What is a scientist?

To start off the first project of the year, I got the children's prior knowledge.  I wanted to know what they knew about what a scientist was.  I let them know whatever they knew would be fine.  It is the beginning of the year and my job is to help them learn new things.  At the end of our project we will compare their knowledge to see how much they have learned.  Here is what our class thinks:

"A scientist takes a bottle and makes it into another potion."

"A scientist is somebody that can do stuff that nobody else can do.  They do stuff that explodes like a volcano."

"A scientist is someone who makes bottles of things and sometimes they can explode and they're also geniuses."

"A scientist is somebody that makes potions to see what it can do.  It blows up."

"Scientists are great.  Learning is great.  They make new stuff."

"I don't know."

"It's something that collects dino bones and puts them together."

"A scientist is someone who makes special crafts.  If you add too much baking soda it will explode."

"A scientist would make a potion.  A scientist can be a boy or a girl."

"A scientist makes potions that is a cover for zombies."

"A scientist is brave and they like to explore a lot.  They learn about the past.  They learn about the animals.  In the old days they made houses out of straw.  They like to make inventions and sometimes electric.  Like they flew a kite with silk and a key.  Lightning came and got electricity.  The storm was getting close.  They were almost toast!"

"A scientist is somebody who looks for things and makes potions.  They find stuff out from a long time ago that people didn't even know about."

"Scientists make experiments."

"A scientist raises their hand."

"A scientist is when you have some fun and like when your scientist explores.  When you're being shy being a scientist in kindergarten you just have to be brave."

Welcome 2018-2019

Welcome to the 2018-2019 school year!

This is my classroom blog where you will find a lot of information regarding your child's time at Branch Line School.  I use this blog to explain the children's work with projects and provide links to other helpful pieces of information.  Spend some time looking around the blog to visit past projects, other classroom blogs (coming soon), and links you might be interested in learning more about.  

If you haven't visited (or would like another look) here is a tour of the classroom!

This is the reading space.  This is a quieter space where you can get comfortable with a good book.  Right now there aren't too many books on the shelf, but this area grows and grows as time goes on.

For now this is the drawing table.  After some time this will become the writing table.  Right now you can draw, write, and create.

This is the science area.  This is where you can investigate, predict, and explore by yourself or with a friend.

This big rainbow table is where I do a lot of my teaching.  I help kids learn in a lot of fun ways in small groups of 3-4 kids at a time.  You will learn more about this later.

This is the small group space.  This is where kids can practice teaching each other, learn together, work by themselves, and play games.  Here you can practice collaboration and independent learning.

This is the block area.  Here is where you can build, pretend, work together, and communicate with each other.  This is also where we have our class meeting times.

This is the snack table.  When you get hungry during the day you can pause and eat the healthy fruit or vegetable you brought to school.

Our classroom has our own bathroom.

On the left when you walk in is the water bottle station.  When you arrive every day, take your water and put it here so you can grab it whenever you're thirsty.

Those are the most important things I could think of for now.  I can't wait to meet everyone!