Another Busy Week!

With just a little over a month left of first grade, each day is even busier than the next! You may have read our recent blog post about our trip to the IMAX theater, but that's not all we did this week... We hope your week was as awesome as ours! Thanks for reading!

• We learned about the red kangaroo and the koala. -Rohin
  
• Noah K. read Old Hat, New Hat to us. -Michael
  
• We had lots of fun watching My Animal Friends. We learned about kangaroos, echidnas, dingoes, and seahorses. -Olivia
• We learned the words emerge and social. -Isaiah
• We learned about seahorses and dingoes from a video. -Katherine
• We went to the movie theater. -Thomas
• We made koala art. -Courtney
  
• We did an art project with kangaroos jumping in the sunset. -Analisa
  
  
  
  
  
• We read If Big Can... I Can. -Jacob
  
• We measured butterflies using bees as our units during workshop. -Milo
• We did Fit Friday. -Leila
• We did math with analog clocks. -Amaru
• We celebrated Earth Day. -Hailey
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• We put smart cards on the red kangaroo. -Wesley
• Amaru's sensei taught us about respect, focus, and self-control. -Noah T.
  
  
• We learned the signal words edible and measure. -Milana
  
• We practiced our chants. -Isaiah
  
  
  
• We got team points for accountability. -Ainsley
  
• In our A is for America book, we did Z is for zipcode. The U.S. started using zipcodes to send mail faster. -Noah K. 
• We read Diary of a Wombat. -Jacquelyn
  
• We took our spelling test differently this week. We read quietly while some kids took their test, and then we switched. -Sarah
  
• I got to read a book to the class and we did Read with Technology. -Jalen
  
• We did team tasks. -AJ
  
  
• Mr. M was the mystery reader today. -Emma
• Miss Kloczko came to all of our recesses on Friday. -Eliana
• I lost my tooth at Fit Friday. -Parker

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I Love to Oil Paint (Student Blogger: Thomas)

I love to oil paint.  My Papa Mike is an artist and he started teaching me how to paint when I was 5 years old.  I entered my first oil painting in the CA State Fair last year and I got 3rd place. It was cool to have my painting up during the fair.

I like using the fan brush to make grass and bushy trees. I have to be very careful when I paint because oil paint will not come out of my clothes.  I have to be very careful with my paintings because they can take a month to dry.  I just entered 3 more paintings in the fair this year.  Two of my paintings are of Africa because when I was working on them I was learning about it in class. My last painting is of Big Trees State Park. I go there every summer with my family.

Our Trip to the IMAX Theater

Today we went to see Born to Be Wild in IMAX 3D, a documentary about people who rescue and raise orphaned elephants and orangutans and prepare them to return to the wild. The kids LOVED it. Here's what we had to say about our field trip!

• My favorite part was when the baby orangutans were climbing in the trees and when the soccer ball looked like it was coming towards our faces. -Hailey
• My favorite part was when the title of the movie was coming right at us. -Milana
• I liked when the little monkey kissed its mommy. -Ariana
• My favorite part was when the people and the elephants were playing soccer. -Cedric, Thomas, Wesley, Noah T.
• I liked the part when the monkey was swinging on the trees coming toward us. -Ainsley
• My favorite part was when the purple ball was coming right at your face. -Parker
• My favorite part was when the orangutan was trying to reach the other tree and the tree fell down. -Jacquelyn
• I want to help koalas and pandas like the people in the movie helped elephants and orangutans. -Jacob
• My favorite part was when the elephant kicked the ball and with our 3D glasses it looked like it was going to hit me in the face. -Milo
• I liked when the orangutan was stealing the lady's food. -Leila
• I liked when the baby orangutans were playing on the jungle gym. They have to use to jungle gym to learn how to climb trees and swing on vines so they can survive in the wild. -Sarah
• I liked when the orangutan was eating the soap. -AJ
• I liked seeing the orangutans' real habitat. -Eliana
• My favorite part was when the orangutan was drinking one bottle of milk and accidentally poured the other bottle on himself. -Amaru
• I remember learning at school that elephants take dust baths to protect them from the sun and that was in the movie. It's like their kind of sunscreen. -Jalen
• I liked the part when the elephant got carried by the people into an airplane and got rescued. -Emma
• I saw the elephants use their trunks to drink water and reach branches to eat. -Katherine
• I liked the part when the elephant was drinking milk and holding the bottle with his trunk. -Noah K.
• It scared me when the ball was coming toward us when the elephants kicked it. -Michael
• I liked when they rescued the elephant and took it to the orphanage safely. I loved when they got to return to the wild. It was sad, but it was happy, too. -Olivia
• I liked the part when the humans fed the baby orangutan with a bottle of milk. I liked that the baby orangutans wore diapers. -Isaiah
• I remember that elephants live in savannas, and it showed elephants in savannas in the movie. -Analisa
• The baby elephant was scared when the people first rescued him so he ran into them, and the elephant didn't know that the people were trying to help him. -Thomas
• I want to take care of a giraffe one day like the people in the movie took care of the elephants and orangutans. -Courtney
• I liked how the elephants show that they love each other with their trunks. -Rohin
• It's amazing that these humans raised the elephant and orangutans orphans, yet they were still able to prepare them to survive in the wild. And it was so cool to see animals we learned about up close in 3D! -Miss Kloczko

Did you join us on our trip? Do you think you'd like to see this movie? Leave a comment below!

Mrs. Kahler's first graders also wrote a blog post about Born to Be Wild!

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Minecraft (Student Blogger: Parker)

I like Minecraft because everything is a square.  It is cool.  You can make everything.  My favorite thing to make is a house.  To make a house I would use blocks made out of diamond ore, or gold ore, or coal ore.  The hardest part of Minecraft is not dying from a creeper.  I hope I can play Minecraft this weekend!

All About Koalas!

This week we learned all about this amazing Australian animal, the koala! We learned a ton, but we still have some questions.

Here's what we know about koalas:

• Did you know that the dingo is one of the koala's main predators? -Thomas
• If I was a koala, I would eat eucalyptus leaves. -Emma
• One external feature of the koala is its large, furry ears. -Isaiah
• If I was a koala, I would drink very little water. -Courtney
• One external feature of the koala is its strong arms. -Rohin
• Koalas have grey or brown fur. -Leila
• One external feature of the koala is its sharp claws for climbing. -Michael
• Koalas sleep so much because their bodies have to work hard to get the poison out of the leaves that they eat. -Olivia

Maybe you can help us learn more about these cool marsupials!

• Are baby koalas fuzzy? -Amaru
• How old can koalas get? -Jalen
• Are koalas always in trees? -Ariana
• Are baby koalas good climbers? -Ainsley
• Do koalas just eat eucalyptus leaves and sleep? What else do they do? -Katherine
• Do they eat any fruit? -Amaru
• Do joeys sleep on their mothers' backs? -Sarah
• Do they live in trees? -Milo
• Do koalas live in the desert? -Cedric
• When are koalas old enough to leave their mother? -Milana
• Is it hard for the mother to climb when she is carrying her baby on her back? -Hailey
• Do koalas have tails? -Noah T.
• Are a koala's claws the same on their feet and on their hands? -Jacquelyn
• Why do koalas have small brains? -Eliana

Our first graders have SO many questions! If you can find the answers in a book, on a tv show, or on the internet, share what you find out by leaving a comment below and tell us where you found the answer! 

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