March Madness

What would we do without our volunteer helpers?  We put the volunteers to the test in first grade.  How many times do we paint a year?  MANY!!!  This week we learned about Dreamtime, an Aboriginal  term for all the things they hold sacred when their ancestors created the world.   Through rock drawings, songs and chants they pass these Dreamtime stories from one generation to the next.  The dreamtime was when huge creatures awoke after sleeping for a long time.  Mrs. G helped us make our lizards with Australian facts on them and the Dreamtime symbols used by aborigines to depict a story.  Ethan and Edward are arranging the Australian animals in ABC order.  Many students did not get a chance to do this last week.  Its' tricky in the first grade learning the alphabetical order of words.  Many words begin with the same alphabet letter and they hae to look at the second and sometimes third letter of each word.  We have learned unusual Australian words for American foods like icypoles for popsicles and bangers for sausages.
We had journal entries to finish up for the Australian flag.  The handwriting we are seeing today compared to beginning of the year is much improved. 

Acting out the AWONGOLEMA TREE, an aboriginal folktale

Sawyer the Koala and Freddie the platypus

The Great Barrier Reef is along the coast of Queensland, Australia.  It spans 1, 600 miles and it is home to many sea creatures...including coral.  Today in science we made coral.  What we have taught the first graders about hands on science is that they can always use household items to do these experiments.  This week several first graders wrote letters in Integrated Language and told us how much they love science and want to have it more often.  We made coral---but will see our results really take form when we return from Spring break.  Mrs. Waller is going to add some more salt on day two and more bluing solution on day three.

We will have coral to look at when we come back to the classroom.  We used salt, charcoal and liquid bluing today for our experiment.

Our consonant digraphs were some of the work we did in smaller groups.  Mrs. L worked on finishing up the Australian animal reports.  The first graders will return from break and begin presenting their reports during social studies.   Matching Australian terms and definitions was a fun activity.

Demonstrating the didgeridoo

Katherine's dad came to tell us some great facts and present  a colorful power point presentation on Australia.  Mr. B said when we were here in Kansas City freezing, digging ourselves out of snow storms several Christmas's ago...they were basking in the sun in Australia on the beach.  The seasons are at opposite times of the year! 

Aboriginal flag

Painting the boomerangs.

 

 

 

 

No Spelling test the week we return from Spring Break. 

The International Festival is Wednesday,  March 21 at 8:45.  Please review the email with what your child should wear on March 21st.  There will be all grades preschool through second doing their dances.  The parents are asked to stand on the outside of where the children perform.  An email was sent from Mrs. Van asking for pictures taken from trips around Kansas City or around the country.  They will be showing as the children enter the MPR.

We have a Literature Festival coming up also in March.  It is a field trip to Rockhurst University for students only.  We will be listening to author/illustrator David Shannon and seeing illustrator Paul Zelinsky.

Blessing from your first grade teachers for a safe Spring break.