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!...