Water Cycle

Look right in front of you.  Do you see that?  Yes, right there all around you.  It's water vapor!  

Our water cycle board

1st graders have been hard at work learning about the water cycle.  We began by making our own water cycle board in our classroom. We made sure to label the important vocabulary: evaporation, precipitation, and condensation.  After we finished our introduction to the water cycle we transformed into scientists and began a water cycle experiment.  

 Students were paired up to construct their Mr. Potato head inspired water cup for our experiment.  Cups were filled with water and placed around the classroom.  Some experiment cups have nothing on top of them, other have napkins, tissue paper, duct tape and even plastic bags (some with holes).  We need lots of variables for a good scientific experiment.

Once experiment cups were filled with water, students worked as pairs to make a hypothesis about what they predict will happen to the water in their cup. 1st graders wrote their hypothesis in their water cycle journal.  

Now we wait and observe what happens...

100th Day...part 2

Welcome back to first grade after a hopefully nice relaxing vacation with your children.  I have heard many stories about your fun filled February vacations.  Here are a few more 100th day activities we completed, they were too cute not to share!

1st graders had so much fun dressed as 100 year old people that we took the opportunity to write about ourselves at 100 years old.  1st graders wrote about what they would do, wear and say.  We also used this activity to help practice our transition words (First, Then, Finally).  

Also on the 100th day, 1st graders used their imagination to turn the digits from 100 into a creative picture.  I love how different their pictures all came out.  Students made giraffes, smiles, flowers, scuba masks and even a deer hiding behind a bush.

100th Day

We finally celebrated the 100th day in 1st grade!  One day late but Valentine's Day was already jam packed with festive activities yesterday that we needed a whole day to really celebrate the 100th day.  1st graders are 100 days smarter and 100 days older...we sure did look a lot older today.

During math we headed over to the Fuller Meadow Senior Center for a few games of place value bingo.

I bet you didn't know your 100 year old Grandma knew how to skype.  Us old folks can definitely learn new things and today we skyped with a Kindergarten and 3rd class at Steward School in Topsfield.  Thanks Mrs. Klipfel for skyping with us.  We made sure our hearing aids were turned all the way up.

iPads are so easy to use that even when you're 100 years old you can still use them.  We met our 100 year old Kindergarten buddies in the amphitheater to explore the new apps on the iPads. 

Boy were we ready for the early bird special and a nice nap by the time our day was done (especially Granny Klipfel)!