First Grade is OUT OF THIS WORLD!!!!!
Today was a BLAST!!!! We were able to explore the galaxy and put our knew knowledge of the Solar System to great use today during Solar System Day!!! I loved seeing students come in all dressed up for our day with Stars, Moons, Planets and more! They were definitely ready to learn and have fun!
Today, we had many stations that all involved some sort of solar system experience. Our friends were able to ORBIT through 6 stations with their teams throughout the morning with a cosmic yoga break to get some exercise as well! We even got to launch two rockets today with Mrs. Powell's class too (I think we launched each rocket 3-4 times)!!! Can you believe it? We packed a ton of learning and exploration fun into our short day. You can check out ALL of the fun we had in each of our stations below!
CONSTELLATION STATION:
At our first station, the students discussed constellations and what they are. They were then given the opportunity to create their own! Using black paper, star stickers and white crayons, students were able to create extremely unique and creative constellations! Some recreated constellations that are already in existence, while others made new constellations! When they were done with their creations they were then able to write about what they made!
Blaire make a rainbow constellation.
Stevie made an ice cream cone constellation and Bella made a house, a heart and even recreated the little dipper!
I really like Logan's creativity with his constellations!! :) Karley had fun making a house out of stars while Jared worked hard at creating a person!
Dublin and Tyler G. worked the whole time re-creating constellations from the examples given to them. They created a bunch of them! Tyler F. and Izzy both had fun making a boat and heart while Jaxxon created a vampire!
Joey made a star for his constellation.
MOON MATH:
In this station, our first graders practiced finding ten more and ten less. This is a skill we have been working really hard on the past week. It can be very tricky when adding and subtracting groups of tens, especially when they have been so used to working with adding and subtracting ones! Here, students matched up their two-digit rocket with the stars showing ten more and ten less. Then, they recorded their findings on their rocket math paper. When students were all done, they were able to read and listen to stories that were all about the Solar System on Epic!
Write the Room:
During the students' time in this station, they were able to explore our classroom, Mrs. Powell's classroom and the hallway to find hidden solar system words that Mrs. Powell had hidden. Some friends were able to find them quicker than others. I must say, Mrs. Powell did a fantastic job at hiding them and making our firsties search high and low for those words! Students took their clip boards and recording sheets around with them and wrote each word they found by its matching picture. When they were done, they were able to draw the solar system on the back.
Eat Like an Astronaut:
This was one of the biggest hits of the day (along with our rocket launch....keep reading to find out more about that)! At this station, they were able to experience a little bit of what it would be like to actually visit outer space by eating like an astronaut!!!! We were able to try astronaut fruit, lasagna and ice cream!!! We learned that the food needs to be prepared and packaged (freeze dried) in a special way because there would not be a way to store the food and make it last while they are in space! Along with the special packaging, comes a pretty expensive price tag. We were so excited to be able to use our Boo Gram money from the fall to be able to purchase the food to use for our station! Thank you again for all your help in the fall raising the money for our class! Everyone was SUPER excited to get to try the astronaut food and almost all of them LOVED everything they ate!
Tyler LOVED the lasagna!
When students were done eating their food, they got to make solar system headbands to wear the rest of the day. They had to cut out the planets and glue them on in order that they are found in space!
Jaxxon was very proud of his headband that he made!
Karley enjoyed making her headband too!
Logan liked all of the food that he tried today!
We had lots of thumbs up on the yummy astronaut treats!
Lasagna was Caysen's favorite! He even told his mom that she should make it for dinner tonight!
As you can see, not everyone enjoyed every food option. Some friends decided that they lasagna was not their favorite, however I am very proud of everyone for trying something new and taking thank you bites even though they were a little iffy of the new food!
You can see here that the overall favorite was the ice cream - there was chocolate, strawberry and vanilla. We only had a little bit to try so they couldn't try every flavor but what they tried they did enjoy! The lasagna was another huge hit! Even though it didn't win on the 'favorite' list, all but 4 of the friends really enjoyed it! The fruit was yummy too and the students discovered that it was a little bit sour too. Thank you Ms. Serefano for coming in and helping run our Eat Like an Astronaut station! We appreciate all your help with making sure everyone got to try all the food and got their headbands sized!
Make a Moon (crater):
This station was another tremendous hit! When students were able to orbit to this station, they received a piece of clay and some marbles. Their job was to create the moon, complete with craters! They have been learning about how craters are formed in the moon and so today they were able to explore that concept and create their own!
Some students chose to simply make the moons surface by flattening out their clay, while others chose to make to whole moon and a few even made a crescent moon complete with craters!
When they were satisfied with how their moons and craters turned out, they had the opportunity to write about how craters are formed. Don't worry if your child's moon got a little squished on the way home. The air-dry clay takes a day or two to set up and harden so they should still have a little time to reshape and recreate their craters if it did get a little banged up!
Walk on the Moon:
At this station, Ms. Allen was a huge help to our friends! Here, the kiddos were able to listen to an article read to them by Ms. Allen all about Neil Armstrong and how he was the first man to walk on the moon.
Next, students watched two videos that included actual footage of Neil Armstrong's trip to the moon and gave some great visuals on the surface of the moon. You can watch them below!
Click here to watch the second video!
When they were all done watching the videos and listening to the article, students then talked about Neil Armstrong's famous quote and got to trace it as well as draw a picture of him walking on the moon! Thank you for your help Ms. Allen!
We have also been able to see some fun videos about how astronauts perform different tasks in outer space. We were able to watch a video about how astronauts wash their hair in space! It was super interesting and way different that washing our hair at home!
