Leverett School Grade 1 Joyful Learning For Young Children 

We had a DEBATE today in 1st grade!  We have been studying the character of the Fox in a variety of folktales.  We’ve made lists and found evidence of ways the fox is portrayed as a good character and as a bad character.  Today the students gathered their evidence and got into two groups.  One group argued why the fox was good and another argued why the fox was bad. Here they are meeting in their groups to prepare what they were going to say to their debate partners.

 

Then we broke up into teams of two and argued our opinions.  Our partners repeated what they heard us say and then they argued their own opinion.

 

 

 

After the debate, partners met to reflect on the debate and decide which side “won”.  Was the Fox really good or was he a bad character?  Or was he both?  Why?

 

 

 

After that, each child wrote an opinion piece about what they learned, supporting their opinion with evidence from at least two of the folktales we studied.  Their work is hanging outside our room right now.  Come take a look!!!

 

Wow!  What a special treat we had in 1st grade today!  The 5th grade class has been studying the Maya/Aztec/Inca Cultures and today they had a fair we were invited to!  We walked down to the gym and were treated to a display of food, games, face painting, art work, jewelry making and lots of other activities that were led by the 5th graders and taught us about these cultures.  I’d say we were all very impressed and learned something new.    

 

                 

Today we were the performers!  We presented the book Tacky the Penguin to the whole school!  We did a reader’s theater and here we are about to head down to the stage.

Our Narrators:

 

Our Hunters:

 

5 out of 6 of our Penguins (one of them had to step out of the room before the show!):

 

The children did a fantastic job reading their lines loudly, clearly and with expression.  It was so much fun to see them up there on the stage!

I had to post a picture of what’s in our block corner today.  The kids have been learning about symmetry and this is what I discovered they made this week all on their own.  Lots of great symmetry in this creation!

 

The kids came into school this morning, looked at the schedule and exclaimed, “This is the BEST day of school EVER!!”

 

It really was an exciting day.  We headed out to the Fine Arts Center at UMASS to see a production of Peter Pan put on by UMASS students.  It was a wonderful, exciting show!  It must have been to capture the attention of the kids for so long:  over two hours total!  What a show!  Ask your child to tell you about the flying characters, the pirates, Peter Pan, Captain Hook, the Lost Boys…..  they were mesmerized!

 

 

 

This picture and write up just came in from our art teacher, Susan Boss.  She does wonderful work with our first graders.  Look at these beautiful boxes the class made!  It fit in perfectly with the symmetry work we were doing in math last week.  The boxes traveled home with the children yesterday.

 

All first grade students built a wooden treasure box from colored popsicle sticks. They learned how to use glue in a controlled way. The boxes required that the students recognize sides, top and bottom and establish a pattern of repeated sequencing. Our second lesson allowed each child to create a lid for the top of their box. This lesson is aligned with their classroom study of symmetry.