April was an important month for first grade as they started to put their scientific brains to work and used their inquiry skills to experiment. They wanted to know the answer to the question, do all apples have the same number of seeds? They followed the scientific method to conduct their experiments and recorded their observations in their inquiry booklets. These experiments are becoming second nature to these students!

It is a key concept to all the first graders that the inquiry skills work not only for studies but also in their everyday life, which perfectly matches our brand-new topic, matter. Did you know that matter is ANYTHING that takes up space?

Our students wanted to know what the matter looks like or how it feels, and they started to apply their inquiry skills in the area. So, we gathered items from around our classrooms and discussed how we could sort them into their different properties. These properties explained all the matter around us.

It was just the beginning of practicing inquiry skills for our first graders but a significant step for our young scientists.

(Written by Roma Brown Pictures by Roma Brown)