Egypt Week

We had a fantastic time studying Ancient Egypt this week! Please enjoy the slideshow of our experiences below. Of course it doesn't come close to really capturing everything in our week, so please ask your child for details! During the slideshow, you can click any pictures to enlarge them. You can also use the arrow keys to control the speed of the show. Enjoy!

Egypt Week

We are loving our cultural residency week as we study Ancient Egypt! (Pictures are coming so, so soon!) To conclude our week of study, this Friday will be an All School Share. We hope you can come and be a part of the event! Here are some big events during the assembly...

• 1:45 pm -  Processions begins. Students will wear Egyptian clothing and pass the Sarcophagus then head into the gymnasium.

• Weighing of the Heart – Theresa

• Egyptian Trivia Quiz Show – Theresa

The All School Share is scheduled to go from 1:45 to 2:15 pm.  Our class will be dressed in Egyptian clothing and will be part of the audience. Please come if you can! :)

Traditions Unit

We have been studying traditions in our class. We learned that traditions are things that we repeat and that have been passed down or will be passed down from generation to generation.

We read the book: When the Box is Full, written by Patricia Lillie. In the book, a child adds something into her box each month to represent the time of year. We were inspired to make our own boxes, based on traditions throughout the year.

We have worked our way through a few months so far, but we still have a bunch of months of traditions to go! These are our boxes so far...

You might have noticed your child brought home a brainstorm paper tonight that elaborated on a tradition. Each child chose a tradition they enjoy and filled out their details through illustration. Here are a few:

Ask your child what his/her favorite tradition is and why!

ELF

Wow! We had a great time with ELF early this November (yikes, is tomorrow really December already?). Miss Laurie came in and taught us about erosion.

We watched a puppet show, performed by our very own second grade cast members (and Laurie!) We learned about different rocks and their journeys as the erode.

We watched what water could do to a mountain! The higher and more powerful the water falls, the more the mountain will change.

We got to do check out wind power and how it can move things! We used straws to blow rice around in a cup.

Water is so strong! We each shook a jar of water with some rocks in it. In the end, a lot of sediment was left in the water.

Thanks again for coming in to help with ELF, Miss Laurie. We hope to see some more families join in on the fun next time too! :)

Parent-Teacher Conferences

The Parent-Teacher Conference Online Scheduler is now available! The scheduler will close on Tuesday and conferences are scheduled on a "first come, first served" basis. 

Here are the directions that were emailed in yesterday's Happy Friday. If you would like my help in scheduling a conference, feel free to email me and I will schedule it for you or help you with the process. 

Looking forward to seeing you all!

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Step-By-Step Parent/Guardian Instructions

1. Visit our school's homepage, TBPS.org and select Parent Conference Sign-up link or go to this web site https://www.canyoncreeksoftware.com/scheduler/vt/wwsu/downloads/index.cfmt for the Online Scheduler icon/link.
2. From the Online Scheduler Home Page
a. Choose your student's school from the drop down list and click "GO"
b. Enter the school password: tbps
c. Enter your student's "Student ID". If you do not know their Student ID, use the LOOKUP STUDENT ID button to access the system.
d. Verify the student's birth date
e. A list of your student's teachers will be displayed. Check the box next to the name of each teacher(s) you would like to meet with.
f. If you have more than one student in the school you can see all of your students' teachers' schedules at one time by answering YES to this question "Do you want to schedule conferences for another student?" then repeat the steps above for your other students. If you only have one student, answer NO to that question.
g. You will then see the available time slots for each teacher you selected.
h. Select the times that work best for your schedule.
i. Enter your email address (recommended) if you would like an email reminder sent to you. (Your email address is kept private.)
j. Once you have finished you can confirm your appointment details and print your conference schedule.
k. Write down the Confirmation Number (you will need this number to cancel your appointment)

• We estimated the number of seeds in our class pumpkin. 

• Estimates ranged from 18-300 seeds in our pumpkin.

• We read How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin by Margaret McNamara. 

• We learned so many interesting facts about pumpkins and how to estimate the number of seeds in a pumpkin. We also learned some strategies to count pumpkin seeds efficiently and accurately!

• We made new estimates. Our new range was 200-700 seeds in the pumpkin.

• We cut into the pumpkin, cleaned the seeds, and put our seeds into piles of 10.

 

Good mathematicians always double check...

We circled our groups of 10, just to be sure.

We reported out how many seeds we had on each desk group (we counted by 10's, of course).

• We wrote the numbers down and solved our HUGE number string by adding the 100's, making 100s, adding the 10's, and adding on the 1's.

150+130+170+176=

We ended up with _____ pumpkin seeds!!!

Newsletter for the Week of October 29th

News10 29.Doc

Cursive Update

We're on to those strange cursive letters that hardly look like their "print" versions!

"k" and "r"...

10 more cursive letters....we're all so excited!

Pop Rocks Experiment...Continued

Last week, we did an experiment with Pop Rocks. The experiment left us with lots of questions, including: "What is inside a Pop Rock?"

To figure out if there was "air" in the Pop Rocks, we added them to a balloon, sealed the balloon onto a bottle of water and then poured the Pop Rocks from the balloon into the water.

We made predictions about what would happen if we added Pop Rocks to water (pink post-its).

Next, we observed. We heard the Pop Rocks crackling loudly, saw the water turn read, and saw the Pop Rocks rise and fall. It didn't look like the balloon filled with any gas. To be sure, we all squeezed the green balloon. 

There was a small bit of gas!

We discussed that the gas in a balloon is carbon dioxide. We talked about what we knew about soda and combined that with what we knew about Pop Rocks. We made predictions about what would happen if we did the same experiment....with soda.

We discussed our predictions and reasoning. Then we did our experiment! Look at the faces of our scientists...

We compared the two balloons. We asked why there was more gas in the soda bottle's balloon. We realized it was because the carbon dioxide in the soda + the carbon dioxide in the Pop Rocks = more gas to fill up the balloon.

We had a lot more questions after this experiment about gases. So during Daily 5 - Reading, we used two nonfiction texts to learn more about gases. We learned that gases fill up spaces and you can't always see them.

To show this, we talked about the bottle of soda and discussed if it was empty or not. Many children said it was empty. We put the balloon in the bottle, sealing it to the top of the bottle. I tried to blow up the balloon and I couldn't do it! ASK your child why I couldn't blow up the balloon!

Next, we talked about how gas fills spaces and why we can blow up balloons in a room. Children decided it's because gases can escape from our room, making more room for the balloon to be blown up. The kids suggested I cut a hole in the bottle for the gases to escape. ASK your child what happened!!

For the rest of the week, we explored liquids and solids. Next week? How to change between the states!

All School Share

All first and second grade classes collected trash for 10 days.

What does it look like? What does it smell like?

ASK your child about this experience! 

Cursive Update

Today we learned the cursive letters: i and j

Recycle, Trash, Compost

We're all lovin' our community mural right now. That means it's a perfect time to talk about the data we've been collecting....


For the past 2 weeks, we've been recording each trip to the trash can, recycling bin, and compost bucket. I've kept the reasoning a mystery from the children, but today was the perfect day to talk about the purpose of our data collection.

Students noticed that we threw things in the trash the most, then the recycling, then the composting. They thought it was funny that it was a reverse staircase. "We should be composting the most, then recycling, then throwing stuff in the trash."

How could we make this data come alive?
Well, the 1-2 South House has been saving trash since last week so in the middle of our conversation, I went in the hall and brought in all of the bags of trash.

....they REEKED! There was an immediate reaction from kids about the things in the trash that shouldn't be (and of course the stench).

We talked about how we heard the blasts in the mountain at Grow Compost (from the landfill). We discussed the implications of throwing a lot of stuff in the trash versus sorting it properly. "What will happen to the mountain if we run out of space?" "What will happen to the trash if we run out of space?"


How could we make the idea of landfill locations come to life? 
It all goes back to our pride and joy - our community mural. We all went into the hall and looked at our beautiful town. I had our landfill in hand (a bag of trash) and we discussed where it could go. We went back and forth and couldn't figure out a place to put it so everyone was safe and the town stayed beautiful.

The solution? 
Our class decided to make the landfill smaller by building a recycling center and a compost center. They wanted these centers so some "waste" could be sorted and reused - making less trash.

We went back into the class (relieved that we weren't going to staple a big bag of trash on the mural) and discussed possible solutions to reduce trash.

Interested in more information about this investigation? 
Come to All School Share this Friday - all first and second graders will be presenting some incredible data they've collected and .... well, you'll have to wait for the All School Share to see/hear what else!

Community Mural? Check.

Did you hear the news?! We finished our mural last week! The children worked hard and are so proud of their work and community building (both in our classroom and our literal building of a community). Please view this with your child and ASK him/her about the process and product!

• Click "pause" to go through the slideshow at your own pace (using the arrows) or "play" to let the pages turn automatically
• Click any picture to enlarge or shrink
• Click videos to enlarge/shrink and play