What's happening in first grade?: Two Types of Whales

This week we learned about two types of whales! But before that, we did a science experiment!

Many animals that live in cold places like Antarctica and the Southern Ocean have blubber to keep warm. A few first graders tell about our blubber experiment below:

The kids asked me SO many great questions this week when I first introduced the blue whale and orca whale, and they continued to ask questions as we learned more and more. This led to... MORE learning! We are now whale experts!

Every evening this week, I found myself searching online for more whale facts. The kids had so many questions... I knew I'd need to be prepared! :)

Here are just a few of their questions:

"How long is a baby blue whale?"
"What are the lines on the blue whale's throat for?"
"Since blue whales are way bigger, I wonder if they eat orca whales..."
"Is all plankton microscopic? I think I've seen plankton before." (We had to change our signal word definition thanks to Cooper! Jellyfish and krill are plankton, even though you can see them. They float with the ocean currents!)
"Why do whales need blowholes?"

I loved watching the first graders ask questions all week long, but what I loved just as much was hearing them speculate, trying to answer their classmates' questions! These kids are such critical thinkers! I can't wait to talk about finding answers to our questions, and about all of the places in the world that they can find those answers.

We didn't just talk about whales this week... We learned three new addition strategies, too! Ask your first grader about near doubles! Can you use the doubles fact 5+5=10 to help you solve the near doubles fact 5+6? Or ask how we make 10 to solve an addition problem, like 8+4. We also learned how to act out a math problem to solve.

As usual, we also read a few new books...