Weekly Wrap Up # 3

This week in first grade...

In Poetry..
Our poem of the week, The Wise Cow Enjoys a Cloud, by Nancy Willard.  I've always liked this poem, and found it soothing.  My children thought it was incredibly silly.  Our Poem of the month wrapped up this week.  We celebrated by drawing pictures of a house in a summer storm.

Our 'Silly Poem' was Stop That Noise, by Carolyn Graham.  We decided to come up with the noisiest places we've ever been.  Ava chose Sea World,

and Cyrus chose a baseball game.

In Social Studies....
 This week Dinosaurs ruled.  We read Ask A Dinosaur, a great book of questions by DK.

 Drawing variations of common dinosaurs turned quickly into making up our own dinosaurs.  I present to you, Fairy Dinosaur...

In the Kitchen..
Popsicle redo.  Everyone loved last weeks popsicle, everyone except for Ava who claimed that they were much too banana-ey.  No problem.

 Peachy Popsicles

~1 cup honey Greek yogurt

~1 Cup orange juice

~ A few chopped up peaches

~Honey to taste

Blend until smooth, and freeze

Delicious.

In Music...
This week I taught my children Me and My Dinosaur, a song I learned in summer camp ages and ages ago.  Good silly fun.

In Art..
We made volcanoes! 
Cyrus made a desert volcano, notice all the spiny cacti?

Ava made a purple mountain majesty, because purple mountains are her favorite.

I made a party mountain, because I felt like it.

I was out of red food coloring, which was unfortunate.  My children LOVED this, and did not in anyway seem to have a problem with their volcanoes erupting with yellow foam.  (I can hardly stand to look at the photos with out thinking of... well, honestly if you haven't gone there, I'm not going to mention it.)

In Art Study..  

We explored The Lackawanna Valley, by George Inness.  Ava said "I like it.  I like the view.  This whole painting is a nice view.  I think I'd really like the view from the top of the mountain.  I looks so pretty there."  I thought it was interesting that this painting was commissioned as an advertisement for the railroad.  I think  I'd like to see advertisement become something beautiful again.

In Science We..
Talked about Life Cycles, and started the life long process of Identifying Living Things.  We worked with the understanding that the life cycle of living things is the basis of most larger studies.  We reviewed (because they already knew these words) Generations, Male, Female, Fertilization, Reproduction, Larva, Pupa, Pupae, Metamorphosis, and Dormant.

In Math We...  
Finished Level A!
~Learn the names of unit fractions
~Compare unit fractions
~Solved a variety of different word problems
~Introduced geometric solids
~started a review to prep for Level B

Another fun and successful week.  We were able to have fun, and get a lot of work done.  We skipped out on park day this week, instead we had a playdate with some friends.  I'm looking forward to next week!