Fun in the Snow!! Where Have the Creatures Gone?

Today we came to school and there was some snow on the ground. The children were all very excited and could not wait to get out and play.  Before we went out we talked about what nature we would find to bring inside.  This lead to questions about where snails and other creatures/animals go when the weather gets cold.  The children knew that some animals hibernate for winter so we talked about what they thought that meant. We wondered together: Do snails and bugs hibernate?

We read the book, Over and Under the Snow (Kate Messner) which I ordered from the library. The children told me what kinds of animals we might find outside (some birds, squirrels, etc.). Then I asked them to look and see if we see any snails or bugs out in the snow.

They dug around in the snow. They were so excited to touch it and soon began collecting ice balls and snow balls to hand to us teachers to save for later.  We then decided to go in and get a bucket to bring the snow inside.

We had great fun digging in and collecting the snow!!  We didn't find any other nature but we will continue to investigate hibernation and winter...stay tuned!

Caring and Sharing With Q-Bear

Last week was Bullying Prevention week. In order to ensure that the children in the classroom are safe and happy,  Ms. Switzer and I have started to use The Skills For Growing Program (Lions Quest).  This program is sponsored by The Lions Club of Canada and its purpose is to teach social skills to children in a fun way.

The Program teaches through a classroom Mascot called Q-Bear.

This Q-Bear is a Build a Bear that I made in New York for the purpose of the program.

The students have been working on and practicing nice manners and polite ways of asking for things such as, "may I" or "can you please" to use with others, including teachers and classroom peers.

This week, we had a lesson on "Caring and Sharing". Using the book, Franklin is Bossy (Paulette Bourgeois) and the unit on caring and sharing from Skills for Growing, the students collaborated on classroom 'rules' that will help all of us feel safe and happy at school.

Together, we discussed the Learning Goal: We want to be safe and happy.

Through a series of scenarios from the program, we came up with a list of criteria to help us meet this goal:

Be good to others.

Treat everyone nicely.

Work and play together (including inviting others to play).

Listen to others.

Help others.

Don't put others down.

To help us include student generated criteria, the children drew pictures showing how they would show caring and sharing using, "This is me..." language which was scribed by the teachers.  We posted it for all of us to see and refer to when needed.

Please ask your child about our rules for caring and sharing. It may help us to be one step closer to eliminating acts of bullying in our school.

Pumpkin Plants and Beetle Metamorphosis in One Week!

Last week we planted pumpkin seeds.  We came in yesterday to find that our plants have sprouted seeds. Ms. Switzer and I set out a recording sheet and some snap cubes for the children to observe and record the growth of their plants.  We talked about the parts of a plant and that even though some plants were not showing the stem and leaves, they had roots starting to form in their cup.

We thought it was interesting that the seed was still attached to the sprout!

The children got to work measuring their plants.

We will leave the cubes and recording sheets out for the children to track the growth of their plants.

Our Mealworms Have Morphed into Beetles!

This week has been an exciting one for inquiry.  Our mealworms have finally started to change to beetles!

The children even foundone walking around today with the pupa (cocoon) still attached to it.

The Great Pumpkin Inquiry!

The week after Halloween, we started our Pumpkin Inquiry.

We took the pumpkins from our Pumpkin Patch dramatic centre (which is now a grocery store). Ms. Switzer sat with students and cleaned out the large pumpkin.  We saved the seeds and I dyed some with food colouring (another Pinterest idea).  We put out some twigs and glue as an invitation to make fall trees.

It took a while for everyone to visit the centre but this is our completed board.  We glued the finished trees to a colour tile patterning activity that I got from a problem solving resource titled The Super Source (by Cuisinaire).

We also had some un-carved pumpkins left so we put them at the inquiry table.  We cut the pumpkin in half and put some spoons and bowls on the table. We also set out books about pumpkins and we waited...

                     

The children had fun digging out seeds and exploring the books.

We also put out cubes for measuring...

I put some of the leftover seeds on a plastic container to use for planting but we didn't get around to it last week.  In the meantime, an interesting thing happened: the seeds began to sprout roots!!  How exciting!  This week, we began planting the sprouted seeds.

We also took some of the dried out seeds and put them out in the Math centre for counting and number matching.

We added some of those number sets to our Math wall.

After two weeks of playing with pumpkins we thought it might be time to ask the children what they know about pumpkins.  We were AMAZED!! The students came up with so many facts:

"Pumpkins have seeds inside and squishy stuff"

"Seeds sprout roots"

"Pumpkins start out green and turn orange"

"Some pumpkins are white, green, orange, and even blue"

"Some pumpkins are big and some are small"; "Some are oval"

"You can cook pumpkins"

"You can bake it in the oven and make pumpkin pie"

"You carve a pumpkin to make a jack-o-lantern"

"You can put fire inside a jack-lantern"

"You can play with pumpkins!"

Finally, I gave them a sheet to record their thinking on their own.  We wrote down what they wanted us to say.

Who knew that children could learn so much from a play-based inquiry on pumpkins...we are just flabbergasted at what the students came up with.  Let's see where our plant growth leads us!  Stay tuned...

 

Other Things Happening in FDLK:

 

We Have Grade 8 Reading Buddies!

 

Mr. Asaro's Grade 8 class has been coming to our class every Wednesday morning to read with our children.  Each child has a special "buddy" who reads to him/her. It's a great way to get individual reading experience and we also get to teach the older kids how to be kind and caring to the little ones.

Meet our Roots of Empathy Baby - Isaiah!

This week, we began our Roots of Empathy Program.  This program is intended to teach caring and empathy in Kindergarten students. It is an evidence-based program that seeks to lower aggression in young children. You can learn more about this program at www.rootsofempathy.org.

The children will have the opportunity to learn from a unique teacher - a baby!

Meet our Roots of Empathy teacher: Baby Isaiah 
 

Baby Isaiah came to visit on Nov. 12th for the first time.  Before his visit, Ms. Switzer asked the students what they thought Isaiah would be doing and not doing at this time.  She also asked them to estimate how big he would be.  When he came to visit, we asked his Mommy questions and she answered "yes" or "not yet" for each one.

We lied the baby down and we compared him to a doll to see if the children were accurate in their estimates.  We also measured him with cubes (non-standard units).

He was about 36 cubes long.

Ms. Switzer checked to see if he noticed sounds by using a toy. He was more interested in the children!

We put him on his tummy to see how he would react.

We are so happy to get to learn about baby Isaiah!!  We sang to him as he said good-bye.

Our Beautiful Stuff Word Wall

Finally! Our student made word wall is complete.  We wanted to make a word wall that was made by the children so we embarked on a project with the students.  We sent home a letter of the alphabet with every child (we just happen to have 26 students in our FDLK classroom).  We asked each family to decorate their letter with natural or found materials (whatever they chose).  We then posted each one on our word wall.  We are so proud of our work.  No letter was alike (just like our kids).  Ms. Switzer and I think they are fantastic and beautiful, every single one!!! Thank-you to the parents for all of your help and support.

After all the letters were up, it seemed only fit that we would look at the first letter of each child's name and post it under its beginning sound. The children were so happy and engaged that they sat while we put all 26 names up!!

Snails, Bumblebees, and Spidermen!!

This past week was busy with lots happening in our FDLK classroom.  Our snail/mealworm inquiry met with many inquiring minds and busy hands. We decided to put up a version of the KWL (what we know, want to know and what we learned) chart with adapted titles that we "borrowed" from our Pinterest friends (Our Kindergarten Journey blog).  We also included some snail books in the centre and a basket with pencils and post-it's to record their thinking.  I asked the children who visited this centre to think about what they are seeing/wondering about when they observe the creatures and to draw a picture to post.  I said that I could write their thoughts down for them so they got to work.  
 

   

I  am hoping to get lots of questions and theories for us to look at. So far we got a few!

 

Halloween Week 2013

It was also Halloween, a Canadian tradition where children dress up and trick or treat from house to house to get candy.  Ms. Switzer and I decided to transform our drama centre into a "Spooky House". I asked the children what they would like to see in our house so they gave me some ideas.  They mostly wanted costumes and decorations so we gathered up whatever we could find.

             

The children had fun dressing up and pretending to be superheroes, vampires, and princesses.

 

We also did some fun crafts, fine motor and sensory activities.

 

        

Little bumblebees were stringing Fruit Loops to make necklaces. 

                         

Some tigers and Transformers made Halloween shapes in shaving cream.

We baked yummy chocolate chip cupcakes too.

Some budding writers got to write about their day.

We are looking forward to next week's investigations.  We didn't have time to carve our pumpkins so we thought we'd continue next week and see where that leads us!!