Mystery Beads..Mystery Guests!

The light from the Sun can be more powerful than we can determine by our natural eyes.."It was the sunlight!" the Sunshine Band exclaimed. It was today they osberved their "Mystery Space Beads". Inside they look just like regular clear beads, but outside they are every color of the rainbow! How does it happen? Ask a First Grader, "Light from the Sun!".

To add to our mysterious day, a mystery guest was headed our way! A cousin of one of our students is studying Astronomy herself and wanted to share with us her understanding of the distance between planets. So back outside we went, to become the planets, and see our distance!

Thank you our Astronomer friend..we can't wait until you visit us again :).

Sleepover Update

Dear Sunshine Families :),
What an eventful couple of weeks! Even though it has been short, we have learned so many things about Stars and Planets! Thank you to all the families that turned in their pillow last Thursday for homework, they are OUT OF THIS WORLD!!!

Last Thursday, our students posed with their Star Pillows in front of our space banner and we got a great group shot :). Also, each table was responsible for presenting a Night Sky drawing to our class and explaining what you would see in the night sky.

It is amazing to hear First Graders relating vocabulary words such as constelation, heat, color, telescope, and astronmer with confidence. Ask your student how hot a blue star is.. you might be amazed!
Check out our adevntures in Space thus far! SLEEPOVER is this Friday!!!!!

I'm in the night sky, but I don't twinkle, what am I?

A PLANET! Planets don't twinkle, just one of the many things we learned for the first time at the MOSH Planetarium last Thursday. We had a wonderful trip and were grateful for all of the support that our chaperones provided. Our students were able to explore Space without having to leave the Earth's atmosphere :). We were guided through the day and night sky, which fit perfectly with our homework last week. We hope your student enjoyed their adventure and we wanted to share a sneak peek from our day with you :). Check it out!

Sleepover Under the Stars has begun!

Where there are First Graders there will be curiosity and where there is curiosity our learning can reach the stars!

We are reaching to infinity and beyond to grasp the concept of where our star the Sun and many other neighboring planets dwell. Out in the night and day time sky are things that First Grade Scientists wonder about!

In our study of stars, we will be answering our Essential Question, "What do we know about stars?" Thank you to all the families that did their sky viewing homework and turned in their observations and wonderings. We will try to answer our wonderings as we build new schema (our understanding and perceptions) of stars. Try asking your student,"What isthe name of our star?" "How far away is the closet star?" You might be surprised by the answer :D.

As our students learn about stars, we joing our grade-level to learn about our neighboring and not so neighboring planets. We had our first glimpse of these planets at the Planetarium (MOSH). We learned so much on our trip last Thursday, it was a blast! Please check out our next post with pictures from our day at the Planetarium.

In addition to learning about all of our planets, each First Grade Classroom will focus on a particular planet. The Sunshine Band will focus on Saturn, the sixth planet from the Sun. Check out this amazing video to help support our journey as learners to the planet Saturn!

Watch more AOL News videos on AOL Video

Hurray for the New Year! 2010!

Dear Parents and Students,
We hope you enjoyed a wonderful break, filled with time with family and friends. We greatly appreciate everyone who sent us off with love and gifts our last week of school. Thank you!!! As we welcome a new year and start our journey closer to Second Grade, we wanted to save the memories from that last week of 2009 for our class.

What great memories we have of the last three days of school before break! Not only did we have a wonderful luncheon the week prior, but we were able to celebrate the winter season with many fellow students! Our class paired with a 5th grade class for a snow day! Watch how we made "snowballs", felt "blubber", decorated our own snowman, and bowled the morning away! We also joined a Kindergarten class for a Polar Express Adventure! We drank warm chocolate and decorated cookies after singing our seasonal songs for our Kindergarten friends! And last but not least, we visited Auntie Claus( our principal) on that last day for a wonderful literary experience :D. Oh what fun it is to celebrate the season with our friends! Check out our memories...

Happy Holidays!

Here's an interesting little video that the kids will enjoy!