January has been an exciting month for our class.  Here’s what we’ve been up to:

In Social Studies, we’ve been learning about all the elements that make up a country’s culture and then using that knowledge to help us study China.  We’re creating a book authored by the students in the class to teach each other about China’s architecture, food and tea, religion, inventions, history, famous places, traditions and celebrations, and more.  This ties into ELAR as we compare the similarities and differences of reading and writing non-fiction with our previous fictional story book creation.  In phonics, we’re learning about vowel teams, consonant blends, and r-controlled vowels as well as adding to our sight word vocabulary.

In Everyday Math, we’ve been using the number grid and base ten blocks to solve 2-digit addition and subtraction problems.  We’ve also practiced measuring paths and the lengths of various objects, solved comparison number stories, and improved our understanding of place value.  In science, we are preparing to undertake our plant and sustainability studies.  We also joined the other first grade class in buddy-ing up with the 5th graders to undertake a pasta and marshmallow engineering challenge.   The tallest, strongest, and “most creative” structures were recognized.

We’re looking forward to an exciting spring!