It's our 100th day!

Hip hip hooray!

It's our 100th day!

What an exciting milestone!  We have been in school for 100 days.  10 groups of 10.  20 groups of 5.  One more than 99 and one less than 101.  We are 100 days taller, smarter, and more excited.  Here is how our day went:

We started the day off by thinking of ourselves as 100 year olds.  There were pictures of our faces covered in wrinkles!  The children made sure to point out that when they are 100, I will be waaaay older than them.

We then went over the list of things to do during the day that were "extra" special.  

When the children met with me, we started off by creating structures using 100 cups.  It is a lot harder than it seems!

We also were tasked with the job of writing 100 words.  It sounded impossible at first, but when we worked as a team, we could do so much!

A question was posed, "how long is 100 minutes?"  With the help of a timer, we waited 100 minutes and found that we were in art class.

100 can be a beautiful number, so we got a bit creative.  What can we make with those three numerals?  Well, a whole bunch of things!

"glasses"

How about some glasses?

And how far would you get in 100 steps?  We went from the classroom door to the doorway of the HUB.  We were surprised at how perfect that was.  So imagine walking to the HUB and back.  That's 200 steps easily done.  I wonder how many steps we take in a whole day?

And on a reflective note, we thought a lot about what we have learned and accomplished in 100 days of kindergarten.  Here are some of our quotes:

"I learned guinea pigs eat apples, spinach, and carrots."
"I know 10 + 10 = 20."
"I learned how to make friends."
"I can take 100 steps!"
"I didn't know how to count to 100 when I came to school."
"Guinea pigs have teeth and don't suck your blood."
"I know how letters make sounds... like th!"

Just imagine what answers we will have at the end of the year!

Welcome Alex!

As I am sure you all know, Alex the guinea pig has come to visit.  We spent time answering and researching some questions, and we were ready to see a live subject.  One thing that is very cool to see is how much we can learn from observation.  

"I can tell Alex is used to people because she is walking up to them and sniffing them."

"She keeps walking over to me because I have her igloo and she wants to go to her igloo."

"She must get itchy because she keeps scratching her nose."

"She is shedding her fur!"

Even though we didn't look up answer to these questions using the internet, we discovered new things just by watching and getting to know Alex.  There are many ways to answer a question, and that a conversation I am starting to have with the children.  We will revisit our initial list of questions and see what we can answer already.  How did we get to that answer?  

North South East West

If you have looked up when you walk into the room, you may have noticed words hanging from the ceiling.  We have been using these words a lot lately to identify places in the classroom.  I will often ask the children to name the direction they are facing, tell me something on the east side of the room, or to pass the ball in different directions.  










We started this process with the turtle in the maze.  We ran into problems when everyone's interpretation of "this way!" was different.  Direction words like "right, left, forward, straight, north, down, east, etc.." are something everyone can understand.  We decided to play the turtle-in-the-maze game... with people!

I first took a willing child and had them close their eyes.  We hid a stuffed teddy bear in the classroom.  When the child opened their eyes, we had them start in the opposite side of the room.  I gave them directions (forward, turn east, move straight, stop!) until it was found.  We got so good we invited Ms. Keri in the classroom one afternoon and tried it on her, but this time I didn't say a word.  The children did all of the work- using the direction words on the ceiling.  

We have had so much fun with this and are excited to keep it a part of our classroom learning.  
If you are looking for a project to do at home, make the direction words and put them up in your house.  This is a great way to take this learning home and extend it further.  Talk about it while driving.  Take a look at a map (this will be our next step).  You might be surprised at how much the children know!

How do we research?

Each morning I write a message on the board.  It could be a question, statement, or small activity.  Last Friday it was a question:  What do butterflies think?  We pondered this for a few moments before answering the question the best way we knew how.  There is no right or wrong answer to this question, but it helps put ourselves in someone else's mind frame.  While discussing this question, we came up with some of our own.  What do they eat?  Do they hibernate?  Can they talk to each other? Knowing the answers to these questions would help us answer the morning message.  That is when I heard the beautiful statement that would lead into the next week.

"I know... We could research it!"

The children referenced the research wall immediately, bringing back memories of Nema and all the questioning we did with her.  This got me excited for Monday.  

I started off Monday with, "tell me all you know about Nema."  This gave us a chance to relive our experiences and share it with the new children who were not a part of it.  In September we knew some things about her, but by January, we had a whole collection of information we could give to anyone who asked.  We spent time remembering our questions we didn't know the answers to early on.  We talked about questions.  What is a question?  How do you know it is a question?  What makes you think of one?  If I gave you a subject, could you ask a question to learn more about it?  

I showed the children a picture of the subject they were to ask questions about. Most of them knew it was a guinea pig.  I have talked about them before.  Within 10 minutes we had a list of questions longer than we got in a week with Nema.  We were surprised at how many questions we asked this time compared to September.  We must be getting better at it!

We then broke off into small groups and took time to write down our questions.

Do they have tails?  Why do they have stripes?

Where do they hibernate?

Do they run in circles?

What do they eat?

What do they do?

Do they shed their skin?

Where are their feet?

This is a guinea pig sitting in a lap?

Do guinea pigs drink milk?

Can guinea pigs go in people's laps?

Why do guinea pigs' tails look like rabbit tails?

This is a guinea pig.  Why do guinea pigs have floppy ears?

I am fortunate enough to have some guinea pigs at home, so we have subjects to research!  I plan on using them to help answer our questions.  Videos are a great tool to observe when the subjects are not with us.  And although I (and some children) may know about guinea pigs, even I could not answer some of the questions asked.  It is a chance for all of us to learn!

Directions

This week we have been focusing a lot on our directions.  This has started simply as stating the difference between right and left.  Which is our right hand?  Our left?  If I said to turn your head to the left, what would your eyes see?  

This came in to play later on when I introduced a maze I made over Christmas break.  The children were very excited to see it.  Immediately the children wanted to put some sort of creature inside.  I compromised and decided upon a small puppet.  We put the turtle in the maze with a treat at the end and I asked for directions.  





"This way"
"Turn!"
"Over here!"
"Back up!"
"Stop!!!"







It was a "disaster" because the children were frustrated with the turtle's lack of understanding.  He didn't know which way to turn.  He didn't know which way to go.  The words the children were using weren't working.  What if we say which way to turn?  The turtle needed to use his right and left directions.  We had to label the turtle's hands.  Deciding on which hand was right and which hand was left took some time as each person's perspective was different.  The children across from the turtle were saying different things from the children next to the turtle.  Perspective is an interesting thing.

Once decided on the correct right and left "flipper" we tried again.




"Turn left"
"Go forward"
"Back up"
"Stop!"







The turtle understood the directions a lot more clearly.  We even tested it again with the teacher's eyes closed.  The directions had to be better because I wasn't even watching!

We then separated into small groups and tried again.  This time I wasn't even participating.  Each child took a turn holding the turtle while the others gave verbal directions.  It was an important part of being the "turtle" to listen to the words the children were saying.  If they said to turn left, the turtle had to turn left- even if it was the wrong way.  

This is the start of further discussions of directions, maps, and locations.  It can be hard to imagine something larger like maps, neighborhoods, states and countries, but it is something we will hopefully be forming a stronger understanding of in the next few weeks.

Experimenting Part 2

The day of experimenting finally came!  As soon as the children saw the vials they couldn't stop talking about it.  Each day a group of children carefully took notes as they experimented.  Ms. Amy worked with each group for 45 minutes!  Together they predicted, wrote down ideas, and took turns pouring.  We made it very important to not talk about what happened in the classroom because only one group could work a day.  The other children had to wait until the next day.  It was very hard to keep it quiet, but we did it!  When each group finished they would come in one-by-one into the classroom and walk around with an all-knowing smile on their face and white powder on their hands. They would then walk right up to me and whisper in my ear what they experienced.  They had to tell someone!

Once everybody had the chance to experiment, we got to take a big breath and declare the exciting news... 

It exploded!  

Well, more like fizzed and spilled over, but still exciting.

We also noticed some changes to the other less-exciting substances- like turning to milk, liquids not mixing, and bubbly blue.  Below are some pictures of the first round of experimenting.  For more pictures (and great faces) check out the Snapfish website.

I chose to dye the vinegar because it would be easy to see when it separates from the oil.  And fizzing vinegar and baking soda is a lot more fun when it's blue.  

One very cool side-effect of the mixing was the way corn starch and water react with each other.  When they are the right consistency, it can both be a solid and liquid.  The behavior is different from what we are used to, as it can be stringy, chunky, liquid-y, hard, and squishy.  If you squeeze it you can make a ball, but as soon as you let go, it "melts."

These experiments are an easy (slightly messy) thing to do at home.  Let your children show off what they learned in school!

Experimenting

Your children may have been talking about substances we have been studying in the classroom.  We were preparing for our experiments this week.  Ask about them!  Here is our story…

Two weeks ago I brought in 4 jars labeled “substance 1-4.”  Without naming the substances, we talked about their properties.  The children were dying to know the names and I wouldn't tell them.  It is important to observe before knowing what something new is because it could affect our opinions.  Earlier in the year we worked with our five senses to explore a white substance (sugar).  Before knowing what it was, we said it tasted like candy and strawberries, smelled like food, felt like sand, and moved like snow.  Once we knew it was sugar, we said it tasted like sugar, smelled like sugar, moved like sugar, and smelled like sugar.  I kept the real identities of these substances a secret as we analyzed them.  We drew, discussed, wrote about, and used our 5 senses for each substance.  

Did you figure out what each of them were?

Blue Vinegar

Corn Starch

Baking Soda

Vegetable Oil

We finally made our guesses as to what each substance was.  Some of the children had experiences with these materials before and remembered them enough to give them the correct name.  We talked about them some more, and started comparing.  There are many similarities (especially between corn starch and baking powder) and it took some time to sort them out.  

Check in to see how our experiments went!