Welcome back from Spring Break! I hope all of you had a wonderful and relaxing break. I know this is the first post in a few weeks, and I apologize for not updating in a while.
This week we came back from Spring Break ready to learn and grow. On Monday during math, students stretched their math minds by exploring elapsed time! That's right! After discussing the features of a clock (minute hand, hour hand, how to count minutes on a clock, the placement of the hour hand as the minute hand moves around the clock, etc) we practiced setting our clocks and telling time to the nearest hour, half hour, quarter hour, and minute! Next, we practiced working with elapsed time where you are given a start time, the time that elapsed and have to determine the end time. Students were given real life examples to solve:
Mrs. Owen sat down to grade papers at 6 PM. If she graded papers for 1 hour and 20 minutes, what time was finished grading?
Following this, students were challenged with finding how much time elapsed when given a start time and an ending time:
Margo had soccer practice on Saturday from 9:30 AM to 11:15 AM. How long did Margo practice soccer?
For a final challenge, students had to work backwards with elapsed time, trying to determine a start time when given an end time and a duration:
If Mr. Camden arrived at his sister's at 7 PM and it took him 3 hours 30 minutes to get there, what time did he leave his house?
The students did a good job! Next week, they will take their understanding of elapsed time and use it to complete two fun activities - a Versatiles Challenge and a QR Code Hidden Message Activity!
This week we came back from Spring Break ready to learn and grow. On Monday during math, students stretched their math minds by exploring elapsed time! That's right! After discussing the features of a clock (minute hand, hour hand, how to count minutes on a clock, the placement of the hour hand as the minute hand moves around the clock, etc) we practiced setting our clocks and telling time to the nearest hour, half hour, quarter hour, and minute! Next, we practiced working with elapsed time where you are given a start time, the time that elapsed and have to determine the end time. Students were given real life examples to solve:
Mrs. Owen sat down to grade papers at 6 PM. If she graded papers for 1 hour and 20 minutes, what time was finished grading?
Following this, students were challenged with finding how much time elapsed when given a start time and an ending time:
Margo had soccer practice on Saturday from 9:30 AM to 11:15 AM. How long did Margo practice soccer?
For a final challenge, students had to work backwards with elapsed time, trying to determine a start time when given an end time and a duration:
If Mr. Camden arrived at his sister's at 7 PM and it took him 3 hours 30 minutes to get there, what time did he leave his house?
The students did a good job! Next week, they will take their understanding of elapsed time and use it to complete two fun activities - a Versatiles Challenge and a QR Code Hidden Message Activity!
Coding with Bee Bots
This week first grade was able to experience coding with fun little bee robots - Bee Bots! Students learned the concept of coding by working collaboratively to write the code and program their own Bee Bot to get from one location to another on a specially designed grid! There are no words to adequately describe their excitement as they programmed their Bee Bot and watched as they successfully moved from point A to point B! They worked hard and had to really flex their critical thinking and visual spatial reasoning skills in order to accomplish this task. What made it especially challenging were the objects that stood in the Bee Bots path as well as the direction the Bee Bot started his journey facing. Students had to work with these constraints and program their Bee Bots accordingly.