Opinion Writing

You may have been wondering what our 1st graders have been up to with the collections they brought to school earlier this month. Well, our opinion pieces are almost completed and are looking to be published by the end of the week!

We had collections of just about everything, from comics to fishing lures, seashells to racecars. Since the children are passionate about their collections it was easy for them to formulate an opinion as to which item in their collection they felt was the best. Nevertheless, our new opinion writers quickly discovered that to convince their readers they must give many reasons to support their choice of which item deserves the 'Blue Ribbon Award.' 

This is the longest we have worked on a piece of writing thus far, and the children are doing a fantastic job of revising and continually adding more convincing details that further support their opinion. The children have shared their collections with numerous classmates and have even begun to anticipate disagreement by quoting experts. 

We hope to have these terrific pieces displayed early next week for your viewing pleasure.  I am confident these 1st graders will indeed convince you of their opinion!  

3D Shapes

We concluded our geometry unit with a week dedicated to the study of 3D shapes. Our first graders learned and put into practice two new vocabulary words: vertices (corners) and faces (flat surfaces).  They used their new math language to characterize and group spheres, cylinders, cubes, cones, pyramids, and prisms. Our favorite 3D shapes song, which we know ALL the words to is below: 

3D Shapes I Know

Using toothpicks to represent faces and marshmallows to represent vertices we created a sphere and pyramid.  And of course we got to munch on a few vertices as well!

Support your 1st grader by recognizing 3D shapes in everyday objects i.e. basketball, soda can, cereal box!

Geometry

Our current math unit is all about geometry. Last week we focused on basic shapes: squares, circles, rectangles, triangles, trapezoids, hexagons, and rhombuses. We discussed the defining characteristics of each shape and how we could classify the shapes into different categories. We used our knowledge of these shapes to play a new game called "What's My Design?"  Our 1st graders sat across from a partner with a privacy folder separating them. One friend made a design and could then use only shape and positional words to describe their design to their partner who attempted to mimic the design.  The children soon discovered the importance of giving very precise directions. You can play this game at home with shape blocks or cutouts. Need a challenge? Take away the manipulatives and have your child draw the shapes in their design by hand. 

We concluded our week with an introduction to polygons. By analyzing examples and non-examples of polygons we generated a list of characteristics to define a polygon. 

1. Straight sides
2. Closed figure
3. All sides connect (No intersecting lines)

We used the analogy that if a pet were placed in the center of the polygon it should act as a fence and the pet would not be able to escape. We then created our own polygons with straws and twist-ties. (We even had a special guest with us!)

As the April showers bring May flowers, make a rainy day more exciting by taking out some straws and twist-ties and constructing polygons!