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Yesterday we learnt about sounding boards. Without a sounding board, there is little or no sound. We also learnt how to make a funny chicken sound using just a plastic cup, string and a bit of wet paper towel.   Later Lucy took action by creating her own chicken sounds at home.
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The grade 1 classes had a great time this morning during their field trip to Tekka Market. Many of us experienced some sights, smells and sounds for the first time. As soon as we got on the bus, we smelt something unfamiliar. Pieter: I smell something, but I don't know what it is. Adam: It smells like smoke. Shotaro: It smells a bit like smoke.   Walking to Tekka Market, we passed by a small stall. Siena: I hear music. Shotaro: The music is from India, I think. Because I don't understand the words and we are in Little India. Aubrey: I see a pigeon. Pieter: I can see a bird flying. Aubrey: Smoke came out of that man's mouth.  We went to the fish section first. Emma: There's a nice fish smell. I like fish. Adam: Oh, fish. Is here sushi? Aubrey: I smell poop. Pieter: it smells like lobster to me.   We are risk takers! Here we are taking turns holding a prawn. Frankie: It feels smooth. Griff: Smooth and cold. And a crab!   Teddy: The crab was heavier than I expected. Griff: Ew, is it alive? It's alive! Aubrey and Pieter afterwards: My hands smell fishy! Pieter: Crab feels hard! Griff: I see a swordfish with its mouth open.  Then we got to touch a shark! Aubrey and Pieter: The shark feels squishy. Arwyn: I don't want to touch it! Emanie: It's smooth. Adam: The shark feels like rubber. Nora: I'm not touching that! (But later she did). Shotaro: My heart is pounding! Johnny: The shark feels soft. Emma: I heard a loud scream when the shark came out!    Arywn noticed a plastic bag was moving and wondered what might be inside.  Lucy: I see squids. Emma: I see a chicken in a box. Is it going to come out?   We also felt some mussels. Siena: It feels rocky. Shotaro: Like plastic. It's bumpy. After the fish section, we went to the flower section, but only one flower stall was open. Siena: I smell flowers. Emanie: I hear people talking. Then we went through the vegetable area.  Teddy: Look at that enormous cucumber! Frankie: I see green ladyfingers. They're spicy. Arwyn: The ladyfingers are soft. Shotaro: There are many colors. Teddy: I just saw a cockroach. It was crawling on the normal cucumbers. Johnny: The eggplant smells good. Arwyn: The peppers are so light. Johnny: The eggplant feels squishy. We passed by the spice area. Teddy: I smell coriander. It smells strongly. And onto the fruit section. Pieter: The fruit feels soft and hairy. Griff: It's smooth. Frankie: And a little hairy. Johnny: The tomato smells like an apple.    Each group brought some interesting fruit to bring back and share with the class.  We are looking forward to enjoying some fruit salad this afternoon!
This afternoon instead of an assembly the elementary school had a Fun Run. We had to see how many times we could run or walk around the field in 30 minutes.
Afterwards we came back to class and used our addition skills to tally up each team's score. For our class, Orchard was the winner as they had the most points! When we thought about it some more, though, we realized that Orchard and Newton had more people in our class than Somerset and Raffles. If Somerset or Raffles had had five people instead of three, they might have had the most points. So we took the total and Ms Leah helped us to divide the total by the number of people in each group to get an average. Our results were: 4th Place Newton An average of 5.5 times around the field 3rd Place Raffles An average of about 9 times around the field 2nd Place Orchard An average of about 12 times around the field 1st Place Somerset An average of about 13 times around the field Well done everyone for showing you are balanced and risk takers! Today we did some sound experiments with a balloon. Our question was whether a balloon would make sounds louder or softer. We wrote our predictions on a whiteboard, and then discussed them with a partner. Some of us thought the sound would be softer, and others of us thought it would be louder. We shared some of our reasons. Adam: It would be softer, because the balloon is softer. Emma: It would be so loud, because the balloon would break. Pieter: It would be louder, because tapping on the balloon would pop it and it would make a very loud boom. Ms Leah: What if Teddy promises to tap really, really lightly. Would the balloon still pop? Nora: Not if he was really careful it wouldn't. Ms Leah: Does that change your theory then? Emanie: No, it would still be louder. Johnny: Yes, it would be louder. Pieter: Not if it didn't pop. There were many different theories. We decided to test them. Teddy first tapped the ground. We couldn't hear it. Then he tapped the balloon and we heard a sound! Adam: It's because the balloon is a different material. Claire: The balloon is made of rubber. Emma: The balloon is very soft, but the ground is so hard. Everyone agreed. Ms Leah: Okay, lets see if we can find something else soft to test. Siena: I know, tissue. Tissue is very soft. You can test the tissue. Frankie tapped the ground. We couldn't hear it. He tapped the tissue. Most of us couldn't hear anything. He then tapped the balloon. All of us heard the sound! Griff: It's not the material. It's the air. The air inside it. Ms Leah's breath. It makes the sound travel more. We decided to test out this theory further by playing the telephone game. The first time just whispering quietly, many people had a difficult time hearing. We only made it a bit around the circle and already it was tough and the word had changed.  Then we tried playing the telephone game through a balloon. It was so much easier to hear!   Have you tried out Mathletics yet? There are lots of great activities on it to further develop math skills. You can even play math games and compete against other students in Singapore and around the world. Today we went to the computer lab and Mr Gallagher showed us some of the fun things on Mathletics we can do.    Want to check it out? User names and passwords can be found at the front of the communication book.
For the past two days, we have been working on building our stamina when reading to ourselves. By making sure we chose books which are a good fit for us and choosing the right place to sit where we'll be comfortable and focused, we were able to increase our stamina from 23 seconds to three and a half minutes today! We are almost half way to our goal.  This week we've been inquiring into hearing. We discovered this week that when we cannot see, our sense of hearing is actually heightened.  Even with a blindfold on, we could tell which direction a sound was coming from.
Then we tried putting cotton balls in one ear. Even with one ear plugged and blindfolded we could tell where the sound was coming from. After that, Arwyn suggested we put cotton balls in BOTH of our ears. That was a little harder!  On a beautiful sunny day, what better way to develop our counting, addition and subtraction skills than use natural materials.      Ms Kate came in today and talked to us about the three ways of reading: Read the pictures Read the words Retell the story  First we read the pictures in the story. Then we read the words. By looking very closely at the pictures, our stories were pretty similar!  Here we are using 'Turn and Talk' to discuss the story afterwards.
After reading "The Listening Walk" by Paul Showers, illustrated by Aliki, we went on our own listening walk today. We discovered by walking very quietly in the halls we could pick up lots of different sounds! Adam: I heard the air conditioner. Emma: Rain. First there was a little rain. Then there was a lot of rain. Shotaro: People talking. Griff: I heard the canteen worker call out, "Bye children!" Shotaro: She's my friend. Griff: Cars, trucks, motorcycles. Emma: Traffic. Shotaro: And a bus. And a taxi. Arwyn: Birds tweeting. Siena: The bell. Griff: But why was the bell ringing if it wasn't play time? Aubrey: I heard the fence. I mean, the gate, opening and closing. Emma: A work site. Teddy: Drilling. Griff: And banging. Like something was breaking. Arwyn: A destruction site, or construction site. Pieter: I heard shoes. Sneakers. And other shoes. High heel shoes. Arwyn: One of my shoelaces was untied so I heard my laces snapping against the ground. Adam: I heard people working in the canteen. Dishes clanging. Siena: I heard the seat on the back of the motorcycle bang shut. Adam: I heard a clock. Griff: I heard lots of 'shusshing'. By classmates and teachers. Pieter: Stomping. I heard lots of stomping. Claire: Cracking, but I don't know what it was from. Frankie: I heard the water in the fish tank. Adam: Bubbles in the fish tank. Teddy: I could hear fans. Arwyn: There were lots of children and teachers talking. Adam: I heard myself breathing. Aubrey: There were some workers raking up leaves.     Using 'Turn and Talk' afterwards to reflect on what we had heard before sharing with the class.    |
G1.3We are a Grade 1 class at an international school in Singapore. Our teachers are Ms Leah and Ms Florence. Archives
June 2016
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