April 4th 

We used Power Kids on the Lib Guide to answer some of our Inquiry Questions. Mrs. Clark took notes and then put the notes on cardstock. We sorted them and created paragraphs. We are in the process of creating illustrations for our paragraphs. We noticed that we are using more text features after learning about them when we created our posters. 

We didn't like the title on this paragraph so we changed it to fit with the content. 

             How Did I Do As A Learner?

We learned about our eyes.

We know about the 3 parts of our eyes.

We watched and tried to read along.

We were good listeners.

We could raise our hands and take turns to talk better.

We followed instructions to do an experiment.

We did lots of thinking.

What Part of the Inquiry Process Did We Do?

We wondered how we see.

We went on PowerKids. 

We investigated by watching and listening.

We created ideas to write down.

We shared our ideas.

We connected our ideas. We reflected on our learning.

We did all of the parts of the Inquiry Process. 

What do you think about our learning and reflecting?

Searching for Animal Senses

The grade one class has been involved with inquiry learning about their 5 senses.  Here is a summary using  their ideas and words of the work we did today.

We have made questions we want to answer.  Today we chose one question to answer  - Mrs. Hnatiuk's question. Her question was "What senses do animals use?"  We wrote the question where the ? mark was on our poster.

After writing the question, we talked about how we use A.B.C.O.U.T. when we take jot notes.  If you don't know what A.B.C.O.U.T. means - each letter stands for something about taking jot notes.

A is for abbreviations - use Dr. instead of Doctor
B - bullets to begin a new idea
C- Caveman talk - we just write the words important words NOT the whole sentence
O - one idea on one line
U -  use your own words
T - thank where you get the information

We wanted to practice using A.B.C.O.U.T. to take our  jot notes today.  Instead of using a book, we went on the computer to find out the answer to Mrs. Hnatiuk's question .  We went to Mrs. Clark's page and found the Power Kids Life Science database.  We did not write the question down to search, instead we wrote the important words from Mrs Hnatiuk's question.  You can see our words below.

The computer was not working to read for us, so we read the words on our own.  Once we read a sentence if it had something to do with our animal senses' question we decided what caveman talk we would write on our poster.
Here is the picture of the jot notes we took.  Caroline took the picture for us today.

   After we were finished we said thank you to Power Kids Life Science because they helped us learn about animal senses.  What do you think about our learning?

Five Senses Posters

Students decided that creating a poster would be a great way to share some of the knowledge we have gained about the five senses. Mrs. Hnatiuk shared a lesson on "text features" with students to get them started on the right track. After completing the posters each group presented their poster to the class. As viewers and listeners our job was to consider 2 things the group did well and 1 wish for improvement (2 stars and a wish) focusing on the text features that we had looked at. We recorded these stars and wishes along with all of the wonderful vocabulary students used as they discussed their posters. We used the stars, wishes and vocabulary to go back and improve our posters.

The most important part of the Inquiry Process is reflecting on our learning. The following comments were made by students after completing this activity. 

Reflecting

We shared our posters and what was good about them. Grace

I was thinking my group could add more pictures and details. Details make our poster better. Jack 

We shared our thinking. Leah

We need to add more text features.  Caroline

By making a wish we're helping the groups to have more ideas to make the posters better.  Amani

I listened carefully and I learned more about the five senses.  Jerzee

When I was talking my class listened to me and so I listened to my friends when it was their turn.  Jon

Our brains had a workout listening to all the good ideas (just like we learned in health)! Leah 

We make the wishes to help people.  Jayden

We learned we need to add more writing to make your poster more detailed. Jack

We could put all those words on our poster. Caroline

Good thinking and reflecting Grade 1 !!!  Mrs. Clark 

Student Reflections On Text Features

A text features helps us understanding what we are reading.  We can learn more about the book when we use text features.  There are many kinds of  text features.  Here are some of the text features we talked about in class.
We use our bold print for some of the words because they are important.  Bold print means the words are darker and sometimes they are bigger. Photographs are a text feature and if you don't know the words you can use the photo or picture clues. You might find labels on pictures or photographs to help you learn new words.  A Table of Contents helps us look for ideas at the front of the book.  It tells us which page to look on.  A Glossary helps you find out the meaning of a word. 
We wanted to learn about text features because we wanted to make our posters on the five senses better.
Mrs. Clark's Grade 1 Class

Monday, February 24th 

Survey Says 

We completed the following survey: "Which of the five senses do you use most often to learn?"

Here are the results:

7 students recorded that they used their sense of sight most often to learn.

8 students recorded that they used their sense of hearing most often to learn.

2 students recorded that they used their sense of touch most often to learn. 

We shall see if these results change after we have completed our Inquiry into the Five Senses. 

What happens when one of your senses is impaired/How does it affect your learning??

Today we explored what it would be like to be blind! First we listened to a story while wearing blindfolds. 

After the story students made the following comments:

Jerzee - "I had to use my imagination." (to understand the story)

Laura - "I made pictures in my head to see the story."

Jack - "I listened very carefully to the words."

We partnered students and took a "trust" walk. One student was blindfolded, the other student had to lead. We took turns. 

What we discovered:

We use our sense of touch much more when we cannot see. We touch everything to find out what it is.

We need to use our touch and hearing for safety when we cannot see.

When you are blind you need to trust others to help you.

Students also discovered that they had difficulty keeping their sense of direction to know where they are going.

Five Senses Inquiry

We our "delving deep" into our Inquiry question, "How do our senses help us learn?" The first part of our journey requires "frontloading"; accessing prior knowledge and developing new understandings about our five senses.  We began with an exploration activity. I gave students a set of objects to explore and find connections. We came to the conclusion that the objects could be categorized by their connection to the five senses. During our discussion students made many interesting observations, posed questions and made comments on their own learning:

Leah - "We looked at that stuff to figure out what we would be learning about".
Laura - "The senses are all connected to our brain".
Jack - "When me and Max were working together to find five senses we were talking, working hard and staying on task".
"We have learned what sense goes with what body part". 
Austin "When you were a baby and you tasted something you remember not to eat it". 
Caroline "Now I know not to eat playdough because when I was a baby I tasted it and it was yucky and now my brain tells me it tastes bad".
Amani - "When you taste something it goes to your brain". 
Leah - "Everything you do with your five senses goes to your brain and you remember". 
Ben - "For safety" (Why do we have five senses?)

After completing the exploration activity we used "Five Senses" books to create a list of vocabulary. We sorted the words into categories and will be making a "dictionary" of senses words. Mrs. Hnatiuk will be in to discuss poster criteria and we will create a poster in small groups for each of the senses. 
Our next step is to continue generating questions for students to explore. Students will also discuss and decide which sense they use most when they are learning by completing a survey. This should be a very interesting discussion. I know students will discover much about themselves!