Background

Tuesday, January 28, 2014

A little of this, a little of that!

Over the past couple of weeks the children have been 

learning about the three states of matter: solid, liquid and 

gas.  In this unit we conducted several experiments.  For 

liquid, we had an experiment with different types of liquid 

such as corn syrup, water, rubbing alcohol and vegetable 

oil.  We added food coloring to each individual liquid and 

what we discovered was that liquids can have different 

weights.  Also, to learn about gases we put vinegar in a 

water bottle and baking soda in a balloon, here is our 

result....

 When we finished our unit we then sorted pictures of 

objects into the appropriate state of matter and displayed 

it on our science board.

 Throughout the year we have been discussing elements of a

story.  In the beginning I took the lead on the discussion of 

plot, setting, characters etc. in our group lessons after 

reading a story.  Now that the children fully understand 

what these concepts mean I have given them more 

independence in talking with each other about these things 

and not having me as the director.  To help build these 

skills of retelling stories and reflecting on story elements 

we have used these sticks...
Story pieces are laminated and put on to paint stirrer with 

velcro so children can manipulate.  From 

www.firstgradewow.blogspot.com  (want to give credit 

where credit is due! :) )





These allow the children to physically engage with the story

elements as well as discuss with a partner.  Each person 

may have a different insight or remember something the 

other person did not.



For non-fiction reading, we learned facts and information 

about penguins.  As a class we read a factual book about 

penguins and then completed a chart using our "schema" 

(what we already knew) and what we learned after reading 

the book.  Then we saw what were misconceptions we had 

about penguins.  I got this idea from a well known teacher, 

Deanna Jump (I want to be her someday!!)





 See you next week!!

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