Persuasive Posters on Which Season Is Most Important

Which Season Is the Most Important?
While we learned that all seasons are important, the students of Room 111 took their writing to another level and chose one season to write about.  Their goal: to persuade their readers that their chosen season was the most important.

Step One: Learning about all of the seasons:
First we watched educational videos and read books on each individual season:

We recorded all of our facts about each individual season into our Seasons Notebooks:

Step 2: We learned about the Features of a Great Persuasive Writing Text:

Step 3:  We each chose a season to write about and began to outline our writing in our "planning sheet":

Step 4: We chose the most important facts and reasons from our research notebook and our list poem to use in our persuasive piece. Then we began writing our rough draft:

Step 5: We created a beginning to draw in our readers and placed it in the middle part of our poster.  We then supported our topic sentence with reasons, facts and pictures.  Some pictures were drawn and others were photos which went with our words.  Here are the final Persuasive Posters!  Enjoy:

Step 6: Self-Assessment:  We used the following kid-friendly rubric to self-assess our writing.

Chicks In The Classroom

The Chick Hatching Experience In Room 111:

The chicks arrived last Monday and were placed into the classroom incubator:

When we arrived at our classroom on Tuesday morning, all of the chicks had hatched!

The students began recording what they observed 

in their paper Chick Notebook:

They also took pictures of the live chicks and their own writing and recorded in their 

iPad Science Notebook:

Twenty-four hours after birth, the chicks were moved to the classroom Brooder Box:

We continued to record our observations of how the chicks developed over the next few days:

We also had plenty of time to hold the chicks and observe their changes up close:

It was a great experience!  Thanks to the Science Center for providing the incubators, brooder box, eggs and eventually ... the chicks!

The Chicks Are Coming!

We are Getting Incubators in Our Classroom!
What is more fascinating then watching life hatch right before your eyes?  Well first graders throughout the Burlington district are getting this chance as incubators come into their classrooms on January 25th.

Eggs were put into the master incubator at the Burlington Science Center about 18 days ago.  They begin their journey there to insure that they will make it throughout the incubation period.  About 3 days prior to hatching, the eggs are transported to the classroom incubators so that children can witness firsthand a baby chick pecking it's way into the world.

Videos: These videos were made by Wendy and Sean at the Science Center. They progress students through the first two weeks of incubation starting with an introduction to the incubator and then “check-ins” on Day 7 and Day 14. We watched these videos in our class to keep up-to-date on what was happening with the chicks inside of our eggs:

“Science Center Incubator Overview” (youtube)

“Egg Candling - Day 7” (youtube)

“Egg Candling - Day 14” (youtube)

Chick Development Video-animation video of the development of chick

Once the incubators come to school, the children will become scientists once again, observing the changes in the eggs. Once the chicks hatch, they will be moved into a "Brooder Box" in the classroom where children will be able to observe the development of chicks over the first few days of their lives. Observations will be recorded in their Science Journals. So stay tuned for an upcoming blog with photos documenting this exciting event!

The Chick Show

On Friday, Ms. Pavlicek came to our school and put on a "Chick Show" for the children. It was a fun interactive production to explain all about the development of the chick inside the egg. We even got to meet a real live rooster and hen! Here are some photos of the show:

Erin and Michael try unsuccessfully to break the shell of the egg -- demonstrating the
actual strength of the egg's protective shell.

Matthew and others stand in line holding models of eggs to demonstrate the various sizes of eggs from different birds, including: the hummingbird, the chicken, the goose, the ostrich and the extinct elephant bird.

Vera demonstrates how a momma hen incubates her eggs by sitting on them for 21 days.

Ms. Pavlicek introduces the incubator and describes how it functions.

Rules for when the chicks hatch.

Ms. Pavlicek introduces the momma hen...

...and the papa rooster.