Tech the Halls!

Tech the halls with boughs of holly...Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la!

Before we went to break, first grade wrote a letter to Santa. We thought it might get to him faster if we wrote it on an ipad! We worked on our penmanship and using complete sentences. We have been working so hard on using an uppercase letter at the beginning of sentences and using the correct end punctuation. Santa's reindeer are helping us hold our ipads. 

Saint Nicholas came to visit us!

Each year at Visitation, Saint Nicholas comes to visit! Each student quickly took off their shoe and rushed to put it outside the door. We waited patiently as we listened to his footsteps and reindeer bells. When he was gone, we all rushed out the classroom door to see what he left us in our shoes. The students were shocked to see that Saint Nicholas had left each of us a special gift. After we recieved our gifts and looked at each piece, we discussed the specail things inside it. We read a short story about Saint Nicholas, too.

Scarves keep people warm!

Mrs. HP lead kindergarten, first grade, seventh grade, and eighth grade in a service project where we made scarves for the poor. Students chose their favorite fleece fabrics and created anywhere from 1-3 scarves. They added specail beads in patterns or just used their favorite colors. We had so much fun making all these scarves and we are so excited that people will be able to use them to make themselves warmer while outside during the winter. Thank you Mrs. HP for helping us with this service project. It feels good to be able to help others.

Star Reader

First grade is starting to become quite the readers. At the end of most class days, one student reads a self selected book to the class. David read us a very funny story and the students enjoyed hearing him read. We also love to cozy read. This is where we can lay down and relax after a long day of work.

\

Rockets to the rescue!

Visitation participated in Rocket Day. Students learned about how we can send food to those in need through rocket rescue. Students constructed rockets filled with food and launched them on the playground. The discussed ways they could improve their distance by the way the launched them. Below are some photos of first and second grade during their rocket lesson.

Halloween

We had a blast on Halloween in first grade. We had special parent volunteers come into class and they read their favorite Halloween stories to us. We also brewed a wonderful snack that each student contributed a special treat to.

During math, we used skittles to reinforce our graphing skills. We recorded the data of how many skittles of each color we had. Then we graphed it and used the information on the graph to answer questions. We were able to tell what color had the most, which had the least, and compared the quanity of each color.

Air Drop Relief Packages

First grade studied air and learned a lot about how parachutes and planes travel through the air. We used what we learned about these two activities to create air drop packages. Students listened to an audio that described a real world problem with floods. When their is floods in communities, people usually lose most of their things or they get damaged by the water of the flood. Until they can replace their things, they need temporary things to help them survive. Students quickly came up with many ideas of how we could help people who suffer from a tragic event like this. We used the engineering design process to help us solve this real world problem.

First students came up with ideas of sending them boxes of all the things they need. Their items they wanted were perfect. We discussed the difference between want and need. Next, we had to figure out how we would send these boxes to them without them getting wet. The class decided the best way would be by plane since Thailand is so far away. I explained that it might be hard for the airplane driver to land a plane if the ground was covered in water. Students quickly decided that we could drop them off the plain. This brought the problem of the packages getting wet. Students started brainstorming how they could stay dry and how they would stay safe from a high drop. The overall solution was to attach a parachute, put a floaty under it, and wrap the package with water resistant material.

The next step in the engineering design process was for students to make a plan. Students worked with their group members to develop a drawing of their air drop package design. Once these were completed, students went to work. They created their packages and most of them looked just like their plan. After everyone completed their design, we took them to the balcony on the third floor of the school. Each group dropped their packages over the railing. Some fell hard and others drifted gently.  When we got back to class, we opened up our packages. Inside we had pasta noodles and marbles. If the packages fell hard, the pasta would break. This would mean that the items in the package got damaged and they need to go back and create a stronger design. Many students packaged didn't have any broken pasta. This means that they successfully developed a design that would make it safely to the victims affected by the flood. We had a blast doing this activity and creating a way to help others.

Friday is ART DAY in first grade!

WE LOVE TO PAINT! WE LOVE TO DRAW! WE LOVE TO DO ART!

We did crayon resist! Students drew a picture of three pumpkins in three different sizes with crayon. Then we added color to them by using water colors. The students were amazed when they saw that the color from the crayons came through the paints.

Each child got a cut out colored leaf. They were told to cut their leaf into four pieces. Then they traded their leaf with a partner. The partner then had to put the leaf back together and glue it onto a piece of black paper. Once they finished, each child wrote a sentence about something they like about fall. 

Parachutes...parachutes....parachutes!

First grade had a fun discussion of all the things that use air for recreation. We talked about sailboats, planes, floaty toys, jets, kites......and.....PARACHUTES! I asked them what would happen if I wanted to go up in an airplane and jump out to see the world, what would I need to keep me safe? Everyone said a parachute. I showed them a video of a friend of mine who jumped out of an airplane to go skydiving. They saw how the parachute kept him safe. We had a discussion of what he thought happened with the parachute and how it worked. Students came up with great ideas. They suggested that the air gets trapped under the chute and allows them to drift slowly. They were correct. As a class we created our very own parachutes. We threw them in the air in our classroom but our skydivers kept getting caught in the powerlines in our classroom (fishing line that we hang artwork on). We decided it would be better to have our skydivers fly from the top of the balcony on the third floor and fall down to the second floor. Each student got a chance to let their skydiver go from the top and the rest of class counted the seconds it took for our skydiver to land on the second floor. Congratulations, Savonne! Her skydiver had the longest flight!

What is in the air?

In science first grade has been exploring air. We have explored air through many investigations. Students used their own air to make objects move in the air. They had a lot of fun seeing what they could do with the straws. They figured out how to keep a ball floating in the air by blowing air through their straw.

We learned about compression and pressure through an exploration with syringes and tubes. They were able to see that when two friends pressed the syringe plug in it created pressure. We had fun playing a pressure game. Students also learned that when we compress the air in one syringe, it gots into the other syringe. One student brought up the idea of trying it with water. We did the same activity with water and it was fun to see, too.

One sunny day we explored air by blowing water in a cup with a straw. Our bubbles didn't last long. I asked the class if there was another way we could do this activity to make the bubbles last longer. The class suggested using soap in our water. We added soap and moved outside to see what would happen. When we blew in the straw it did make bubbles and they stayed. So we made a wand and blew bubbles. Why not on a sunny day? :)

Classroom Reveal

Hello! Check out the new design of the first grade classroom. It was a long summer preparing for this room but well worth all the work! The kiddos love it, too!

Entrance to our classroom

Math supplies, Calendar Board, and Reading Cafe Menu

Over 500 books for us to choose from :)

Our daily schedule and front of classroom

Writing bulletin, rockin behavior chart, religion table, and science bulletin board

Always Remember

First graders showed their love and prayers to those affected by 9/11. We read a story about the Twin Towers and did an art project to show that we are proud to be an American and that we will always remember what happened on the tragic date, September 11th.

Less than 2 WEEKS!

Hello friends and welcome to FIRST GRADE! Let me introduce myself to you and our classroom page. My name is Miss Pedrini and I am the first grade teacher at Visitation Catholic STEM Academy. I've been teaching first grade for four years at Vis. I like to inform you weekly about what we are doing in class. This class website allows you and your family to join in on the fun and see what we are doing in the classroom. Not only can you spy on what we are doing in class through my posts but there is also fun links for you. Along the top of the page there are a few different tabs you can click on....I encourage you to click on them all to get yourself familiar with the website. I will post our class newsletters, homework, school student of the month, educational websites online, and of course PICTURES! I will be updating new photos of our NEW CLASSROOM soon for you to see. There has been a big transformation from WILD ANIMALS to lots of BRIGHT COLORS. I look forward to meeting all my new friends on the first day of school. See you soon :)

Insects....We LOVE BUGS!

Science is always my classes favorite subject. For our next unit we studied insects. This means that we had many living creatures in our classroom. Did I mention that I am afraid of bugs? The lesson I's supposed to teach the students is that we should care for God's creations and not to SMASH insects we see outside or in our homes. This was a difficult one for me! Our other lesson was to learn about the life cycle of insects and watch them change through the stages.

I purchased meal worms for our first insect pet. Students were introduced to their meal worms and we discussed how to care for them. I was surprised that many of the students wanted to hold them and touch them. I encouraged this as I distributed them into their containers with a spoon (I was afraid to touch them). Each day we recorded changes they went through in our science journals. We drew illustrations and discussed their different body parts and what the insect used them for. I didn't tell the students what the meal worms would change into and they were quite surprised when they started making big changes. Our meal worms shed their skin many times and eventually changed into a pupa. This was a neat transformation for the students and a few students got to see theirs change right before their eyes. One day a student came back from the weekend and found that he no longer had a pupa and that a beetle was crawling around in his container. The word got out that day that meal worms are the larva stage of a beetle. We were lucky enough to watch a few under the document camera make the change from pupa to beetle. The students loved carrying their beetle around. Once the whole class had a beetle, I had them take them home to release in their gardens or to keep as a pet.

What a fun experience!

Love is in the air!

Happy Valentine's Day everyone! First and second grade loved sharing special treats and love letters to each other. We made fun Minion bags that said, "Love you a Minion." We even had a special visitor for Valentine's Day and we made him a purple minion bag.

Superbowl is OURS! Go Hawks!

First and second grade has loved following the Seahawk's journey to the big win at the Super Bowl. Every day students would come up to me and chat about games they've watched on TV or ones they've been able to go and see at the field. Every math problem has seemed to be about the Seahawks and their colors have been worn by our whole school each game day. You could only imagine what the first day back to school was like after they won the Super Bowl! We had so much fun cheering them on and we continue to have fun supporting our home team.

Weird SCIENCE!

Today we had an exciting lesson about liquids. We've been studying solids and liquids for the past few weeks and in today's lesson, we observed oil and water. Students made a hypothesis of what they thought would happen when we put colored ice cubes (a solid) into oil (a liquid). Students used their prior knowledge of ice and water and made some great generalizations of what they thought would happen. Once we made these predictions, we poured oil into a large vase and dropped in about 6-8 ice cubes. Students quickly observed that the colored ice began to melt and that it didn't mix with the oil. Each drop of water slowly moved through the oil as a bubble to the bottom. Students came to the realization that the water must be heavier to fall to the bottom and that the oil was lighter. I helped scaffold the students to come to the conclusion that oil and water don't mix and that is why the oil never changed colors. Many students predicted that when the colored ice would melt, it would change the color of the oil. Students thought this was fun but they had even more fun with the next activity....we used the ice cubes to water color. Each student got a special glove to wear for holding the ice cube. Not only did the glove help their hand stay warm but it prevented them from getting the dye on their hands. We completed the lesson with only a drop or two of color on one or two students shirts. I even managed to stay completely color free while wearing a white blouse...."not sure how that happened." It must have been because I begged them to keep their hands to themselves...haha and it worked! We had such a blast today learning about weird science!

I'm explaining the importance of the glove and that if we touch the ice without it...we'll get color everywhere.

This was the first observation the students made of the ice and oil being put together.

Painting with colored ice cubes...who would have thought?

Our class loves MINIONS!

They begged to pretend like they were going to touch the bubbles...silly friends!