May Blog 2

First Grade Highlights

June 1,  2018

Dear Amazing Families;

Can you believe we have 4 and a half days left in the school year?  This school year has flown by
and we are already feeling nostalgic, proud, and excited!  This week we learned more about dinosaurs
by watching an episode of Bill Nye the Science Guy and a section of BBC
“Walking with Dinosaurs”.  Additionally, we have been reading fiction as well as nonfiction
books about dinosaurs, paleontology, and their evolution or extinction. So far we have learned
that many dinosaurs have similar characteristics to modern birds like the hen and the ostrich.  
We also learned that paleontologists do not find dinosaur bones but they find fossils of bones.
Did you know a T-Rex tooth was approximately 6 inches long? And an Apatosaurus is the
accurate name for a Brontosaurus?

For those students returning we look forward to seeing how they've grown over the summer when we meet again next Fall. We wish Orli, Oren and Milo all the best at their new schools, and know we carry parts of each one of you in our hearts and next adventures.

We are so thankful to have been able to work with all of your children for this magical year of joyful learning.

Have a great summer!

Love,

Mrs. K and Mr. K

Thursday, June 1st will be our last day with our 4th grade buddies!!!

Science

First Graders enjoyed the month in science. They started out nature journaling in the US Garden, which is undergoing a lot of change. We will revisit the garden periodically throughout the spring to watch the plants change and grow. Students then began an egg drop challenge. We approached the project like engineers but were delayed by rain. We will finish this project in April under sunny skies! We also studied Insects and worked on an insect booklet.

PE

The climbing wall always brings out the best efforts of our kids, this time it brought out the love and support to Mr. K as he took on the climbing wall himself!

Have a great summer!

-Coach Michael & Mr. Ray

Gardening

First graders will wrap up the school year with a final tasting party. The theme is California Grows. Students will learn that California has a thriving agricultural economy, and explore a map that shows major California crops by county, while eating a delicious snack made from those crops: popcorn, lemonade, strawberries and grapes.

Many students were excited to report that they tried the Butter Sage Sauce recipe that I sent home with the sage from the garden. Thanks to those of you who prepared the dish. There will be more gifts from the garden coming home next year.

In addition to eating and working in the Learning Garden, First graders also a took part in a scientific experiment. We planted seeds from a variety of types of pumpkins, and asked the question, “Do small seeds produce small pumpkins, and big seeds produce big pumpkins?” Students made their hypotheses, and we will find out the results next fall.

I hope you all have a wonderful summer, and I look forward to continuing to grow and learn with the BPC students next year as the Lower School Science Specialist and Garden Educator.

May Blog 1!

First Grade Highlights

May 15^th, 2018

Dear First Grade Families;

Can you believe we only have 18 days of school left?  This year has gone by fast because we have been having a blast together.  Your students are already looking older, showing maturity, and are more independent.  It is very exciting to see and be a part of their growth.

During Writer’s Workshop, the students wrote “Mystery Haikus”.  The reader has to guess the title after reading the poems. If you would like to read these amazing pieces of poetry, they are on display outside our classroom.

Our theme for May is Dinosaurs.  We have been watching the documentary series about prehistoric time periods on “Curiosity Stream”.  So far we have learned about various kinds of dinosaurs, dinosaur fossils, paleontologist, and sizes of dinosaurs and their teeth.  

Math activities in May focus on numbers up to 120, with students working with the 120 Number Grid for addition and subtraction.  The students have been practicing solving math problems in both the Calendar Grid and Computational Fluency workouts, and practicing forward and backward counting by 10s off the decade during number line workout.  The Calendar Collector encourages students to extend their concepts about fractions to quarters and dollar by thinking of a quarter as one-fourth of a dollar.  We collect a quarter a day and group the quarters into dollars to see how many dollars we can collect before the end of the school year.  Counting the days in school continues this month with an eye toward 200 and also summer vacation.

Announcements & Reminders:

1.    School will be closed on Memorial Day Monday, May 28^th

2.    The BPC Spring Concert is next Thursday evening at First Congregational Church  (Harrison and 27^th in Oakland) 6:00pm-9:00pm

3.    Minimum Day on Friday May 25^th.  *Please feel free to let your child sleep in on this day due to the performance the previous night.

Enjoy the photos below!

Mr. & Ms.K

Art

For our last project of the year, we are integrating our art focus with their classroom study of dinosaurs. We have made clay dinosaur sculptures, and they are amazing! While we are waiting for them to dry, we enjoyed our last free media choice day of the year. It was really fun to see where each child’s interests took them.

The First Graders are currently preparing for our upcoming Spring Concert on May 24th. Our theme for this year’s concert is Swing Music and we will hope to surprise you with our fun song choice! In preparing for this, I am using a hollow-body jazz guitar and we have been talking about the differences between electric guitars and acoustic guitars.

The Learning Garden had such an abundance of sage that the First Graders were able to bring some home as a gift from Mother Earth. I hope that your family enjoys the Butter Sage Sauce Recipe! Busy First Graders have been sifting, watering, weeding and planting, along with exploring and learning in our outdoor classroom.

Thank you, First Graders!

April Blog 2

First Grade Highlights

April 27^th, 2018

Dear First Grade Families;

The Art Show was an amazing success!  Along with the first grade artwork, the 1^st grade students wrote transportation stories.  Hope you all enjoyed the seeing all of their creativity.

April is National Poetry Month! Therefore for this week’s blog we have decided to send you photos poems written by the first grade class.  We have been studying rhyming poems, acrostic poems, Haikus, and sandwich poems.  Last Friday, Marc Bamuthi Joseph (Ms. Kanoe’s husband), lead a poetry workshop with the first and third graders.  Marc Bamuthi Joseph is a spoken-word poet, dancer, and playwright who co-founded Youth Speaks, and is a National Poetry Slam winner. He is currently the Chief of Program and Pedagogy at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.

They learned about metaphors and similes.  Mr. Joseph, aka Mr. B., taught them 3 components of writing poetry are…

1. Poetry must come from the soul

2. They must have flavor

3. And poems must reach the impossible

Announcements & Reminders:

·      The Mercado is next Thursday, May 5^th. Students may bring $5 donations to buy food.  All proceeds will be donated to UCSF Cancer research.

·      BPC Walkathon is Friday, May 11^th from 12-2:30 at James Kennedy Ball Field

Sincerely,

Kris and Kanoelani

P.E.

Recently, the 1st grade has been working on frisbee throwing, in partner games and aiming at targets like bowling pins and hula-hoops!

Recently, the 1st grade has been working on frisbee throwing, in partner games and aiming at targets like bowling pins and hula-hoops!

Gardening

This week the 1st graders had a tasting party. We enjoyed a healthy snack that represented the 6 parts of plants: roots, stems, leaves, flowers, fruits and seeds. The kids also learned a fun song and dance about the 6 plant parts.

BPC students love their veggies!