Australia’s Great Natural Wonder

As part of our school-wide-leading-up-to Earth Day environmental initiative, on Thursday morning, First Graders educated the Cooper School community about the Great Barrier Reef marine ecosystem and coral bleaching. Did you know that you the Great Barrier Reef is the largest living thing on Earth and you can see it from space? The reef is home to fish, sharks, dolphins, turtles, eels, sting rays, octopi, and mollusks, as well as 600 types of colorful coral. Corals look like plants, but they are actually animals that provide a habitat for many marine animals. Due to mainly to the actions of humans, the Great Barrier Reef is being destroyed! First Graders brainstormed things we can do as concerned citizens to counteract these negative effects, such as shutting off the lights when we leave a room to conserve energy, not littering and making sure we place trash in the appropriate bins (regular trash, recycling, compost). They drew pictures and made signs and even created a fun song!

Inspired by Nature

On Wednesday, we took our poetry writing outside! In Reading Workshop, we have been reading and discuss poetry with nature imagery. Students were inspired by the changing foliage and wrote poems about trees, the sun, birds and , lizards and insects, and as well as all of  the things they love to do on our playground. Students used the sights, sounds, smells, and textures of the things they encountered outdoors to create poetry.

The Action of Addition and Subtraction!

Learning basic facts is an important goal in our Everyday Mathematics curriculum. We reinforce that every day through our Math Message, which is a regular part of our morning routine, and by using ten frame cards to practice subitizing and understand how the number ten is composed. This week, we started subtraction using doubles. Doubles are two of the same number and doubles can help us add and subtract numbers that are almost doubles. We began by asking children to name and record doubles facts and then moved onto using near doubles facts to solve number stories.

Important Dates:

Monday, March 25^th-Friday, March 29^th-TCS Closed for Spring Break

Saturday, April 6^th-Spring Planting Party (postponed from 3/16)