First Grade: Understanding personal and cultural events of families in "Who We Are"

First Grade has been learning about personal and cultural events in their “Who We Are” unit. Throughout the unit of inquiry, students examined the personal and cultural events of families. Through comparison, students also explored customs and celebrations in each other’s families and families around the world.

Various learning experiences helped the students make connections to gain intercultural understanding and respect. Here are a few of the wonderful opportunities the students had the opportunity to engage in:

·         “Long ago, people found a way to light the darkness . . . Light was so important in their lives that they came to use it in worship and in celebrations” (from “Celebrations of Light” by Nancy Luenn).

o    Students had the opportunity to explore holidays that shared a common element . . . LIGHT!!! The students were able to select the holiday they wanted to inquire into (from a list). They then went to the teacher responsible for that holiday, learned more about it and then returned to their class to share their knowledge with their classmates.

Students who chose to go to Ms. Fitch’s class learned about the Japanese festival “Obon Matsuri.” This is a festival that honors the dead; each student created a lantern to honor a loved one, keeping in line with an Obon Matsuri tradition.

o    Students also had the opportunity to learn about traditions from community members. The volunteers who agreed to speak with the children shared how their culture has impacted the traditions that they have in their family, as well as challenges and/or positive ways their culture/ traditions have changed.

Volunteer speaker shares the traditions from her culture (Chile) with Frist Grade students.

Throughout the exploration of this unit of inquiry, the students were asked to consider what they were learning from multiple perspectives. This is a powerful tool for learning about other people and cultures; thus helping students gain an understanding that the importance of family and community beliefs, customs, language, and traditions are universal. Way to go First Grade!!!

Poetry Slam.......Students explore and present wide variety of poetry

Third graders at COES elementary school rock! Their poetry slam on Thursday evening was amazing.  After studying poetry in music and the regular classroom, they performed a wide range of poetry for parents and teachers.  Each class set up their own “Poetry Café” .  Poetry recited included everything from their own poetry, limericks and funny rhymes to the classics and even included a selection from Hamlet.   Each grade had their own MC who kept the show moving with some adlibs and a lot of laughter and fun.  Parents and students enjoyed the performances and the cozy atmosphere with plenty of hot chocolate.  A Spanish song sung by all participants rounded off the evening in each poetry café proving there are no limits to this group of international learners.  

Hour of Code

Kids love to play games.... and computer games are no exception.

So it's hardly surprising that our students (and the parent  volunteers)  had so much fun at the "Hour of Coding" event on Monday. As educators, we know that we want our students to learn how to think logically, how to solve problems and how to stick with a project until they are finished without simply giving up because it's too hard.  During the Hour of Code activities, students developed those very skills while playing computer games.   They had to figure out how to make the Angry Bird get through the maze to the pig or they had work out how to allow the zombie to get to the sunflower despite the obstacles in his path. If they didn't get it right, they simply had to "debug" their program and run it again.  And they kept at it until they got it right.  They worked together, helping each other and in pairs when necessary.  In fact, they were having so much fun that our "Hour of Code" turned into more than an hour... and many of the students were making plans to continue at home.

Anyone can access the Hour of code.org activities and have fun learning the basic concepts.  We're hoping that there will be enough interest to start a technology club after the Winter Break.

Students can still sign up through the link on the COES website for the Thursday event.