Our Amazing Bodies!

 It is SO fun to teach science to kindergartners!  We have been learning about the different systems of our bodies.  I LOVE LOVE LOVE teaching them things that they've never heard of before, and watching their eyes open wide as they discover the world around them... and inside of them!

We learned all about nutrition and the food groups, what each group does for our bodies, and how to eat healthy, balanced meals!   We designed our own perfect dinners, and played restaurant, ordering food from all of the food groups!

We did an experiment recreating digestion in a plastic bag.  YUCK!  Believe it or not, some of the kids wanted to EAT the experiment afterwards!!!

We studied the parts of the digestive system, and learned that we have small intestines all coiled up inside of us 16-25 feet long!!!

We also learned about the circulatory system, and how our hearts work.  We learned what hearts REALLY look like, and drew them.  Then we created model hearts and pumped "blood" through them!  We took our heart beats at rest and after exercise, and learned how to keep our hearts and arteries healthy!

In STEM class we learned how catapults work, and had SO much fun launching marbles with Mr. Steele.  Then we engineered our own catapults and wrote about what we would use them for!  The kids had some great ideas, from shooting blueberries into our mouths, throwing a stick for a dog, or launching stars into the sky!

This week was picture day!  If you missed it, we'll just use the self portrait your child drew of him or herself for the yearbook. 😜. Just kidding.  Make ups are Tuesday the 19th.  But these pictures are pretty darn cute, you have to admit!  😁💕

Robots and ladybug math!

Yet another fun and crazy week in Tok Kinder!  I sure hope we can get everyone healthy so I can have all eight kiddos at once next week!  That being said, thank you for keeping kids home with any symptoms.  We just miss them when they are not here.  I thoroughly enjoyed having conferences with each of you! Thank you for taking the time to come in! It was fun to brag on your kiddos and show you what we've been up to!

This week we got out the ladybug math mats and explored more deeply the concept of odd and even using pennies as ladybug spots!

In math we are continuing to work on counting, and number identification and formation.  We also started a new program on the computer for enrichment called Prodigy.  A letter came home this week with your child's login info, and the link is on the side of this blog.  They are welcome to work at home on this, but just a warning to be careful of helping too much, as with most of our programs, it is adaptable.  If you help them, the program will get harder and harder, frustrating them if they then try to do it alone.  

We are having so much fun outside, and the kids are excited about more snow so they can go sledding again!

We have really enjoyed having Mr. Steele come in and teach the kids STEM class (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math).  This week we explored making our own robots using cubelets!  The kids learned about sensing cubes, action cubes, and power cubes, and had to put all three together to make a robot that did certain things! They had a blast and caught on so fast!!!

This STEM lesson went right along with our new unit in science, our 5 senses!  We talked about how robots sense things using "eyes" that talk to their "brains" just like we do!  We started learning about the sense of taste this week, doing a blind taste test of sweet, sour, and salty!  Friday we made "everything" cookies, with the kids deciding what to put into their individual cookies from a smorgasbord of sweet, sour, and salty things! 

Emma, after tasting something sour. Ha ha!!!

Last but not least, I wanted to show you a picture from our library time with Ms. Nicole.  She did a storytime on moose this week, to which most of the kids could relate! They LOVE library time!  Our library is on Thursdays, and if you can help the kids remember to bring back their books on Thursdays, they can check out two new books each week! Thank you for your help with this!