For the past two weeks, students in the first grade have been learning about Peru. Last week, we began to take a look at the geography of Peru, explore some handicrafts such as textiles, puppets and clay instruments and shared a story about a boy’s daily life. Today, students viewed a short travel “show” about Peru that featured Peruvian food, alpacas, historical facts and many beautiful photos of the landscapes and people.
Today in the library, First Grade explored a giant map of the United States. We located our states of New York and Massachusetts, and noticed how big and colorful the map was, and that some sides were bordered by water. Then, we played several rounds of Geography Bingo where students put their emerging language arts skills to practice by decoding tiles and matching pictures of the products that each state exports. We concluded with book browsing and checkout! Happy Reading!
This week, First Grade took a trip to Thailand! We were excited to host BCD friend, Sasha Sicurella, Director of the I AM Foundation, who recently returned from a trip to Thailand. The I AM Foundation encourages works of self-expression for children of all ages, using a variety of media, including painting, drawing, photography and collage. Sasha generously shared pictures of her work with children in Bankok, as well as souvenirs from her trip. We explored beautiful carved, wooden masks, Thai bhots (the currency), newspapers, artwork and toys. We also watched a slide show of Sasha’s work with the children.
First Grade enjoyed two books in honor of Halloween this week. First, we began by sharing Haunted House, Haunted Mouse, a humorous story about a clever mouse who stows away in a child’s candy bag on Halloween night. With references to the classic story of Hansel and Gretel, this book has lovely illustrations by Jeffrey Ebbeler. Next, we practiced our rhyming and counting by reading One Witch by Laura Leuck. Students then went on a haunted hunt around the library searching for bats, pumpkins and critters hidden among the stacks and shelves. Lastly, we sorted, counted and compared group of objects, then browsed for books. Happy Reading!