Rainbow Day

Enjoy these pictures from Rainbow Day...before...and after the outdoor events.

A Visit to Mr. Montoya

Today First Graders went on a scientific excursion. We went to see Mr. Montoya, who taught us about how a turtle's shell and body has changed over time. Mr. Montoya is TAISM's high school art teacher, but is also a wildlife expert and a former science teacher. Ask your child about how the space between a turtle's ribs has changed and ask your child about some of the dangers turtles face in the wild today. Students were intrigued by what Mr. Montoya shared today and they have another two guest speakers to look forward to during our Living Things unit. Thank you, Mr. Montoya, for sharing your time and expertise!

A Post from Ms. Catherine in the Library

Discovering Animals! Grade 1 students are currently studying animals and in our library lessons, we have been looking at how to use information books to discover facts about creatures. We also explored one of Taism’s subscription databases called Pebblego. This site is aimed specifically at young students and finding out about ladybugs was great fun. Many students were keen to try it for themselves as it is at their level and has both audio and video elements. If you would like to explore this site with your child, then please go to www.pebblego.com and log in using ‘muscat’ as both the user name and password. Enjoy learning together and please contact me if you have any questions. Ms. Catherine ES Librarian

Plant Journals and Animal Sorts

Students are seeing a lot of growth in their bean plants. We have seen roots, stems and unfurling leaves. We have also found shriveled seed coats and split beans discarded in the soil. Some students who have not seen growth have decided to plant another bean and try again. All this we carefully record in our plant journals. This week we have started looking at other living things too...animals. Today students looked at photos of many different animals. They talked in groups about the different features of these animals and what they do. They came up with their own categories for sorting them, such as whether or not they are dangerous, what they eat and how they move. Next we will look at the categories scientists use to classify animals. This will help lay the foundation for students later researching a living thing of Oman.

News Flash...We Have a Fish!

You might have heard we have a surprise addition to our class...a class pet! We now have a red, male betta fish. The students have named him Alex. We have been observing this living thing closely, making a list of its needs and writing our observations about him in a class journal. Students will take turns feeding Alex his tasty food...ask your child about this and what he or she has learned about betta fish.

Odd and Even

Today we looked at another kind of pattern...odd and even numbers. We started with "grab bags" of objects. Students counted and sorted the objects in pairs of two. If there was an object leftover, then we knew that number was odd. If the objects could all be put in pairs, we knew that number was even. Some of our observations were that "The even numbers are just like skip-counting by twos" and "Every other number is even. Every other number is odd!"

Preparing to Plant

On our recent observation walk students identified plants and trees as living things. Today we examined beans to see how plants can grow. Students used plastic needles to open the seeds and magnifying glasses to observe them. We learned that the skin is called a seed coat and that when you open beans they have two parts. Inside of them we even discovered a tiny plant called an embryo...complete with stem, root and leaves, ready to grow!

Patterns

Today we explored visual patterns with popsicle sticks. First we extended patterns as a class. Students learned that we need to identify the pattern core before we can repeat it. Then pairs created patterns for each other to extend. We practiced orally naming the patterns (such as a,a,b or clap, clap, slap). Ask your child to create and name a pattern for you at home.

Living Things

Today we began our science unit on Living Things. We started with a discussion gathering what students already know about living things, like "They need water, food and air" and "Humans use nonliving things, like footballs and televisions." With further discussion we realized that humans use living things as well, like fish, for both "pets" and "food". We went on a brief walk outside where students labeled post-its with one living and one nonliving thing. Then we came back to class and sorted our findings. There were a plethora of examples, like kids, birds and ants for living things and swings, slides, and tables for nonliving things. We will delve deeper into the needs and characteristics of living things, especially those found in the habitats of Oman, throughout this unit.

Student Calendars

Each month in class students fill in a calendar. We fill in missing dates, decorate the days with student birthdays and practice calendar skills such as identifying the days of the week and how many days in each month. Today students will be bringing home their November (along with October and September) calendars. A big focus of our first math unit was using the calendar as part of our daily routine. We will continue to do this in class but as we move on to other focuses in math, it would be a good idea to continue some calendar practice at home. Ask your child questions such as what day of the week is November 12th on? What was the date yesterday? See what your child can tell you about what is happening in the month of November. Feel free to add on at home.