PS/IS 686 | Brooklyn, NY

First Grade Character Day

First Grade Character Day: Friday, March 9th

To celebrate the end of our character reading unit we are inviting all first graders to come to school dressed up as their favorite character.  Pull out those old halloween costumes and your child’s favorite books and see what you can create.  Character Day will be on Friday, March 9th.  Please no masks or pretend weapons.

Bullying Prevention

As part of Respect for All Week we began a series of four lessons aimed at preventing bullying.  The first lesson was focused on recognizing bullying.  Being able to recognize bullying is the first step in getting it to stop.  Bullying is mean or hurtful behavior that keeps happening, and the person it’s happening to hasn’t been able to stop it.

Read the following scenarios with your child.  Help your child decide if what is happening is bullying or not.  (The scenarios that are not bullying are still problems that need to be dealt with but are not considered bullying.)

  1. Someone teases you about what you are wearing everyday and he won’t stop when you ask him to. (Bullying)
  2. Someone grabs the toy you are playing with. (Not bullying)
  3. Someone keeps telling you everyday that the she is going to hit you if you don’t do what she says. (Bullying)
  4. Someone cuts in front of you in line. (Not bullying)
  5. Someone says your snack looks yucky. (Not bullying)
  6. Someone pinches you on the bus everyday for a whole week. (Bullying)

Science

In science students are learning about how animals’ body parts help then survive in their habitats.  For example, an arctic hare has a thick layer of fur to help keep warm in freezing temperatures and a giraffe has a long neck to help it reach the leaves on the top of a tree. Next we will learn how animal behaviors also help them survive.

We also had a visit from the BioBus where students used microscopes to view the parts of bugs up close.