Class Tour 2015-2016

Whale-come to our first grade classroom!

This is our view before we enter our room.  Every morning Mrs. Wanke meets us at the door, checks our folders or communicators and assignment notebook.  Then we pick our seats for the day!  As you can see, we don't sit at desks and chairs.

This is our writing center area.  The bulletin board is a little plain right now, but as we learn new things and have work to display, this board will be full full full!

Over here are the papasan chairs and desk bikes.  While we sit and learn, we peddle.  Behind us is our CAFE board.  CAFE is an acronym that stands for Comprehension, Accuracy, Fluency, and Expand Vocabulary.  These are all the components of a good reader.  We will learn strategies through out the year and we will add them to our board.  

Next to the CAFE board is our Word Collector.  As we read, we will use the context clues from stories to learn the meanings of new words and grow our vocabulary.  We will add these words to the Word Collector. 

After we pick our seats in the morning, we meet on this carpet area.  Over here we have Calendar Corner and we have our class library.

Just another view!

Here is another seating option.  We love the little table!  :)

This is where we will have our guided reading groups, individual reading conferences, and guided math groups.  This is also where Mrs. Wanke's desk use to be!  This year Mrs. Wanke does not have a desk.  She said it takes up too much space and was a huge place for junk to pile up!  

Here is the other half of our room.  

At the front of the room is our SMART board and ocean carpet.  We meet here most of our lessons.  On the carpet are 4 wobble seats.  This is another spot for us to choose to sit for the day.  Behind the easel is our four classroom computers.  We will be using these this year to publish some of our writing.  

Some other options for us to sit at for the day are...

1. The couch. At the couch there are desk steppers for us to step while we learn and work.  

2. The table with balls.  We have 3 stability balls for us to sit on during the day.

3.  The table with floor pillows.  We have 4 pillows for us to sit on.

4. The tent.  The whale of the week gets to sit in the tent for the entire week! 

Can't wait for everyone to see our classroom in person at the PTO back to school picnic and Open House night at 5:00 on Wednesday, September 2nd.

Can you eat like a Baleen? We can!

We learned on Tuesday that there are two types of whales; toothed and baleen whales.  We understand what it is like to have teeth, but what would it be like to have baleen?  How would we eat our food? Today, we learned just that!

When a Baleen Whale eats, it will open it's mouth, swims forward, and scoops up water and krill.  Then, it will use it's tongue to push out the water.  The water will slip through the baleen, but the krill will not slip through.  Baleen is like hair, but much thicker like our finger nails.

To start off our experiment, we filled a small container with water.  Then, we sprinkled in dried Basil flakes.  We each took a turn moving a comb forward through the water.  The water passed through the comb, but the basil was caught. This is just like what happens to the krill when a baleen whale eats.  

We did another experiment to see what it was like to eat like a baleen whale.  First, we put some raisins in a cup. Then, we filled the cup with a small amount of water.  We put ALL the water and raisins in our mouth...at the same time!  Lastly, we used our tongue to push the water out through our teeth back into the cup, but keeping the raisins in our mouth.  

This was a little trickier than what we thought.  Some of us were able to eat like a baleen whale.  The rest of us have a new appreciation for our teeth.

Some Baleen Whales are:

Blue Whale

Gray Whale

Humpback Whale