A Brand New Sleepover

Each year our First Graders participate in Sleepover in January. In previous years, this special day has been centered around great narrative stories about sleepovers, narrative writing, teddy bears, and friends. We read many books and wrote great stories about sleepovers. The study came to and end on the actual Sleepover Day where students came dressed in their pj's, brought their homemade teddy bears, had a pancake breakfast, and partipated in fun activities all day that were related to sleepovers.

This year the first grade teachers decided they wanted to change the annual event and spice it up with a little bit of science - ok, a lot of science. The theme just didn't focus around sleepovers but the night sky! Students learned about stars and planets. Over the course of a couple weeks, they incorporated science standards into their reading and writing as well. They had a family night where they had guest astronomers come with telescopes and families were invited to watch a movies outside under the stars. On Friday, they had their big day. They started out with a parade as usual but instead of homemade teddy bears, each child had made a pillow into a star or planet (they were really cool). They still had breakfast but with donuts and juice. Then it was off to their stations. They had a music where they sang "out of this world" songs, art where they made cool pictures frames, a galatic experience inside a big bag where they could watch the earth and moon move, and played space games on the smartboards. At the end of the day they went to the media center and watched a great shadow story on the ceiling, watched a movie, and danced. The kids had a BLAST!

Since many of our teachers loop back and forth between K and 1, I spend the day documenting the events so that we can use it for planning next year. Here are some highlights from their day.

Solar System

Space Worms