DEEP Space

There is nothing like studying space with kindergarteners to make you think deeply about your job as a teacher, and about life in general.  Let me share with you a few moments from this week.  First of all, as we began this unit, the kids thought of questions that they had about space.  One of them was, "What are the planets like?"  This week we delved into what it would be like to stand on each planet and created a book about the planets.  During one of our discussions about planets, one of the kids asked, "Ms. Deb, are planets REALLY real?" Several other kids chimed in, "Yeah, are they?"  I answered, "Yes, they are REALLY real.  I promise I will only teach you things that are real."  And they all said, "OK, Ms. Deb.  We believe you."

When you think about it...great big balls of rock or poisonous gasses that are multicolored and spinning around somewhere out there too far away to see... it does sound a bit far fetched, doesn't it?  So do so many of the things that we take for granted as facts.  I was honored by the trust that my students have in me, and reminded of the responsibility that accompanies that trust.

I was thrilled to find that one student was continuing to be curious at home, and obviously having conversations with her parents about space when she came back to school one day and said, "Ms. Deb!  I found out the answer to my question!" I said, "Oh, what was your question?"  She said, "My question was, 'How far does space go?'  It goes for EVER!!!!!!"  This led to a discussion about getting LOST in space.  To which one student replied, "You can't get lost in space.  You just keep going down, down, down until you get back to Earth!"   😊

We worked on a LARGE mural of space, which you can see in the hallway to our classroom from the lunchroom next time you are in the school.  And we will continue our study of space for a few more weeks, as we incorporate it into our math, writing and reading as well!

We celebrated the Super Moon on Monday with a great Moon Party!   The moon was in and out of the haze, but we did get some opportunities for some very clear, beautiful views.  The kids enjoyed looking at the moon through binoculars provided by Tetlin National Wildlife Refuge for a short time, but then mostly enjoyed playing on the playground by moonlight!  That was an opportunity not to be missed!  When everyone got cold we headed inside for hot cocoa and Moon Pies to warm up!  Thank you to everyone who came and to Steve Rudolph from the Refuge!  It was so much fun!

We have had several fun hands-on explorations in math this week, including weights and balances, and adding numbers using dice.  If you have board games at home that use dice, playing them would be a great opportunity to help your child learn to "count on" from the larger number using dice!

In writing this week, I introduced the kids to the district's writing curriculum, The 6 Traits of Writing.  We will use the metaphor of building to help us learn how to build great writing!  The 6 Tools we will use are:  Organization, Ideas, Word Choice, Voice, Sentence Fluency, and Conventions (periods, question marks, capitals, etc.).  We began by looking at tools and building our own houses out of blocks.  They were very elaborate!  We had everything from a house powered by a generator to an RV!

We have been studying the tool of  organization in our writing, and what comes first, next, and last.  We worked on this by making a fruit salad and writing down the steps we used to make it.  Then the kids wrote their own recipes for how to make their favorite foods.  It was a yummy way to learn about writing!!!