Celebrating Our Learning

"Celebrations of learning are more than a display of student work and more than a party at the end of the year. The events compel students to reflect on and articulate what they have learned, how they learned, questions they answered, research they conducted, and areas of strength and struggles. They are powerful opportunities to make learning public." ~EL Education

What a wonderful experience to see first graders share their learning.  Students were so excited to share all they had learned through our learning expedition, "The World is our Garden".

Thank you to all the families who came to learn all about our garden and the organisms that help them thrive.

Thank you for a great year of learning, growing and celebrating.


I can share my learning with eye contact and a level 4 voice.
I can teach my community actions to save the bees.

Fox Trot

Students ran hard and fast for our annual fun run, Fox Trot. This year we are raising money for our amazing learning expeditions.

Learning expeditions are a fantastic way that we integrate science, social studies and ELA (English Language Arts) into engaging units. Students are involved in field work where they go out into the community to learn.  Students have opportunities to do hands on work and learn in the field.  In addition, experts come to talk about their daily work, answer questions and give feedback.

This past fall in first grade, we had the opportunity to have an expert oral story teller teach all about the job of story telling, the parts of a story and how to make stories engaging.  From there, first graders traveled to a local retirement home to tell a "grand friend's" story after interviewing and revising a story of a personal from an older generation.

Currently, we are involved in our 2nd learning expedition, where we have had the opportunity to learn from a local native bee expert from The Bee's Waggle.  In addition, we are traveling to Hudson Gardens to do field work.  Students researched and learned all about soil and earthworms.  From there, students learned all about plants.  From there, students collaborated to become garden organism experts.  We will be wrapping up with a celebration of learning all about how to save our most efficient pollinator....the native bee!

Students were challenged to help raise $100 per crew member to help with our $50,000 all school goal.  After all of our hard work collecting pledges and running, we enjoyed a yummy popsicle thanks to our friends and sponsor at Manic Training.

We ended our healthy time, we the annual "signing of the shirts".  This was a time when students gave shout outs on lap completion, perseverance and autographed shirts to remember our healthy day.

Sharing Our Learning

We are in our 3rd Case Study, Garden Organisms.  Students are researching ladybugs, bees and butterflies.  Students have been collaborating in small groups to learn about the physical features and the life cycle of each of these garden organisms.   Students have been reflecting on how these garden organisms help our garden thrive.  

This week, I gave each student the charge of creating something to share their learning.  

Students collaborated to make a bee hive to teach others the importance of the pollen, nectar, queen bee and drone bees.

Students could work alone, in partnerships or in small groups.  Students were in charge of the creation process.

 Some students collaborated to create a garden with plants (to include petals, leaves and roots) plus important garden organisms.

This student worked alone to show the importance of the ladybug to eat harmful aphids (the dots on the green dominoes).

I was amazed at the creativity and important facts each group shared.  Our entire crew learned so much about these garden organism through these creations.

Learning Targets

I can identify the body parts of my garden organism.

I can explain the life cycle of my garden organism.

I can zoom in one one body part and explain how it helps a garden organism thrive.

I can reflect on how this garden organism helps our garden thrive.

I can create something to share my learning about my garden organism.

Case Study #2 - Plants

In our first case study, we learned all about soil, compost and earthworms.  We have now moved into the plants found in a garden.

Students have been researching what plants need to thrive and how the Colorado climate affects garden planting.  We learned all about the parts of a plant and how these parts help a plant thrive.

Students wrote persuasive sentences to explain what and why they wanted to plant certain fruits and vegetables in our school garden.

Students were excited to head out to our outdoor classroom to plant our cool weather crops.  Students collaborated to mix the soil, add healthy compost and plant the seeds of kale, spinach and lettuce.

After all of our collaboration and hard work, it is always fun to have some time to build with our logs and enjoy some play!

Learning Targets:

I can identify the parts of a plant.  

I can explain how the parts of a plant help the plant thrive.

I can identify what plants need to thrive.

I can identify the seasons.

I can infer the best season to plant in Colorado.

I can identify cool and warm weather crops.

I can persuade others what we should plant in our garden.

I can collaborate to plant a cool weather crop.

Mindfulness

This year, I am asking my students to BE instead of DO.   In our first grade classroom, we are practicing mindfulness by settling ourselves and paying attention to what is around us.  We began this journey in the fall, as we sat outside to reflect and listen closely.  We began our gratitude journals. 

As the year has gone on, we continue to incorporate mindfulness throughout our day.  One simple routine we have is a tone bar.

I ask students to concentrate on something as the tone bar is rung until it is silent.  We also enjoy most of our day with out lights off and use the natural light that comes in through our beautiful, big window.  For quiet teaching time, I use classical music as students work independently.

After a busy lunch and recess, students listen to one of these favorite activities in the afternoon.

This helps our crew to unwind after a fun filled recess and get ready to focus for our afternoon of writer's workshop and expedition workshop.  

As our lives get more busy, I love to incorporate time to just be.  Mindfulness has been a great addition to my passion of nutrition (eating green light foods and drinking lots of water) and movement (brain breaks, exercise and plenty of recess to include outdoor play).

As a mom, I am working to incorporate more mindfulness at home.  I highly recommend this book

Here's to more quiet, slow and present living in the classroom and at home!

Get Outside

This spring weather is calling our crew to head outside.  We are hanging out more and more in the outdoor classroom for field work to learn all about the garden and what helps our garden thrive.  Students are grabbing their science journals and looking closely at all there is to see in the outdoor classroom.

With the time changing, evenings will be lighter and I encourage you and your family to get outside.  There are such great parks and paths for our first grade crew to get outside and explore.  Kids are eager to climb, watch and observe plus play!  

Thank you for helping your first grader to head outside!

The World is our Garden

We kicked off our next learning expedition, The World is Our Garden.

  Students will be learning all of the first grade English Language Arts (reading and writing) non-fiction standards.  In addition, we will be hitting all of our first grade science standards. 

Students traveled between 4 different stations to predict what we would be learning about in our next learning expedition.  We loved observing in our outdoor classroom in the garden beds and in the compost bin.

Students wondered and noticed about different plants and plant parts with other first graders using magnifying glasses.

Students traveled to Ms. Jamie's room to observe sand, rocks and pebbles.

There was a lot of excitement as students tried to discover what they would be learning about!

Students returned to their classrooms to discuss what they wondered and noticed about our kickoff. We created a sign with the title of our expedition and discussed our guiding question:

"What helps a garden thrive?"
Our long term learning targets are:

I can use a variety of resources to locate information and answer questions.
I can identify what plants and organisms need to thrive.
I can explain how plants and organisms work together to help our garden thrive.
I can teach my community specific actions that will help our garden thrive.