So last week we asked our students to bring in plastic containers, tin cans, buttons, ribbons, and anything else that they found in their recycling or trash that inspired them. We then gave them a challenge..... Make something new and useful! We told them that they couldn't make a toy or a sculpture but had to make something that served a useful purpose. Ariel and I plugged in the glue guns and gave them some books and websites to look at and then let their little minds explore and create! 
I took a "before" picture of their items and then an "after" picture of their creation. I made a powerpoint with the photos and had each student record their voice over their picture saying our version of Eric Carle & Bill Martin's book "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see?" We changed the poem to include each student's name and then what they created. We used the audio recording app on powerpoint because in the new term we will be creating e-portfolios so that we can keep easier records of student's speaking abilities. I will add each individual student's part in our "Grade One, Grade One, What Do You See?" powerpoint to their own individual e-portfolios once we get them started. This is not my original idea, I found this idea on Pinterest and the original blog post can be found here.

                                "Finn, Finn, what do you see?"

                               "I see a drum looking at me!"

"James, James, what do you see?"

"I see a pencil holder, looking at me!"

"Raymond, Raymond, what do you see?"

"I see a piggy bank looking at me!"

My little monkeys absolutely LOVED this inquiry and they made some really creative things! In English we have been learning how to re-tell stories and we still wanted to make and create so we made some re-telling rope using old ribbons and recycled paper! This idea again came from Pinterest. Find the original blog post here. Every time one of my students brings a birthday cake to school all tied up with ribbon we add the ribbon to our craft box, we had just enough to make 24 re-telling ropes. We also re-used all the leftover divider paper from their progress folders to cut out the circles. The kids really enjoyed making these as well and they got to personalize them and add their own creative flare. 

Story Re-telling Rope - Made with old ribbons and reused paper. 

Our New Year Resolutions for the Earth! Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Replace!

As our current Unit of Inquiry is Conservation, we decided to make some resolutions to be more Earth friendly. We have been learning about the 3 R's, Reduce, Reuse and Recycle and we've been discussing as to wether or not the 3 R's are enough. As a class we brainstormed other ways to help the Earth and to live a more sustainable lifestyle. We looked through some books and checked out some websites about conservation and we came up with a few extra R's to add to the list. Our favourites are Refuse and Replace. We decided that Refuse should be the first R to live by. We made a list of things we can Refuse because we now have better and cleaner options. Styrofoam was the number one choice of what we can Refuse, I can't believe as a society that we still accept that stuff!! REFUSE STYROFOAM! We also talked about what actions we should be Refusing to accept, such as littering. Some of my little monkeys suggested that we should be Refusing to hurt animals. A few of them made New Year Resolutions to Refuse to squish bugs, this just melted my little eco-heart. Have you read "Hey Little Ant" by Phillip M. Hoose??? It's a cute little book that shows the perspective of an ant, it's a great read to spark a conversation about empathy and/or perspective.

Our second R, Replace, came from several of the books we were reading. Many books about conservation recommend planting trees and flowers to Replace the ones that we use in our daily lives. We all really liked this idea and talked about other natural resources that we can help by Replacing them, such as collecting rain water. We also figured out that we can help the Earth by Replacing older energy consuming products with cleaner energy saving options such as CFL lightbulbs. 


REFUSE, REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE & REPLACE FOR A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE!

Unit of Inquiry - Conservation

Unit of Inquiry - Conservation

Unit of Inquiry - Conservation

Unit of Inquiry - Conservation

Our garden is still growing! For 6 wonderful weeks we went out every morning to water and measure the growth of the plants in our garden. Our Math Investigation into measurement is over, but we still go out at the end of everyday to water our garden and check on it's progress. 

Measuring Our Garden - It was fun to watch the beans sprout from their seeds! 

Measuring Our Garden - We used links to measure the length of the cucumber and squash vines.

Measuring Our Garden - We used linking cubes to measure the height of the peas and beans.

It's 2014 already, when did that happen??

Where did the last 6 weeks go???? December is always a crazy busy month for EVERYONE but I think it's especially crazy for teachers! AND I'M STILL NOT ON HOLIDAYS! Say what? Yup that's right, no Christmas holidays for us hard working teachers in Taiwan :( Thankfully I have a nice 3 week long holiday soon for Chinese New Year. 2 more weeks to go, I can do it!

Alright due to the Grade 1 led assembly, December assessments, Christmas celebrations (I took the day off from work),  and just general business, I'm a little behind with blogging, so get ready for a month of blog posts all together!