All About Living Things

We continued on with our Things That Grow Unit and our Plant Unit this past week.  We read a story called What's Alive that taught us how to determine whether something was living or non living.  The kids quickly caught on that air, food and water were all needed to survive, therefore making these things living.  We created a collage of living and non living things to show our understanding.

We also read about the life cycle of a plant.  We put together our own mini books and wrote about each stage of the life cycle.

I was grinning ear to ear last week when I heard several children casually using the vocabulary we have learned in these units.  To hear a kindergartener say "We're gonna watch the butterfly EMERGE from its chrysalis" will make me happy any day of the week.

Speaking of butterflies - as of Friday our caterpillars were looking mighty fat and hopefully full.  I'm thinking we might be coming back to a chrysalis or two on Monday.  The kids are getting really excited!

In our plant unit this coming week, we will be growing our own plants from a seed.  To prepare for this experiment and to lay a foundation of understanding, we learned about the seed itself and how a plant begins to grow from this form.

We first illustrated the parts of a seed...

We made our own observations of a lima bean and collected data about what it looked like both on the outside and in the inside.

The kids were amazed at how present the embryo was inside the bean.  We observed the beans with our magnifying lenses and illustrated what the beans looked like and wrote down what we saw.

Our last activity was based on the book The Tiny Seed by Eric Carle.  We discussed the different ways seeds travel and are dispersed.  We did a creative writing stating how we would each travel if we were a seed.  The kids did an awesome job!

We held our first class Spelling "B" last week - just for fun of course!  As the kids get prepared for first grade, spelling will be a big focus next year.  We conducted our Spelling "B" just like a traditional "B."  The kids lined up and we read off sight words for them to spell.  Our SUPER DUPER SPELLER was Ambrielle and the runner up was LeVar!! 

We are preparing for our end of the year MAP testing on Thursday.  This is our formal assessment in math.  To prepare ourselves, we have been reviewing all of the skills that will be assessed for the past three days.  This review will continue into this week (Mon-Wed.).  Please make sure your child is rested so they will perform well on Thursday.

Happy Monday to everyone!

Animals, Plants & Earth Day

Spring is always a fun month in terms of curriculum because we get to focus on plants and animals.  It's the time of year when eggs are hatching and flowers are blooming.  We take full advantage of all that is going on around us and try to experience it while it's happening.

Thanks to the generous contribution from Ayla's mom, we currently have a cup full of caterpillars that we are watching very intently.  We have been learning about the life cycle of a butterfly for the past week and we are now about to witness the metamorphosis stages first hand!

Once each caterpillar forms its chrysalis, we will transfer them into the butterfly pavilion where they will emerge as butterflies.  We will eventually release them outside to fly free.

Today will celebrated Earth Day!  We learned the importance of taking care of our Earth and what we can do to help.  The flip books we created taught us the three R's - Reduce, Reuse and Recycle.

To do our part in keeping the air clean and producing more oxygen, we planted our own seedlings that we will eventually plant in the ground to grow oak trees.  The kids are very excited about the thought of growing their own tree!

Earth Day is the kick off to our two week unit on plants.  The kids will be learning about the life cycle of the plant as well as the parts of a plant.  We will be growing our own plants from a germinated seed and examining all the parts of the seed and plant.  We will be making observations and collecting data through out the weeks as well.

To add a celebratory touch to Earth Day we did the usual...

CUPCAKES!

Spring is in the Air

The weather is starting to warm up which always makes the kids a little stir crazy (and myself as well).  It seems like such a waste of a beautiful day to spend the majority of it inside - so we brought our classroom outside...

ELA Lesson...
Reading Everyone Needs a Grocery Store

Math Lesson...
Somehow function machines became more interesting while surrounded by grass :)

We will be taking advantage of this spring weather before the summer heat begins to creep in - it's definitely not fun to work a problem while sweating. :)

Harlem Shake

Doing the Harlem Shake KINDERGARTEN STYLE!