Lucky Week!

Monday started off with us frantically finishing our posters for the Science Fair.  Whew!  We got them done just in time, and they looked awesome!!!  The kids organized them according to the Scientific Method we have been learning, with their Questions, Hypothesis, Experiment, Observations, and Conclusions.

The kids did a great job talking to the judges, answering questions about their projects, and sharing what they learned.

They also enjoyed looking at the other projects at the fair, including trying some rock candy crystals!

Monday was also the awards ceremony for our Idita-Read reading contest.  It has been fun to see the enthusiasm for reading increase over the past few weeks as the classes battled it out on the "Iditarod Trail".  First Grade won first place.  We got the coveted Red Lantern award :) .  Great job everyone, and thank you to all of the families who dutifully logged their student's reading hours!

Our exciting week got even better on Tuesday, when we had the Battle of the Books!  It was an INTENSE battle... lasting over an hour and a half with lots of correct answers and challenges.  In the end, Jocelynn, Willow and Aiden, also known as The Amazing Puppies, came out in first place, the REACH team took second, Trapper, Melody and Charlize were third, and Easton and Rosalie tied with Zachery, Natasha and Dante for fourth.  The point spread between the teams was very very close, and our whole class is just excited that we get to add another trophy to our shelf!  These kids really know their books!!!  Again, thank you to everyone who helped them practice.  We have the best Kinder Families ever, and your involvement REALLY makes a difference!  

In Math we are doing a study of 3-D shapes.  On Thursday we had a 3-D shape challenge.  The kids were given the mission to create a 3-D shape using only paper, tape and scissors.  No other instructions, but they could collaborate and experiment.  They did AWESOME!  

We had the privilege of exploring the STEAM Room on Thursday with Ms. Jane Teague, the STEAM and technology specialist for the District.  STEAM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math, and this room is PACKED with fun and creative tools for kids to use!  We look forward to many creative projects in the STEAM room!  Here the kids are at the Lego Table, and building marble mazes and building with life sized legos.

This is the Green Screen where we can make movies and add different backgrounds and special effects.

We celebrated St. Patrick's Day by writing about what makes us feel lucky!  I feel lucky when I see my students' writing improve as much as I have this year!  

To celebrate the gold at the end of the rainbow, we learned more about how rainbows are created in science, and Sir Isaac Newton's genius rainbow experiment.  Then we worked on color analogies and created rainbow poetry to go on our Poet Tree.  Finally Spring has arrived on our tree!!! Let's hope the real leaves outside aren't far behind!

We had a St. Patty's Day party on Friday and several of the kids created a Leprechaun Trap to see if they could catch one over Spring Break!

Luck O' the Irish to ya, and have a wonderful Spring Break!!!

Awesome Scientists!

THE SCIENCE FAIR is happening this Monday, March 12th from 12-2pm upstairs in the library!  Our class worked super hard this week to get ready for it.  Our class really focused on the PROCESS of science. First of all, we learned about the scientific method.  Here the kids are putting the steps of the Scientific Method in order.

FIRST STEP:  Ask a question!  Since we are studying weather, I did set the parameter that their project had to be about the weather, in some way.  Other than that, the kids came up with their own questions.  They were awesome!  Some of the questions were, "How does rain fall?  How are snowballs made?  What makes ice melt?  Can we walk on the clouds?  What makes a rainbow?  Will icicles grow back if we pick them?  Can wind move a rock?"  The kids placed themselves into collaborative groups, depending upon what they were interested in studying.

NEXT, we made our HYPOTHESES, our best guess as to the answer to our question. 

Then, we DESIGNED EXPERIMENTS to test our hypotheses.  For this step, the kids conferenced with me, but largely came up with their own experiments.  For example, to find out if wind could blow a rock away, one student came up with the idea to tie a string to a rock and tie it to a balloon, and then take it outside to see if it would blow away.  All his idea!  So first we made an anemometer in class to measure the windspeed:

Next we took it outside to the windiest spot on the playground.  The kids all knew instantly where we should go:  the top of the sledding hill!  It worked great!

To find out the results of our experiment with the rocks, you'll just have to come to the fair!

Here are some pictures of the other experiments going on in kindergarten this week...

Next came the OBSERVATION step of our scientific method.  The kids recorded their observations and then drew CONCLUSIONS about what they had learned.

Finally, we are going to REPORT our findings on Monday!  

We learned about recording data and displaying it in graphs in math, to go along with our science project unit.  The kids had a great time creating surveys and asking their friends all sorts of questions, recording their data, and turning it into either a pictograph or a bar graph!

Doing this project has made me realize just how far the kids have come this year.  They were SO excited about their experiments, and doing some GREAT critical thinking...  Our kinders are AWESOME SCIENTISTS!  

See you at the fair!  

In other news, this week is another early release on Friday, at 1:45.  

We also will be having the BATTLE OF THE BOOKS this Tuesday in the library at 10 am!  Families are invited and encouraged to attend both the Battle and the Science fair!

Cats in Hats

This post is catching up from two weeks ago!  So much has happened I couldn't fit it all into one!

First we began on Monday with our Read at the Beach Party...complete with beach towels, summer attire, and lemonade.

The rest of the week was Dr. Seuss all the way!  In math, we made a mystery picture, identifying numbers on our hundreds chart to discover the Cat in the Hat!

We had dress up days all week to celebrate Dr. Seuss's birthday.  Tuesday was Cat in the Hat day, so everyone wore silly hats.  Thank you to Mrs. Kran for bringing in TONS of fun hats for us to wear!  The kids had a blast! (Don't worry, we didn't trade hats!)

In reading we worked on recognizing word families.  Everyone chose a different word family and made a Cat in the Hat word family hat!

We also read If I Ran the Zoo and talked about how Dr. Seuss learned to draw such funny looking characters.  Then we got creative and made our own silly animals for our zoo!

Our class was tasked with making the Green Eggs for the school's Green Eggs and Ham lunch on Friday.  It was lots of messy fun, as you can see!

And finally, the class began on Monday to practice for a reader's theater of the book Green Eggs and Ham, which they performed on Friday for families and their 5th Grade Book Buddies.  Kids were found reading Green Eggs and Ham all week around the classroom, they couldn't put it down!  More than once I heard, "Ms. Deb!  I can read this whole book now!"  Kids having fun reading and becoming more fluent readers?  Mission accomplished!

They did a fabulous job, made some great props, and had a fun Dr. Seuss birthday party with the audience afterwards!!!  Thank you to everyone who came, and to everyone who spent time practicing with your kinder at home.  It really showed!  And special thanks to Trapper, who just happened to have a stuffed goat, a stuffed mouse, and a stuffed fox at his house and was willing to share!