Dot Day

Today we celebrated Dot Day with many different activities. 

First we read the book The Dot by Peter Reynolds and discussed the story and the idea of "making your mark" on the world.  This was kind of a hard idea for the class to understand and we will continue to talk about ways people make their mark as we move on.  We tried making colorful marker dots on coffee filters and dipping them in water.  This made some wavy art and we could see some of the colors that make up other colors as the water made the ink run.  

In writing time, we made dot art by turning several large and small dots into a picture and then started stories about them.

During math we counted a collection of dots to practice our number skills.  Some students counted by ones and wrote all the numbers while others grouped the dots and skip counted.

Near the end of the day, we did a different kind of drawing activity, in which students used their creativity to turn the dots into as many different kinds of things as they could think of!  We had lots of ideas:

Of course we also dressed in dots today, but since I forgot to take any photos, you will just have to use your imagination to picture how cute everyone looked! 

Crime Scene Investigators in Science

We have been learning about properties of matter in science.  First we looked at a collection of objects and brainstormed different ways to describe them such as size, weight, color, material, shape, and texture.  Then students chose an object to draw and label in their science notebook.  Here are a few examples:

Then we put our skills to the test as crime scene investigators.  I presented the following scenario to the class:  A toy store was broken into in Grapevine recently and the method used was a ball thrown through the window.  Since it was a toy store, there were lots of other balls found inside.  We have been asked by the police department to confirm which of the balls found was the culprit.  We were given 2 clues to work with.  Clue 1 said that the ball used to break the window was smaller than an apple.  Clue 2 said that the ball used was the heaviest of the balls.  

First students worked with their teams to put the balls in order by size and eliminate the ones that could not be the culprit because of their size.  Then students used a balance scale to compare the balls by weight and narrow it down to the correct object used in the break-in.  Here are some students hard at work to solve this crime! 

 

When the teams were done, they recorded their results in their science notebooks like this:

 

Then we opened the evidence box to find that the small silver ball was the one used in the crime - just as our class of detectives had concluded!

Graphs

Our first math unit is about graphs.  We made graphs of information about our class as we were getting to know each other (such as how we get home from school and if we have pets).  We learned that we could read the information more easily if it was organized in rows on a graph instead of spread out all mixed up.  We also learned that a graph can go up and down or side to side.  We worked on saying something that the graph showed us in a complete sentence and answering questions using information on the graph.  (Later this year we will work on making up questions about a graph and giving their answer to their own question.)  Some of the vocabulary and the kinds of sentences we worked on this time are:

There are ___  ________  in all.

There are ___  total  _________ . 

There are ___  ________ altogether.

There are ___  more ________ than  ________ .

There are ___  less ________ than  ________ .

There are the most ________ .

There are the least ________ .

One of our activities was to make a graph out of a group of stickers.  Each set of students had a different set of stickers to organize on a graph.  Then every student made up a sentence to tell us information from their graph.  Here are our sticker graphs and information statements. (You could use the graphs from other groups to ask your child questions at home related to the statements above.)

Gavin said, "We have 2 basketballs."

Carson said, "There are more soccer balls."

Logan said, "We put 4 scared, 3 happy, and 1 with the tongue out."

Aidan said, "We put 1 smiling face with the tongue."

Carolyn said, "There are 2 more hearts than flowers."

Doris said, "There are 3 flowers."

My-Joy said, "There are 7 happy faces."

Miles said, "I counted all of them. There are 14 altogether."

Natalie said, "We have 2 happy faces."

Bella said, "There are 4 faces sticking their tongues out."

Jayden said, "There are 5 footballs."

Michael said, "There are 4 basketballs."

Isaac said, "There are the least soccer balls."

Ava said, "There are 6 hearts."

Cadence said, "There are 3 butterflies."