First Grade
First graders just completed a unit of study in STEAM which answered the essential question: "How do animals use their parts and senses?" We read about various animals, took some notes on how they use their parts to aid in their survival, then created some fantastic animals based on how we wanted those parts to be used! For example, you might see a Porcuvampiservalpus come home. What is that? Well, it's a porcupine that uses its quills for protection, a vampire bat that uses its teeth to puncture small holes in its pretty, a serval that uses her ear markings to help her young, and a platypus that uses its feet to swim and also to fight off enemies. Whoa!!!!
Ask your child what he/she learned about how animals use their parts. We also completed an investigation on how animals camouflage themselves, so ask them about how an animal uses camouflage to stay safe.
We are currently investigating sound and light. Here's what we'll do:
First graders just completed a unit of study in STEAM which answered the essential question: "How do animals use their parts and senses?" We read about various animals, took some notes on how they use their parts to aid in their survival, then created some fantastic animals based on how we wanted those parts to be used! For example, you might see a Porcuvampiservalpus come home. What is that? Well, it's a porcupine that uses its quills for protection, a vampire bat that uses its teeth to puncture small holes in its pretty, a serval that uses her ear markings to help her young, and a platypus that uses its feet to swim and also to fight off enemies. Whoa!!!!
Ask your child what he/she learned about how animals use their parts. We also completed an investigation on how animals camouflage themselves, so ask them about how an animal uses camouflage to stay safe.
We are currently investigating sound and light. Here's what we'll do:
- Demonstrate that vibrating materials can make sound and that sound can make materials vibrate.
- Conduct an investigation to determine the effect of placing materials that allow light to pass through them, allow only some light through them, block all the light, or redirect light when put in the path of a beam of light.
- Design and build a device that uses sound to send a signal over a distance.