Happy 100th Day of School!

We finally made it to the 100th day of school! 80 more to go before first grade!!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Magnetic Fields

We're back to exploring properties of solids (after a brief visit with liquids for the bubble workshop)! This week, we've discovered magnets and explored how they work.

Why do we study magnets? 

To begin, we read the book What Makes a Magnet? (It's a great book with lots of ideas on how you and your student can make magnets at home!) The book helped us to understand why magnets are such a special type of solid.

The students learned that magnets pick up other solid things that have iron in them. Then, they brainstormed what types of things WOULD be picked up by a magnet (paper clips, staples, other magnets, etc) and what WOULDN'T be (paper, elastic bands, plastic).

Also, the students learned that each magnet has two poles - a north and south pole. I asked the students to try and observe their magnets' poles. Some were successful in finding that some magnets didn't want to come together easily and we discussed that it was because it was the same pole (north to north or south to south) they were trying to connect. Once the students turned over the magnet, they stuck together easily. The students who found this happening during our exploration were really fascinated by it!

Then, it was off to exploring magnets on our own.

Here are a few pictures of the students in action!

Bubbles, bubbles and more bubbles!

Kindergarten scientists at work.

Kindergarteners are scientists. They view the world with wonder and excitement and ask such amazing questions! Your kindergartener is currently learning about what makes up the world - Matter! 
We've discussed that there are three types of matter - solids, liquids and gases. We explored a bit with solids and now, with the Bubble Workshop, we've started to explore liquids! 
The students loved learning that bubbles are all spheres no matter how you create the bubble, whether it's with a straw, funnel, square, dinosaur cookie cutter, or a spatula! 
The Bubble Workshop is always full of fun and excitement! Below is a slideshow of our time with Miss. Stella from The Discovery Museums. 
Bubble Workshop 2015 by Slidely Slideshow

You can visit The Discovery Museums' website to explore more science fun at home with your student.

Has your student retold their Folktale to you?!

We sewed our mittens together.

Has your student retold you their Folktale yet? If not, ask them about it....they were wonderful!

As many of you remember, our kindergarten class has been focusing on learning how to retell stories which include characters, setting, problem/solution, and beginning/middle/end. We have ALSO been discussing Folktales and have learned that these stories often have many different versions of the same story. We talk about Folktales being passed down from generation to generation, so if your Papa told your mom a story, and your mom tells you, and then when you're grown up and tell the story to your child, will the story be the same? And the students know that of course it won't! 

After learning all of this, yesterday we were able to create our OWN version of The Mitten! Each student created their own mitten, five animal characters, and then retold their version of the story to a partner. I hope that they all came home to share their Folktale, The Mitten, with you!

We came up with our own characters, like these ones...a lion, a Chihuahua, and a cricket!

Then, the students put their mittens and characters together.....

And began to retell their own versions of the Folktale, The Mitten!

Their characters were so inventive. And, their story retelling skills are really wonderful to see! 

The version of The Mitten we have been reading a lot is Jan Brett's version read on YouTube below. Practice retelling the story after you watch the video at home!

Living Things Need Three Magic Things...

Happy New Year! I hope that you all had a wonderful holiday and have settled back into the routines of school and work.
We've begun our new science unit, Living Things and Non-Living Things, which we'll revisit many times throughout the remainder of the year. Last week, however, I asked the students
What are the three things ALL living things have in common?
I got lots and lots....and lots...of answers ranging from talking to walking to sleeping to eating pizza! But, in the end I told the students there are only THREE magic things any living thing needs in order to be alive and they are:
1. Water2. Food3. Air(MA Science Standards, Living Things/Biology, Characteristics of Living Things)
The students weren't totally sold, they thought that living things needed to talk (or bark or meow), but I asked them if a tree is alive. They all agreed that a tree, or any other plant, is alive but that it cannot talk. I asked them if trees could get up and walk to a sunnier side of the forrest, the answer to that one got lots of laughs and a few "nooooooo!"'s. 
Then we played a little game where we each got a card with a picture of either a living or non-living thing. 

Then, we began to categorize the cards in either living or non-living thing groups.

We figured out that worms are living things.

Books are NOT living things!

Each student got a chance to add a card to the categories and we came up with these groupings.

 The last card in the non-living things group can be tricky for some students to understand - sticks. When the inevitable question comes up that a stick is a tree that's alive, I ask them "but, is that stick on the ground still part of the tree that drinks water and food from the ground or breathes air through its leaves?" The kids then understand that sometimes living things become non-living things like the sticks, but a stick can never be a living thing again. Pretty heavy stuff for 2:30 on a Tuesday afternoon!

Animals do what?!

During science last week, Mr. Prazar joined us to cap off our unit on the five senses by asking us how do animals use their senses of smell and touch in the wild to help them live? (MA Science Standard: . Recognize that people and other animals interact with the environment through their senses of sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste. )

Above is a picture of a coyote skull that the students got a chance to look at very closely.

Mr. Prazar wanted them to observe the many little threads at the way back of the nose. He explained that those threads were smell receptors that help the coyote smell really well.

Mr. Prazar then asked how many people had dogs and if their noses were dry or wet. WET! was the response from them all. The students then learned that dogs (and coyotes) have a really great sense of smell because when their noses are wet, the smell becomes stronger and the animal is able to find or track food using their sense of smell.

The kids were asked to smell a cannister with a special smell, but not yell out what they thought it was. Then they wet their noses and smelled again!

Well, the second time around...the smell was much stronger for most of them! Some who couldn't smell anything before were finally able to detect the smell and others smelled it much stronger the second time. When Mr. Prazar finally asked what they had smelled, they all knew it was chocolate!

Next, Mr. Prazar showed the kids how animals use their sense of smell to detect danger or to mark their territory in the wild. Deer use their antlers to rub their smell onto tress so that other deer know to stay away. They also learned that antlers fall off each year and new ones grow back in their place.

The students got to touch the antlers and Mr. Prazar said he found this set in his back yard. So, look around your yard, you might find your own set! 

Mr. Prazar shared with us that most animals don't use their paws to feel things, they use their whiskers instead. Cats use their whiskers to detect if a mouse is dead or still moving by curling their whiskers around the mouse. Other animals use their whiskers at night to see like moles and mice.

Unlike other animals, we then got to use our own sense of touch to detect what was inside a box. 

The kids did a great job noticing all of the objects...a pine cone.

A leaf....A rock...and pine needles!

We then got a chance to go outside to use our sense of touch and smell in the wild, just like animals do!

Mr. Prazar had the kids partner up and lead each other with eyes closed to a tree.

The kids who had their eyes closed had to feel the tree, with their eyes still closed. Once their eyes were opened, they had to find the tree their partner had brought them to.

The students finished off their time with Mr. Prazar by using their sense of smell one last time. He had them smell another canister and then they had to find the item outside. The students knew right away what it was - leaves!

The students (and me!) had a great time with Mr. Prazar and learning about how animals use their senses to explore and live in the world around us!