Red Air Quality Alert

This morning on the school-wide morning announcements the principal announced that today was a red air quality day outside and so we would be having inside recess.

On our way to lunch we walk through a hallway that is part glass, ceiling to floor. Today as we walked down that hall Brenda looked outside and then turned to me and said, "The air doesn't look red to me. Does that mean we can go outside now?"



I guess I need to explain what red air quality means.

Syllables

A few months ago we were learning about syllables and clapping out various words to see how many syllables were in each word. First we did all of our names - most kids had two syllables, some had one and a few a three. Then I asked them to think of words and we would clap them to count the syllables. Most words came from items around the classroom: chair, table, desk, pencil, book, etc. Sometime during the lesson we had this conversation:

Nate: It seems like most words have one, two or three syllables in them.

Me: I think all of the words we have done so far haven't had any more than three syllable, have they?

Katie: What about the word 'hypoallergenic' though? It has more.



True. That one does. I guess I wouldn't have thought of that word for a first grade lesson.

Santa

Before our winter break I read the book, How Santa Got His Job, to my class. It's a cute story about the various jobs Santa had that led him to his current job delivering presents on Christmas Eve. My kids got quite into the story, making connections as to how the different jobs helped him learn something that he does in his job now. After the story, Chase raised his hand (which doesn't happen too often - usually he just shouts out his thoughts) and said, "I know, so this book is a non-fiction book!"

I guess I'll leave that one up to Mom and Dad to teach.