Why Do Giraffes Have Spots?

Hello family and friends!

We have really enjoyed our exploration of pumpkins the past couple of weeks! We spent plenty of time dissecting them and getting messy. As with every exploration we do, we follow the enthusiasm of the kids. Once we feel that they've run low on questions or seem to be bored, we move on to the next item of discovery on their list! The beauty of these discovery weeks is that many times they don't really end. We constantly go back and make reference to something we learned in a previous exploration. As we learn new things, we are able to make connections to facts we already know. Since the kids enjoyed the pumpkins so much, we have left them out in our science center. They still visit them frequently to look at with magnifying glasses and measure or weigh. We plan on keeping them around for awhile!

To shift our attention to something new, we took a class vote. We pulled three ideas from our curiosity list we made at the beginning of the year. The three ideas we voted on were bees, spiders, and giraffes. After a brief discussion on each, we took a final vote. Our next exploration will be about...giraffes! Honestly, I was surprised at this result. Many of the kids had been talking frequently about spiders and I just knew that would be their pick. I even spent the night before doing some research and finding some great spider pictures to print. This is one of the many reasons I love teaching, they never cease to surprise me! We are really excited to see where this giraffe exploration takes us. I don't know too much about giraffes so I think I'm probably just as curious to learn about them as the kids are.

To start our exploration, as we do with each of them, we made a list of everything that we already know about giraffes. In doing so, we can see what we don't need to ask questions about (because we already know these facts) and we can make connections to new facts we discover. Here are facts that we already know about giraffes...

- they have long necks
- they swing their tails
- they eat leaves/salad
- they have black tongues
- they have yellow fur and black/brown spots
- they can run
- they have sticky tongues.

After listing our facts we did some large group research. We found pictures of giraffes on the computer and paid close attention to what they looked like and how they were shaped. While we were looking, we discovered that giraffes have 2 short, hairy horns on the top of their head. They were surprised to make this discovery and you'll notice these horns in a lot of their artwork. We aren't sure why they have these horns but it's a question we will be addressing throughout our study. We also spent a few minutes watching a video on giraffes. It gave us some basic facts to start our research. We were able to see how giraffes run and make more observations about their environment and physical characteristics.

After doing some research, we realized that we had developed questions to get our exploration started. This lead us to our second part of our exploration, writing down our questions to help direct our study. The kids drew pictures of giraffes (based on what they've seen at the zoo, what we watched in our video, and pictures that we found during our online research). Along with our drawings, we made a list of questions we had. We talked about the fact that we would probably add more questions to our list as we go, but this is a great place for us to start. On each drawing, we wrote down the question that each child has about giraffes. We have hung these up in the hallway so you can see what we are wondering about and what direction our exploration is headed. Make sure you check them out! I think you'll be impressed with all the wonderful questions we are asking and the details we used for our artwork. Here are some things we are wondering about this week...

James: Why do they eat plants?
Van: Where do they live?
Sally: Why do they swing their tails?
Taliah: Why do they run fast?
Mariano: How big are they?
Scarlett: Why do they have sticky tongues?
Rand: Why do they kick lions?
William: Why do they have yellow skin?
Ethan: Why do they have long necks?
Maddie: Why do they have brown spots?
Max B: Which animals are they afraid of?
Kayla: Why do some have white legs?
Max T: Why do they have different spots?
Harry: Why do they kick lions?
Shlomo: Why do they have sticky tongues?

I'm excited to share new facts we learn with you as we continue our exploration!

Love,
Ms. Rachael


Approaches to Learning:

• Show creativity and imagination using materials in representational play.
• Demonstrate eagerness and interest as a learner by questions and adding ideas.
• Demonstrate growing initiative in selecting and carrying out activities. 
• Demonstrate growing ability to predict possible outcomes based on prior experiences and knowledge.

Social & Emotional:

• Demonstrate self direction by making choices among peers, activities and materials.
• Respond respectfully to positive and negative feedback from adults most of the time.
• Manage transitions positively when told what to expect.
• Interact easily with familiar adults by engaging in conversations, responding to questions and following direction.

Language & Literacy:

• Show interest in informational texts about familiar objects.
• Incorporate favorite parts of literary texts into play activities. 
• begin to ask questions about the causes of events they observe or hear about in books. 
• Begin asking "how and why" questions when looking at texts.
• Use drawings, letters, or words to create narratives about people and things in their environment. 
• Begin to use classroom resources such as books, charts, photographs and graphs to gain information about topics of interest.

Mathematics:

• Generate conjectures based on personal experiences and simple reasoning.
• Investigate solutions to simple problems.
• Begin to show an awareness of numbers in the environment.
• Represent simple joining and separating situations through 4.
• Associate at least two measurement devices with their purpose.

Writing and illustrating our questions about giraffes...

 

We were so happy to see the playground after some rainy days!...

 

 

We had a wonderful, busy week!...

 

 

Fall Part 2

We have had a great week and I am so excited to be back in the classroom full swing! I missed these kids so much while I was out of town last week. This week we have continued our exploration about fall and we decided that it was time to investigate our pumpkin!! We started by looking at books to research how they grow. Our favorite book was “From Seed to Pumpkin” by Wendy Pfeffer. It is a nonfiction book that goes into great detail about the lifecycle of a pumpkin. Many students discovered that pumpkins grow on vines instead of on trees like they first thought. Afterwards, we decided to dissect it! As any scientist would do, we made predictions on how many seeds we thought a pumpkin held. We got everything from one giant seed to infinity (literally!). After our predictions were made, we cut it open. I wish I had a video of their reactions! It was hilarious/amazing/highlight of my week! The "eeeewwww", "cool!", and squeals that we heard were so fun to witness. We passed the pumpkin around and let the kids dig right into it and pull the guts out. Some chose not to while others were going back multiple times. After playing in the gooey pumpkin we counted all of the pumpkin seeds! We found out that in our little tiny pumpkin there were 447 seeds! All of the students thought that was incredible and hypothesized about how many seeds would be in a HUGE pumpkin. Maybe y’all can try this at home and count all the seeds if you are going to bake with any pumpkins. It was such a fun experience!

As we dissected, we pulled some seeds out and set them aside to roast. We introduced everyone to our recipe that we found in our nonfiction book and talked about our ingredients and how we follow the directions to get the best results. We went into the kitchen to wash our seeds then we mixed them with some oil, sugar, and cinnamon. We let them roast in the oven for about 15 minutes at 350 degrees. We set a timer in the room for about 10 minutes so that we could go check on them to make sure they were okay and then set another timer for 5 minutes so we could go get them when they were ready! We discussed letting the seeds cool before putting them in our mouths so that we wouldn’t burn our mouths and so we could taste the seed better. After letting the seeds cool we all sat down and tried them together. It was an overwhelming vote of "delicious!". This will be the first of many cooking adventures we go on this year.

Another thing we did this week was a sink or float science experiment. We picked out several of our fall items we found in last week’s nature walk and tested their ability to sink or float. We took this opportunity to talk about being scientist. We discovered that we are scientists everyday even in the smallest ways! We discussed that scientists first need to ask questions about the world around them. Next, they make a guess as to what the answer to their question will be, their hypothesis. Finally, they conduct the experiment to find the results, or conclusions. After talking about the steps a scientist uses, we conducted our own experiment. Each child had a clipboard with a chart in hand. Before conducting the experiment we placed our guesses in the hypothesis column. We placed a picture of each object under either the sink or float column. After dropping each object in the water we compared them to our hypothesis column and then changed them accordingly. We were all surprised at many of these results! It was a great time of discussing what surprised us, what we noticed, and what we would like to ask more questions about.

Love, Ms. Michelle

What do you know about fall?

Taliah- leaves change red, yellow, orange, and brown

Mariano – leaves all fall

Max Taylor – wind blows the leaves and they fall

Sally – We see pinecones

Maxwell – Pumpkins grow

Sholomo – we eat pumpkin seeds

Harry – We wear jackets

Van – we go apple picking


Approaches to Learning:

• Demonstrate growing ability to predict possible outcomes based on prior experiences and knowledge.
• Demonstrate increasing ability to use prior knowledge to understand new experiences.
• Try to solve problems encountered in play.
• Demonstrate an increasing ability to organize actions and materials in the learning environment. 

Social & Emotional:

• Interact easily with familiar adults by engaging in conversations, responding to questions and following directions.
• Participate in group life of class.
• Display emerging social skills of trying to take turns and talk with others during play.
• Demonstrate with adult guidance simple techniques to solve social problems.

Language & Literacy:

• Classify objects and information by observable attributes into predetermined categories.
• Ask "how" and "why" questions about things in books and their environment.
• Begin to use classroom resources such as books, charts, photographs, and graphs to gain information about topics of interest.
• Combine some letters with pretend writing.
• Progress in understanding how books are viewed.

Mathematics:

• Organize and represent data with real objects.
• Show awareness of growing patterns in their environment.
• Represent simple joining and separating situations through 4.
• Integrate mathematical ideas into personal representations.

 

 

 

Welcome, Fall

Hello family and friends!

It's been a great week back at school! I know everyone was ready to get back into a normal routine after our time away because of the flood. I'm so thankful that all of you are safe and sound. It was nice to come in Monday and see everyone's faces. The kids have done great this week. We have had a few bring up the flood and some of the damage it has caused. Instead of focusing on the negative, we took time to talk about all the kind people in our community who have helped those in need. It allowed us time to go back and reflect on our kindness quilt from a couple of weeks ago. It was so encouraging to hear the kids talk about ways they can be kind and helpful when others need our help. It has been a wonderful (and very positive) week of transition back to school!

There has been a lot of talk in our classroom about pumpkins lately. Many have seen pumpkins around town or have bought them for their home. Others have mentioned that they've made pumpkin bread at home and seen them at stores. Since this has been a topic of recent interest, we thought we'd run with the idea. It's a perfect time to explore fall as we've just started the season.

Since the kids have been to interested in pumpkins, we brought in several different types for them to study. These pumpkins have a new home in our science center. Along with the pumpkins, we've laid out our magnifying glasses, measuring tape, and clipboards with pencils and crayons. We have encouraged the kids to explore the pumpkins using any of the materials in our classroom. There has been a lot of measuring! We've spent a good deal of time talking about the physical characteristics of each pumpkin. We've studied the lines of the pumpkins, as well as the texture and different purposes. The kids were thrilled to find out that pumpkins and gourds come in a variety of colors...not all of them are orange. The kids have been using the clipboards to draw pictures of the pumpkins and also pictures of how they explored the pumpkin that day. As they draw, we've been writing their words on their pictures. The kids have been hanging these up in the hallway outside our door. We thought this would be a great way for you to see what the kids are doing through their own artwork and words. Make sure you check the wall out often as we've been adding artwork daily.

Since the kids were doing a lot of measuring, we thought we'd be scientist and make some predictions about our pumpkins. We talked about what we thought might happen to them after weeks in our room, guesses as to whether they will change shapes, and what they look like inside. We also make some predictions on how round and tall we thought our biggest pumpkin was. The kids took string and cut it the length they thought it would take to wrap all the way around the pumpkin. After we made all of our predictions, we wrapped a string around the pumpkin to find the actual length. We learned that all of us were close in making our predictions! We also made some predictions about the height of our pumpkin using unifix cubes. As with the string, we measured the actual height of our pumpkin after charting our predictions. We were so impressed to find that all of us guessed within 4 numbers of the actual height! They were extremely proud of themselves for that, as they should be. These predictions and findings were charted as we worked and are hanging up in the hallway. Make sure you check it out! I'm sure they'd love to tell you all about it :)

Of course we couldn't explore fall appropriately without a nature walk! We spent one morning walking around our school listening and looking at the first signs of fall. We noticed that the temperature has gotten cooler. We also noticed that because of that we were all dressed in long pants or jackets to keep warm. We noticed that the wind was blowing and leaves were falling. As we walked and talked, we also picked up fall findings to bring into the classroom. We found some beautiful leaves that were red, orange, and yellow. We also found tons of acorns and pinecones. We all agreed that these were signs of fall and would be great additions to our science area along with our pumpkins. We'll be doing more activities with these items next week. We'll also be adding them in our art center. Art and nature also seem to go together perfectly and provide the kids with another way to use their imagination. We'll hang some of our "fall findings" artwork in our classroom as the kids make them. Everyone seems excited about this exploration project and we can't wait to see where it takes us next!

I hope everyone has a restful weekend!

Love,
Ms. Rachael


Here are a few of the many standards we covered this week...

Approaches to Learning:

• Show creativity and imagination using materials in representational play.
• Demonstrate eagerness and interest as a learner by questions and adding ideas.
• Show increasing ability to maintain interest in self-selected activities and play despite distractions and interruptions.
• Understand that a task can be accomplished through several steps.

Social & Emotional:

• Demonstrate self direction by making choices among peers activities and materials.
• Respond respectfully to positive and negative feedback from adults most of the time. 
• Develop strategies to express strong emotion with adult help.

Language & Literacy:

• Classify objects and information by observable attributes into predetermined categories.
• Ask "how" and "why" questions about things in books and their environment.
• Begin to use classroom resources such as books, charts, photographs and graphs to gain information about topics of interest.
• Contribute to small group or whole class dictation activities. 
• Understand relationship between print and pictures on page. 

Mathematics:

• Organize and represent data with real objects. 
• Associate at least two measurement devices with their purposes.
• Represent simple joining and separating situations through 4.
• Integrate mathematical ideas into personal representations. 

 

 

Making predictions and measuring pumpkins...

 

 

Studying our pumpkins and drawing/writing what we did with them...

 

 

The first signs of Fall!...

 

 

Building a house for our pumpkins...