A Very Busy Week!

Firefly First Grade has spent the week diving into our penguin unit.  We have been measuring our height and weight so we can compare them to penguins' heights and weights, reading about penguins, learning about penguins on BrainPop, playing games about penguins that help us practice our math facts and money skills, learning about Antarctica, conducting experiments with ice, hot and cold water to make water the same temperature as it is in Antarctica (30 degrees Fahrenheit) in January, and spent Thursday and Friday focusing on Rockhopper penguins.  Next week we will continue to work on our math skills through our learning about King penguins, Little Blue penguins and penguin predators and facts.
We also began our force and balance unit about bridges this week.  In addition to our learning about forces, balance and gravity, we have been learning about different types of bridges.  We learned that a beam bridge is made of a flat piece or beam, laid across two or more supports or piers.  We learned that an arch bridge is made from one or more arches and abutments.  We also learned that a suspension bridge has cables hanging between two towers that support the bridge.  Next week we will talk more about pushes and pulls, and learn about one-story structures and towers.
We will continue our non-fiction units in Reading and Writing Workshops next week.  In Readers' Workshop, we will move away from our learning about non-fiction text features and begin talking about strategies we can use to figure out tricky words in informational books.  In Writers' Workshop we will finish up our expert books and move into report writing about penguins.
Have a nice long weekend!

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