We’ve spent a bit of time learning about what causes day and night, also about the effect the sun and moon has on the earth. We read the story “Nothing Sticks Like a Shadow” and created rotating earth spinning wheels. On the spinning wheels we marked where we live, and watched how we move from day to night.
This week our focus has been what makes day and what makes night. Students learned about how the earth rotates on it’s axis and this is what causes day and night. We read two stories about day and night (What Makes Day and Night by Franklyn M. Branley and Moongame by Frank Asch).
We then took what we’ve learned so far to make a sequence map illustrating different times of day and night. I got this from April Larremore’s Day and Night Flowmap. We also did a day and night venn diagram were, students compared different things that can be seen in the daytime and nighttime. I got the venn diagram from Class of Kinders TpT’s website.
This past week we started our new unit about the sky and the difference between daytime and nigh time. To begin our new unit we started learning about the sun and the importance the sun plays on our planet. We read a nonfiction book called “The Sun: Our Nearest Star” and watched a presentation on BrainPop. We also created a circle map, made our own illustrations, and wrote sentences. 1st grade worked on their own paper with a topic sentence and two details.
The next day we created our own class sun dial by putting a tall stick in the snow and marking where the shadow of the stick ends at various times throughout the day.
