Our Nature Inquiry and Seasonal "Wonder Walks"

What Do We Know About Fall? (Term 1)

We started our nature inquiry with a knowledge building circle: “What do you know about Fall?”.  We made a chart of all the things that the students knew/wondered about fall.  

The children had many insights:

-    Squirrels hide nuts

-    Leaves change 

-    Leaves fall down

-    It gets colder outside

-    Some squirrels fly

-    We will see bugs

-    We will see sticks

-    We will see frogs

We read some books to get us thinking about looking and listening on our nature walk

We put our “lookers on” and we went to Taylor Creek walk to find nature and signs of fall. We encouraged the children to only pick up nature that has fallen to the ground. We need to respect nature.

 We took a moment to practise mindfulness near the quiet creek.

When we returned to school, we did another knowledge building circle. We collected ideas from the children 

We saw:
- sticks
- leaves
- dirt
- snail shells
- trees are getting bare

We Think:
- animals are gathering food
- the bees are going away because it's getting colder
- the leaves are not green anymore because it is fall

We Wonder:
- what do animals do to get ready for winter?
- where do the animals in the park go when winter comes?
- what kind of animals live here in our city?, in Canada?
- what can we do to help the animals in the park find food in the cooler weather?
- what can we do with the nature artifacts that we collected from the park?

Sorting Nature

As a class, we decided to work on how we can use the artifacts that we found in the park.

Jolina Cuevas, our teacher candidate from Dr. Erik Jackman I.C.S. helped small groups of students to sort the items that they found in their bags. They chose to sort by colour, red, yellow, orange, brown and green.

 

Making a Nature Canvas

After sorting the items into colour groups, we put out some canvasses, acrylic paints and textured rollers for the students to explore. Students experimented with painting the canvas with different textured paint rollers.

Our Canadian Animal Inquiry (Term 2)

We decided to revisit our "Nature Inquiry" 

Vanessa Ius, our Term 2 teacher candidate from Dr. Erik Jackman I.C.S. lead our circle. We revisited our wonderings from our last KB circle.

We Wonder:
- what do animals do to get ready for winter?
- where do the animals in the park go when winter comes?
- what kind of animals live here in our city?, in Canada?
- what can we do to help the animals in the park find food in the cooler weather?

We noticed that the students had many wonderings about the animals so we decided to go back on another nature walk to see what was happening in our creek. Ms. Ius also planned some class meetings around hibernation and Canadian animals.
She read the following books to the children:

Our animal inquiry began by exploring the different animals who hibernate in the winter months. We played games and read books to learn more about what animals do when they hibernate. We learned that bears, mice, bats, ground squirrels, and turtles hibernate!

We noticed that the children were incorporating animal homes and curiosities into their play. Using blocks and loose parts from outside, the children built and created their own animal homes. Some children built bear caves while other children built farms for the animals to stay warm in during winter.

They made up math games to put the bears into the caves to hibernate.

We made snow using baking soda and hair conditioner and we put out animals and natural materials for an animals in winter invitation.

We also put out pine tree needles and paint to explore.

During our KB circle, we asked the children if they had any ideas about our upcoming walk back to Taylor Creek Park. We decided that we would make some bird feeders for the birds (or squirrels).

 Bird Feeder Recipe (from Pinterest)

https://www.freebiefindingmom.com/homemade-bird-feeders-cookie-cutter-bird-feeders/

MATERIALS

3/4 cup small birdseed

1 packet of unflavored gelatin

1/4 cup water

Twine

Cookie cutters

Parchment paper

Straw

DIRECTIONS

1. Bring water to a boil over medium heat.

2. Add in packet of unflavored gelatin.

3. Stir until gelatin is dissolved (about 1-2 minutes).

4. Take gelatin off heat and let set for a couple of minutes.

5. Stir in bird seed.

6. Place cookie cutters on a piece of parchment paper.

7. Scoop the bird seed into cookie cutters, and using another piece of parchment paper, press the birdseed down.

8. Stick a straw in the top of each filled cookie cutter to create a small hole.

9. Set cookie cutters in the freezer for 20 minutes.

10. Remove cookie cutters from the freezer, and let them sit in room temperature for approximately 10 minutes.

11. Carefully push the bird seed feeders out of the cookie cutters.

12. Thread a piece of twine through the hole at the top of the bird seed feeder and tie it into a loop.

We took our animal food on our wonder walk to Taylor Creek Park!

When we returned, we had one last KB circle. The children had many wonderings about what kinds of animals live in Canada. Vanessa found a simple book and she read it to the children.

We had a lot of questions about these animals. 

We focused mainly on the Moose, the Blue Whale and the Puffin.

What we learned:

 Every animal has their own habitat. This means natural environment where they live

 Blue Whales are the biggest animal on earth, and they live in the ocean

 Blue Whales are as long as three school buses

 Blue Whales are endangered

 Only male moose have antlers

 Moose are taller than our parents

 Puffins flap their wings 400 times per minute

 Puffins are a vulnerable species due to oil spills and overfishing

 Puffin’s live on the coast of Newfoundland and have bright orange beaks 

To honour our curiosity and appreciation for these animals, look at what we made using different coloured, textured materials!

We were hoping to continue our inquiry into the spring but unfortunately we are stuck at home doing distance learning.

Maybe when you are at home, you can go on a wonder walk.

 What are your wonderings now that Spring is here?🙂

Shadow Investigations - ELP/Grade 1

February 2nd marks Groundhog Day in Canada.  On this day, weather forecasters and lay people alike, spend hours watching and anticipating the emerging of famous groundhogs such as Wiarton Willie and Punxsutawney Phil. "Why?", you might ask, is it so important for us? Early 18th and 19th Century folklore says that if it is cloudy on the day that the groundhog emerges, then spring will come early; if not, then we are due to see six more weeks of winter! Therefore, if the groundhog sees his shadow (indicating that it's sunny), then we can expect six more weeks of winter.  After this winter, I'm sure most of us are believers!

Many of the children in our class were born in other countries, therefore, this concept of Groundhog Day was very new to them.

I thought this might be a fun way to spark and interest in "shadows" with the children.  We had a discussion on, "what is a shadow?" and we found that many children did not know, so we did some investigation. 

We set up the projector and got the children to parade past to see their shadows.  During outdoor playtime, we took them out to explore shadows in the sun.

We traced their shadows so that the children could capture their shadow for good!

We had so much fun investigating our shadows!

How Many Seeds in A Pumpkin and Other Estimation Fun Grade 2/3

Our Pumpkin Inquiry

At the beginning of October, I found pumpkins on sale at No Frills and thought it would be a great time to do some pumpkin investigations.  I found several books about the life cycle of the pumpkin to match the Living Things curriculum. It also seemed to be a good time to learn about estimation, counting, patterning and measurement. This inquiry helped us to meet many Big Ideas in the Grade 2/3 Ontario Ministry Expectations. You can find them here:

http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/curriculum/elementary/language.html

Science (Living Things):

1. Living things need air and water to survive. (Gr. 2)
2. Plants have distinct characteristics. (Gr. 3)
3. There are similarities and differences among various types of plants. (Gr. 3)

Mathematics:

1. Number Sense: Read, represent, compare, and order whole numbers to 100 (Gr. 2); to 1000 (Gr. 3)
2. Measurement: Estimate, measure, and record length and mass, capacity, using non-standard units and standard units (Gr. 2); estimate, measure, and record length and mass, using standard units (Gr. 3)
3. Patterning and Algebra: Identify, describe, extend, and create growing patterns..counting by 1,2,5,10 (Gr.2); describe, extend, and create a variety of numeric patterns (Gr. 3)

Language:

1. Oral Communication: Listen in order to understand and respond appropriately in a variety of situations for a variety of purposes (Gr. 2 and 3)
2. Reading: Read and demonstrate an understanding of a variety of literary, graphic, and informational texts, using a range of strategies to construct meaning (Grade 2 and 3)
3. Writing: Generate, gather, and organize ideas and information to write for an intended purpose and audience (Grade 2 and 3)

I also found some great books to read a loud to the students about estimation and counting in multiples. We have spent most of this month reading the book, The Candy Corn Contest. To add to the fun, I brought in a small jar filled with Halloween erasers; the students estimated how many erasers were in the jar.  Congratulations to Jerome and Vittoria who got to keep the contents of the jar, since their guesses were the closest!  Everyone else received one Halloween eraser for their participation.

After reading books about the life cycle of pumpkins and other facts we read, How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin?.  We did a knowledge building circle and I asked them what they knew about pumpkins.

As a group, I asked the students to estimate how many seeds might be in our pumpkins and how we might count them once we clean them out.

The students also estimated the height, weight, and circumference around the pumpkin.

It was time to measure! The students used string and metre sticks to take the height and circumference.

We attempted to use a food scale and a regular scale to weigh the pumpkins but they did not work!

We took the weight of a student and recorded it; then we gave her the pumpkin to hold and we weighed again.  Each pumpkin was approximately 9 lbs.

It was time to get to work retrieving the seeds.  The students worked together to clean out the seeds; it was a messy job but lots of fun!

One group pulled out a sprouted seed! We decided that we would extend our investigation by planting it inside one of the pumpkins (will post at a later date).

Since we had four pumpkins left (we are going to use one for planting), we decided that it might be fun to carve out Jack-o-Lanterns.  To make it fair, we had a "Make a Jack-o-Lantern Face" contest.  Everyone got to work planning out a face design.

Yesterday, we had the vote.  Here are two designs that were chosen.

Our Math/Science investigation will continue next week as we count the dried seeds and plant the sprouted seed inside the pumpkin.  We may even get to taste some roasted pumpkin seeds!

Our Oobleck Investigation Grade 2/3

Yesterday, I read the book: Horrible Harry and The Green Slime.  I asked the students to listen for clues about what exactly the green slime is made of because we might be making an experiment in class.  I chose this book for several reasons: 

I wanted to:

• review the Comprehension strategy from The Daily Five: Check for Understanding by retelling, "Who" and "What" (Listening to Understand and Using Comprehension strategies)

• have an introduction to Procedural Writing for Language (Problem solving - reflecting and communicating what they learned)

• review the Mathematical concept of Measurement and Capacity

• summarize the Properties of liquids and solids (Grade 2) and what happens when you apply force and movement (Grade 3)

For the most part, it is easy to tell whether something is a liquid or a solid, except when it comes to Oobleck!  I thought it would be fun to pose the question: "Is Oobleck a liquid or a solid?"

I asked the children to recall how to make Oobleck and I wrote the ingredients on the board.  As I did this, I showed each ingredient as it looks in real life.

We measured the cornstarch and water and I handed out the materials and the students got to work.

They chose a colour to add to the water and then mixed the water with the cornstarch.

They found out that if they applied force by squeezing or poking it quickly, it became a solid...

but if they let it relax, it became a liquid.

Some of the experiments were too watery so we added more cornstarch!

It also made a huge mess but they had so much fun.

Today, we reviewed the instructions for making Oobleck and the students wrote, "How to Make Oobleck".  We also learned that Oobleck has properties of both liquids and solids.

If you would like to make Oobleck at home, here is the recipe: