Spiders

This week we are going a little creepy crawly with spiders!!!

The library assistant also is a local celebrity and does balloons.  She made this AWESOME spider and web. This photo doesn't do it justice at all :(  It is so cool!!!!!!

We figured out how spiders don't get stuck to their webs. We used Deanna Jump's Simple Science Vol 1 for this experiment.  We also used some of the activities in Spiders. I also made this graph:

I printed spider letters for the question and answers. The spiders were cut from the Circuit we received free from one of our secretary's when she bought hers.

Jack-O-Happy

Pumpkins and Gourds is our topic this week. We sang a few songs.  We read a Weekly Reader.  We cut up the pumpkin life cycle in K-1 but we drew it in 2-5. I got the most funky gourds I could find for the children to explore.  The 2-5 children wrote riddles for the other students to try to guess which gourd they wrote about. I put numbers on the gourds, so they would remember which gourd they were talking about when they read their riddles.

I created a pumpkin/gourd observation sheet.

Here is our Jack-O-Happy:

Here is our Long Term Investigation sheet:

I still have to hang a calendar so we can keep track of the days we look back.  I am trying to keep myself more accountable, so I plan to hang this in a visible spot. :)

Some Kim Jordano photos-more

Some Kim Jordano photos

My lucky day

Today when I checked my school mailbox, it was jam packed!  I got two packages!!!

 I received these scissors for sending in my school supply list :)  I already got 3 pair of children's scissors last school year and these are full sized ones from the same company!

I am "friends" with The Frugal Gal" on Facebook and she was offering the VHC book, so of course I entered her contest- The children will be so happy when I share this book with them. First grade does butterflies in the spring-- I don't know if I can't wait that long to share it with them though!!!

WKA- October 16th

Several teacher's and I attended the Wisconsin Kindergarten Association's  fall meeting October 16th. The three of us that were going together, left about 5 am!!! I got up at about 4.

Here is the amazing Km Jordano and myself at the conference.  Check out her fabulous site:kinderbykim for some amazing ideas.  I only bought one book because I didn't bring my checkbook! Used my cash wisely though!!!

Day and Night

Day and Night is our topic this week.

 In Kindergarten and First grade we brain stormed things that we saw during the daytime.

For 2-5 we brainstormed things that we saw at day/both/night

Here is the science log from a 5th grader:

Elementastics

Week number two with the fun ladies from Elementastics.

We used black or brown markers and coffee filters.  We p-u-l-l-e-d apart the marker dots to see the colors in the markers. 

We made SLIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Go here for the  Slime recipe. We added water to the glue bottle and shook it. We poured it in a cup we stirred  continuously then we added some Borax. We used the new neon food coloring.  I am loving the purple!!!

Friend Web

I was recently in a second grade room and we made this Friend Web:

In the red we talked about things we can do with friends. In the blue, we talked about how we should act with friends.

October- No Bones about it!

The first week of October we talked about Skeletons.

Here are the skeletons that the Kindergartners and First Graders created.

 We did the Macarana Bones by Dr. Jean and did the dance that went with it. I will be sharing the video at the science fair. We charted the words.

 We cut apart and labeled parts of the skeletons. Here are the the skeletons for the 2-5th grades.

 Our skeletons are so big, we must fold them up!

We hung a large skeleton which is labeled for the children to use as a guide.

We learned some very cool songs.   We had most of the words covered, I could just see the chorus, so we just sang that over and over! The rest of the words were covered with the skeleton with labels. It was so cute how they just sang that part with me over and over!

Elementastics

A local college comes to our school to share science experiments with all of the children. This Wednesday, we broke down into a little different groups:  3-5, 1-2, and then the Kindergartners. The oldest children did cool experiments with light.

The children picked a few shapes, then they used a very cool kind of paper. They even put them in frames!

1-2 children did several stations using their senses. One station had to do with touch.  They used three bins of water: 2 warm bins and one cool.

The other station was with sight.  We looked at the circle and guessed what it was going to look like.

The final station is with jelly beans!!!  We closed our eyes and plugged our noses and tried to guess the flavor of the jelly bean.  Then we just closed our eyes and guessed.  This was the yummiest science experiment yet!!!




The Kindergartners got to wear lab coats.  I took each of their pictures in the lab coats for our book.

Then on to our experiment.

We did a cool experiment using: water, oil, and vinegar. We used test tubes!

Then the COOLEST experiment of all!!!!

Then we did a very neat experiment. One that anyone can do at home.  All you need, is a plate, milk, food coloring, a q-tip, and some dish washing soap.

Visitors

United States 4,034 Canada 222 Australia 99 Germany 84 Poland 28 United Kingdom 27 New Zealand 16 Ireland 13 China 12 Japan 8

All of these people visisted my site!!!!!!!!!!!!

Insects Sept 20-October 1st

We talked about insects for the past two weeks. We talked about first off what an insect was. A creature that has three body parts. We sang Dr. Jean's insect song. We also talked about how insects moved.

We talked about the name of the insect, drew a picture, and then how it moved. 


                                           Kindergarten                              First Grade

We recorded this in our science logs.

We brainstormed insect words (2-5)
K-5 each drew an ant. K-1 children got words to cute out and paste. 2-5 had to write it down themselves.

We looked through our "Bug Eyes" to see how bugs see everything. Everyone loved this! We looked at our friends and even me!

To conclude our unit, I let the children draw and label as many insects that they could. Here are some of their awesome work!

One thing that you might notice are the little stars on the science logs. We give the stars out two stars- one for their log, one for our Science Stars display. The children are super excited to get them!!