Monday, March 11, 2013
Best picture, ever!
Our custodian left a surprise for the kids one morning last month under one of our laundry baskets. Can you guess what it is?
Black History Month
Have I already mentioned that our February was packed full of themes? It was definitely a busy month, but the kids enjoyed all the themed activities!
I was very excited to have found THIS LITTLE GEM OF A UNIT for Black History Month. The unit is chock-full of African-American notables such as Harriet Tubman, Ruby Bridges, George Washington Carver, Jackie Robinson, and more! We read the nonfiction text that is included in the unit together as a class on our interactive whitboard. The kids took notes as we read together. Afterwards, each child was assigned to be an "expert" on one of the notable African-Americans that was in our text. Each child wrote three sentences about their person and then presented to the class.
Please forgive the typo on the photos' watermarks!
I was very excited to have found THIS LITTLE GEM OF A UNIT for Black History Month. The unit is chock-full of African-American notables such as Harriet Tubman, Ruby Bridges, George Washington Carver, Jackie Robinson, and more! We read the nonfiction text that is included in the unit together as a class on our interactive whitboard. The kids took notes as we read together. Afterwards, each child was assigned to be an "expert" on one of the notable African-Americans that was in our text. Each child wrote three sentences about their person and then presented to the class.
Please forgive the typo on the photos' watermarks!
Symbols of America
Our Symbols of America lesson was a tie-in to our Presidents' Day unit. We learned about many different symbols that represent our country. The one symbol that we took an in-depth look at was the Statue of Liberty. At the end of our lesson the kids took an online drawing tutorial so that they could learn how to draw "Lady Liberty" and I must say, they did a fabulous job!
Here's the tutorial for drawing "Lady Liberty".
CLICK HERE for a wonderful unit of activities and resources for teaching U.S. Symbols.
Here's the tutorial for drawing "Lady Liberty".
CLICK HERE for a wonderful unit of activities and resources for teaching U.S. Symbols.
Sunday, March 10, 2013
Dental Health Month, Part II
Here are some other activities that we did in February for Dental Health Month.
We conducted experiments using eggs to learn about what would happen to our teeth with certain liquids. In the first experiment we submerged eggs in two different drinks - Coca-Cola and Hawaiian Punch. We wrote down our observations for two days. A majority of the kids' hypotheses were correct - the eggshells turned colors!
On the second day we brushed the shells with toothpaste to see what would happen. The kids were so happy to discover that brushing did clean the eggs. However, everyone agreed that they were not as white as before. (I would have shared an "after" picture, but I think I accidentally deleted it.)
We put a third egg in a solution of white vinegar. After 24 hours we discovered that the vinegar had "melted" (the exact word used by one of the 1st graders) off the eggshell. In the top photo you can see that I was able to stick a fork through the egg. The bottom shows the "melted" eggshell material floating around in the vinegar. I had laughed when one of the kids commented, "It's a good thing I don't like vinegar! I don't want my tooth enamel to melt off!"
We did a number of tooth related activites. We painted our baby teeth into pictures of mouths. We also created a bar graph showing how many teeth each student in the class has lost. Afterwards we analyzed the data. To close out our unit, we invited a dentist to talk to us about her job and about how can keep our teeth healthy. This very special dentist also happens to be a classroom mom. Thanks so much Dr. L for visiting with us and for the goodies. We appreciate it!
We conducted experiments using eggs to learn about what would happen to our teeth with certain liquids. In the first experiment we submerged eggs in two different drinks - Coca-Cola and Hawaiian Punch. We wrote down our observations for two days. A majority of the kids' hypotheses were correct - the eggshells turned colors!
On the second day we brushed the shells with toothpaste to see what would happen. The kids were so happy to discover that brushing did clean the eggs. However, everyone agreed that they were not as white as before. (I would have shared an "after" picture, but I think I accidentally deleted it.)
We put a third egg in a solution of white vinegar. After 24 hours we discovered that the vinegar had "melted" (the exact word used by one of the 1st graders) off the eggshell. In the top photo you can see that I was able to stick a fork through the egg. The bottom shows the "melted" eggshell material floating around in the vinegar. I had laughed when one of the kids commented, "It's a good thing I don't like vinegar! I don't want my tooth enamel to melt off!"
We did a number of tooth related activites. We painted our baby teeth into pictures of mouths. We also created a bar graph showing how many teeth each student in the class has lost. Afterwards we analyzed the data. To close out our unit, we invited a dentist to talk to us about her job and about how can keep our teeth healthy. This very special dentist also happens to be a classroom mom. Thanks so much Dr. L for visiting with us and for the goodies. We appreciate it!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
