Student Blogger: Emily M.

Today's student blogger is Emily!

I have learned a lot about whales this week at school.

I learned that whales have blow holes to breathe.

Baleen whales eat plankton and krill.

Whales live in the ocean.

Whales are mammals.

Baby whales weigh one ton.

Whales make a mmmaoow sound.

When the whales pop up to see what is going on, it is called spyhopping.

A bunch of whales is called a pod.

Orca whales have sharp teeth.

Whales have flukes.

Thanks,
Emily M.

Did you like Emily's post? Leave a comment!

Student Blogger: Elliott

First grader in Miss Kloczko's class, Elliott, tells us all about whales!

Whales have baleen plates and they eat krill and plankton. They eat them by breathing in water through their mouths. Blue whales are cetaceans, which means mammals that live in the ocean. They are the largest mammal in the world. The Orca whale is a toothed whale that usually eats seals or sometimes penguins. Orca whales are black and white. The Orca whale spyhops, which means when a whale pokes its head out of the water to see what is going on. Whales are not oviparous like penguins, which lay eggs.  Whales have babies born alive.  Blue whales weigh 200 tons!! I like whales because they are so big. 



Did you like Elliott's post? Do you have any questions for him? Leave a comment below!

Blubber?

Last week in first grade, we began our Antarctica and the Polar Habitat unit!

First, we talked about what we already know and what we want to learn.

We learned some new chants with tons of new vocabulary! 

We learned about the Orca Whale, a toothed whale! (This week we will be learning about the Blue Whale, a baleen whale!)

We have an awesome box of Antarctica/Polar Habitat books to choose from during reading times! Thank you families for letting us borrow your books! 

Not once, but TWICE this week, I was called over and asked "Miss Kloczko, is this a rookery of penguins?" The second time, I was so excited, I took a picture!

We heard a story called Sea Life about a puffin! We use the pictures of the characters to help us retell the story. We will use this story to practice remembering smaller details later this week!

During Writer's Workshop this week, we learned about using sequence when writing a narrative. We watched this clip from Finding Nemo and then we retold the story, starting our sentences with words like "first," "next," and "finally." We also made predictions about what we thought would happen next.

One question that was asked on Monday, when we discussed what we want to learn about Antarctica and the Polar Habitat, was "How do the animals survive the cold temperatures?" On Wednesday, we did an experiment and found out the answer! Many animals in Antarctica and the Polar Habitat, such as whales, walruses, and penguins have blubber, which helps them stay warm!

 

The next day, for writing, we wrote about the experiment, using the same sequence words! 

We also did some Orca Whale art this week! 

Just for fun... say one of these signal words to your first grader and see what they can tell you! 

• persuade
• hemisphere
• external
• spyhopping
• conclude

Last, but not least, IT'S FAMILY BLOGGING MONTH! Here's what some of our first graders had to share this week...

      "I liked the Nemo video, because it was super funny when Dory acted like a whale and was like, 'Mwaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh!'" -Sophia

       "I have learned that in Antarctica, they have six months with light and six months with darkness. Also, I have learned that Macaroni Penguins live in Antarctica.

        My teacher always inspires us to read. Since I've been in first grade, my reading is getting better. For example, I've been reading lots of chapter books like The One and Only Ivan, by Katherine Applegate. By reading, I notice that my writing is getting better. Thank you Miss Kloczko for being an awesome teacher. And that's my blog." -Mariana

     "I enjoy reading books about what we are learning about.  We learned about whales and their blubber keeps them warm from the cold water." -Peyton

Leave a comment on our blog! 

• First graders, what was your favorite thing we did at school this week? What is the coolest thing you learned? What do you hope to learn this week?
• Family and friends, what do YOU know about Antarctica? Maybe you have a question that one of our first graders can answer!

All About Whales!

Leave a comment on our padlet!  What have you learned about whales this week in first grade?

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This Week in First Grade (12-9-13)

Here are some highlights from this week!

A special visitor...

• First graders have been learning about the different types of teeth and what they do, so our visitor this week came at the perfect time. Students at Star Academy got to learn about how to take care of their own teeth!

Reading:

• On Friday, we learned to Read for Meaning at an assembly with Phil Tulga. Through music, we learned about three reading strategies: sequence, inference, and prediction. We were grooving and dancing and learning all about reading! So fun! See the blog post about the assembly with pictures, video, and more on the Star Academy blog! 
• We heard a story called The Snow Deer, and there are 10 pictures to help us remember the sequence of the story. After hearing the story a few times throughout the week, we talked about some important elements of the story(author, title, setting, characters, problem, solution). You can talk about these same story elements in the books you read at home with your child!
   
  

Science/Social Studies:

• This week we learned about a new animal  in the woodland habitat in Europe... the fallow deer! The fallow deer is an example of an ungulate and it also a quadriped! Ask your child to tell you what that means. :)
  

Team Tasks:

• This week, we focused a lot on cooperation. At the beginning of the week, we brainstormed what cooperation looks and sounds like, and we continued to add to the list throughout the week. Teams earned bonus points during team tasks for doing the things we put on the chart.

One team working on the Immigrants from Europe World Map Team Task

Writing:

• We read the book Written Anything Good Lately? by Susan Allen and Jane Lindaman and talked about all of the things that writers write. Writers write more than just books! Writing is so important and useful, and best of all, FUN! We made lists of what writers write in our notebooks and here are some things that we came up with...
• books
• emails
• text messages
• shopping lists
• stories
• thank you notes
• Christmas cards
• letters
• songs
• poems
• chants
• non fiction books
• comics
• reminders on sticky notes
• We wrote letters to Miss Kloczko... (I LOVED reading these!)
  
• We listened to the story Owl Moon, by Jane Yolen and made lists in our writers notebooks of all of the words that we liked in the story as we listened. Then, in the computer lab, we typed the words from our notebooks into a google form. See the word cloud below with all of the words that we wrote. The bigger a word is, the more first graders there are that wrote it!
   
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

This Week in First Grade (12-2-13)

What happened at school this week?
Miss Kloczko was out of the classroom in GLAD training Tuesday-Thursday, with 25 other teachers (yes, 25!) watching two experts teach Mrs. Luhrsen's first grade class, and she learned a ton! Due to the fact that Miss Kloczko didn't get to teach this week, this post will be a short one...

Math:
Here are a few things we learned this week:

• Telling time to the half hour
• Making tens to make counting big groups of objects easier.
• For example, if you have ALL of these hedgehogs, you can make groups of 10 to help you count them. Because there are so many, it's easy to make a mistake if you simply count, even if you use one of the strategies we learned earlier in the year (such as crossing out each hedgehog as you go).

Writing:

Some things we wrote about this week:

• Thanksgiving Break
• hedgehogs
• google accounts
• the woodland habitat in Europe and what we have learned so far
• our favorite Disney characters

A is for America

We added two new pages to our A is for America books about important American symbols: G is for Gold, and I is for Immigrant.

Science/Social Studies

• We learned about what an immigrant is and that over the years, many people have immigrated to America from many different places. Many of our ancestors came from Europe long ago, and many of our ancestors came from other places more recently. Maybe you can talk with your child about how your family ended up in America!
• We also learned a new chant about the Statue of Liberty!
• JUST FOR FUN... Ask your child to give you the definitions of a few of our signal words!
• woodland
• carnivore
• operation (a math signal word!)
• immigrant

What are you reading?

In first grade, we LOVE books! Leave a comment and tell us:

• the title and author of a book that you recently read
• the title and author of a book that you are reading now
• the title and author of a book you plan to read next

You can also reply to someone's comment by clicking the "reply" button below their comment! If you have read or plan to read the same book as someone else, reply to their comment and tell them!

What is Miss Kloczko reading?

I just started a book this weekend that my mom recommended to me, called Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed. It's about a girl, not much older than me, who impulsively decides to hike over 1,000 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail... alone! The best part of this story? It's a TRUE story! So far, it is very interesting! I have been on parts of the Pacific Crest Trail, but I can't imagine hiking for months and months in a row on it. Did you know that the Pacific Crest Trail stretches all the way from Mexico to Canada?