Mystery Number Skype

Today our class did our first Mystery Number Skype! Our class connected with Mrs. Cassidy's Grade One class from Moose Jaw, Canada via Skype. 

First, we learned some things about our new friends. 

• They live in Canada.
• They are two hours ahead of us.
• The weather in Moose Jaw today was snowy! Mrs. Cassidy showed us the view outside their window. Our kids were amazed!

Next we started our Mystery Number game. Each class chose a secret number (between 1-20) and then asked "yes" or "no" questions to try to figure out the other classes secret number. We used our white boards to cross off numbers as they were eliminated. Our class asked questions such as: Is it an even number? Mrs. Cassidy's class asked us if our number had one digit. That was a great question that we had to discuss before we could answer. The students took turns asking questions and crossing off numbers until they were ready to make a guess.

Mrs. Cassidy's class guessed our number first! It was 15. Way to go!

Then we guessed theirs. It was 11! Amazing job, first graders!

Thank you to Mrs. Cassidy's class for playing with us today! We hope to do this again soon with another class. I wonder where the next class we Skype with will be from?

The 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics

The Olympics are a great opportunity to learn about sportsmanship, geography, and different winter sports! 

My son is really into maps, the states, and countries, so we have already looked at where Sochi is many times on his globe in preparation for the Winter Games.  Then, last night, I sat with Avery and Cade and we watched 20 minutes of the women’s snowboarding qualifying runs.  It was great to see my son recognize the athletes from different countries and root for them as they jumped and twirled off ramps. I can’t wait to watch the Opening Ceremonies with my kids tonight!

I hope you will take some time to watch and talk about the Olympics with your kids, too! If you do, I'd advise you to use your DVR to record it, since it starts kind of late at 8:00 PM. Also, it would be a good idea to limit the amount of time they are watching it (20 minutes was perfect for us), and to fast forward through the commercials, if possible. 

In addition, here is  a resource from Common Sense Media for turning the Olympic games into teachable moments. http://www.commonsensemedia.org/blog/what-kids-will-remember-forever-from-watching-the-olympics-with-you

And here is a guide to the 2014 Sochi Olympic Games for Kids. http://www.commonsensemedia.org/blog/2014-olympics-guide-for-families

Happy Olympic Games!

Matter!

Today the students learned a song about Matter. We made up the hand motions to go with it!

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Matter

Solids like to keep their shape.

Liquids flow just like a lake.

Gases float right through the air.

Matter, matter, everywhere!

Martin Luther King, Jr

This Wordle was created by our class after we had learned about Martin Luther King, Jr.

The Thankful Book by Mrs. Diaz's Class

Working on the iPad to create a class book.

This week, our sharing topic was to tell what we are thankful for. Everyone shared that they are thankful for their parents, school, siblings, friends, houses, etc. We realized that we have lots of things to be thankful for! Then we read The Thankful Book by Todd Parr. Our class really appreciated this book because the author wrote about little things that he is thankful for. For example, Mr. Parr writes, "I am thankful for my ears because they help me hear beautiful music." We decided to make our own class book using our iPads and an app called Drawing Pad. We hope you like our first digital class book!

DEAR Day!

Today was DEAR Day! DEAR stands for Drop Everything And Read! So, we lounged around the classroom reading books for part of our day. Here are some photos of us having a great time sharing books with friends!

Our New York Connection

As part of the Global Read Aloud, our class read Marty McGuire, along with Mr. Water's first grade class in New York. In the book, Marty is reluctantly chosen to play the part of the princess in the class play, The Frog Prince. Mr. Waters had a great idea that we could make tissue paper frogs and use them to get to know more about each other. To do this, our students took pictures of themselves and their frogs in different places near our homes and then shared them with the other class.  Our class received a package a couple of weeks ago with many pictures of the New York kids and their frogs standing in places like the Statue of Liberty and Central Park! Our class decided to create a slideshow of our photos to share them. The final product is below. We hope that Mr. Water's class likes it and will leave us a comment!