or themselves.

100th Day Fun

Eleanor Roosevelt

Eleanor Roosevelt helped many people.  We can be helpful too.

Starry Night

Thanks to Dillon's mom for leading us through a discussion about Vincent van Gogh's Starry Night masterpiece.  Below are some of the masterpieces that we created in van Gogh's style.  What a great way to combine art with science!

Playground fun

Awesome fairy house (complete with a garden and a forest).

Photographed by Cat and Meredith

Eleanor Roosevelt

In first grade we study a handful of great American leaders.  For the next two weeks we will focus on Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington Carver and Eleanor Roosevelt.  The quote below is from Eleanor Roosevelt.  We used her quotation to launch a conversation about how leaders can inspire us to do great things in our own lives.

Here is how students interpreted Eleanor Roosevelt's quote:

"You can stand up for yourself."

"You can get over your fears."

"Just try something you are scared of and maybe you won't be scared anymore."

"You think you might not like it, but maybe you'll love it."

"You can stand up for people."

Kidsblog

Look for changes to our Kidsblog.  We discussed that blogs are often used to share information.  We will try to move away from just chatting with friends on our Kidsblog, to sharing our new learning.

How to Make an Airplane

Butterfly students asked me to post this video after watching it 

during Career Day with First Officer Johnson.

Career Day

During our school-wide Career Day today we heard from a pilot and a farmer (Sara and Cat's dad).

The video footage we took of Mr. Tinder did not turn out, so we only have images from First Officer Johnson's presentation.

In the video below, we learned about the impact of air pressure on creating lift (flight).

Shadows

We've been exploring space (from the comfort of Earlysville).  Today we traced our shadows in the morning and again in the afternoon to see if and how there were any changes.

We noticed long, skinny shadows in the morning and much smaller shadows in the afternoon.  Students were then able to determine that as the earth rotates through the day, the sun shines on it from a different angle, changing the direction and shape of our shadows.

On our Nature Walk today, we noticed huge dark spots on the mountains.  At first, most children thought the spots were from trees.  Eventually, they realized that the spots are huge shadows caused by clouds.

Thanks to Tony and Gabriel for capturing some of our shadows in the following video.

Valentine's Day Party

Sign up HERE if you wish to contribute to our Valentine's Day Party.

The Butterfly Class will celebrate Valentine's Day!

We will make a sweet and salty treat together.

Children may bring Valentine cards to share with classmates on this day.  If your child does bring Valentine cards to school, please make sure that he/she includes every child in the class.  Please let me know if you need a list of names.

Friends and family are invited to join us.

Snow Days

I know you may have mixed feeling about receiving all of those calls from Josh Davis announcing a snow day or a delayed opening.  These Albemarle County students have made it very clear that they love getting calls from Mr. Davis.

Hello, Sunshine!

We started our study of space with a question about the sun:  What comes from the sun?

We initially came up with four ideas: light, heat, life, electricity.

Within a very short time, students realized that well, just about everything comes from the sun (including popcorn, people and clouds).

Happy MLK Jr Day!

We looked at the beautiful images from the book Martin Luther King by Malcah Zeldis and Rosemary L. Bray.  Then we brainstormed words and wrote an acrostic-style poem together.

Patience

Everybody

Agreement

Country

Equal

Enormous 100s Chart

Today we created a huge 100s chart on our classroom floor (yes, dry erase markers come off of tile).  Students noticed:
You count by ones if you go across.
You count by 10s if you go down or up.
You can count forwards or backwards.
You can start at any number and count by ten.
If you go up and down you can see that the same number repeats itself.

We made a plan, moved furniture, worked together, made a mess, learned a ton and had a blast!

ps- Can you spy Kelsey?  She is the newest member of the Butterfly Class!

Animals

National Geographic for Kids

We love this website about animals.  Check out beautiful photographs and exciting videos about these animals and many more!

Cookies!

We loved having parents and grandparents join us at school today.

Animal Riddles

Friends recorded each other reading their own animal riddles.

Working with doubles

Today we worked with partners to brainstorm all of the doubles facts we could think of.  Knowing some of our doubles will help us become more efficient mathematicians.

Students have started to notice patterns in doubles and have started to use doubles to figure out other addition problems.  For example:

if 1+1=2, then 100+100=200

if 5+5=10, then 5+6=11, because it has one more.

Quintin and Tilman take us on a quick tour of some of our work today.

Namaste

Today, when we took a quick wiggle break, we practiced some yoga: deep breaths, tree pose, downward dog.  Then I bowed to them and said "namaste."  I explained that "namaste" is a way to tell the other person that you hope they feel peace in their life.

 I am cherishing our children right now.  They provide light in my life every day.

 Namaste.

Busy Butterflies

Our week has been a busy one.  We enjoyed a concert by the fifth graders.  We also had the opportunity to view some of their beautiful Virginia Landscapes.

The PTO treated the school to a Science Day.  We watched the power of electricity at an all- school assembly, got our hands on a huge variety of science-related activities and learned about food webs and ecosystems.  All of this was in addition to our regular academic schedule.  

Our Tree in the Winter

The following post was written by kids in the Butterfly Class.  Our day was SO busy (many thanks to the PTO for hosting a fun-filled Science Day!) that we ended up with a very short amount of time to write about our tree, so we decided to combine our writing into a blog post.

It is bare.  It doesn't have many leaves.  The leaves are almost all gone.  The leaves are brown and orange.  Some of the branches are falling off.  There were lots of leaves in the summer on the tree.  Throughout the year it has been fewer and fewer leaves.

We used this joint writing experience to talk about the different purposes of writing:  a note to a friend, a grocery list, a letter to a loved one, a journal entry about a vacation, a scientific observation, a mathematical explanation.  In the case of writing about our tree in the winter, we noticed how the notes we jotted yesterday look and sound different than the blog post we wrote today.  We can write for ourselves and we can write for others.

Gingerbread Display This Weekend

(This is the gingerbread "log cabin" that my family made this year.)

Marley shared with the class today that she will be going to see gingerbread houses Downtown this weekend. The children wanted more information, and I promised I would post about it:
The Omni HotelCome join us in a Winter Wonderland complete with elves and helpers, Mrs. Claus, and electric trains! Stroll through the gingerbread houses from the 9th annual competition that will be on display. Santa will even stop by with some surprises from the North Pole! This year's Winter Wonderland will run for four days, concluding with the St. Nicholas Reception. Winners for the gingerbread competition will be announced, and prizes will be awarded at the reception. Thursday, December 6th: Grand Opening. 5 p.m. - 7 p.m. Friday, December 7th: 11 a.m. - 8 p.m. Santa visiting from 4-8 p.m. Saturday, December 8th: 11 a.m. - 8 p.m. Santa visiting 1-4 p.m. and 5-8 p.m. Sunday, December 9th: 11 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. Santa visiting 12-3 p.m. St. Nicholas Reception 3-4:30 p.m.
for more information

Kids blog

We are learning to blog!  We will use this digital tool to write throughout the day.

Animal Classification

We worked together in small groups to sort animal photos.  Each group determined their own rules for classifying the animals.

Next, all students had a chance to visit each group of photos.  They then asked each other questions and tried to figure out how the group had decided to sort.

This group sorted the photos into two groups: mammals and not mammals.

This group sorted photos into three groups:  animals that live on land, animals that live in water and animals that live in both land and water.