Sunday, April 29, 2012

Ladybugs!


Whew! It has been super busy with lots of things going on. Last week our order of Painted Lady Butterflies arrived and they are busy just eating away. I have a strange suspicion that when we arrive on Monday they will be in cocoons. As as much as I try I can't turn on the computer or get on Pinterest without seeing Ladybugs everywhere. I swear I am trying not to look. I swear I am trying to resist. I swear I am about to die...without ladybugs. Right now we have crabs, a frog, a fish, worms and butterflies. Do we need ladybugs? YES! When I was not looking for ladybug stuff just look at what I have found.

Watching this video reminds me of my college insect collection and running through fields for bugs. And I swear I am trying to resist getting those ladybugs right now. Until I found this video.


Seriously? I mean seriously, am I about to die to get some ladybugs! And when I think of ladybugs, I think of the best resource for teaching Ladybug Science to any Budding Scientist.


To order your own copy just click on the image above.

Click on the image above for some freebies from Homeschoolshare!


 Click image above for source.

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Going With The Flow!

We had a generous donation of grapes with seeds last week. The kids were excited to have something different for snack. We talked about these grapes because we had tons and tons of them. I told the kids they had seeds in them. One of the children remembered that we had seen something on Sid the Science Kid earlier in the year with frozen fruit. We went to our Science Notebooks and found the entry and talked about it. We decided to freeze our grapes and use our prior knowledge to discuss how to get our grapes out. We had a great discussion and problem solving session. Additionally, this gave us a great chance to review relative temperature.

Once we were able to get our grapes out of the frozen water, we had to cut our grapes into two equal parts and pull out the seeds of each one. We practiced making two equal parts with plastic knives and then we finally got to eat our snack. The children had tons of questions about the seeds. Some children wanted to save some of the seeds in their notebooks and many of the children washed them, wrapped them and took them home. The next morning a few children had already planted their seeds!

Sunday, April 22, 2012

Happy Earth Day!




Hope you have a great Earth Day Science friends!


For more ideas and inspiration for Earth Day click on the image above for my Pinterest Earth Day board.

Saturday, April 21, 2012

Connections



I think I have carried Science books all over the planet this week. My bag has been full of books that have finally come in from previous orders. And I have spent a lot of time talking and thinking about Science in Kindergarten this week so this post has been on my mind. One part of some of the Science discussions this week has been about making connections. Not only about making connections to previous Science experiences but making connections across the curriculum. As teachers of young children, we know how important making those connections are to enduring understandings. Teaching a stand alone Science unit is one thing but connecting it to previous meaningful experiences and connecting it to other areas of the curriculum is another. We also know that just one learning experience, investigation or discovery is not enough. We know that children need a multiple exposure approach before they make connections that lead to enduring understandings. 

 
When I discovered the book, When Rain Falls by Melissa Stewart, it made me instantly think about...connections. As I read the book page by page I could see this book had some pretty powerful real world connections and some powerful connections to our learning experiences in my classroom. Not only did I think about our investigations this year but I also thought our our discussions or after session share. Our after session share time has been so valuable in my classroom. Not only have we learned about how other children "see" a problem and learn how they solve it but this time allows us the opportunity to use vocabulary and hear it spoken and it gives us an opportunity to understand what connection the child has made with the learning experience. For so many reasons these after session share times are valuable and we become connected as a community of learners because we begin to understand another person better and their way of thinking.

As teachers of young children and especially Kindergarten teachers, we often times get criticized for not teaching the Science content when people evaluate our work. When people see the "cutesy" stuff we create we often get that type of response. I can see how this misconception happens when they see rooms and displays with penguins and ladybugs made by Kindergarten children. Those ladybugs and penguins are just our vehicle to drive our Science content. It is not that we are teaching all about a ladybug but it is the vehicle to teaching about a life cycle. Those "cutesy" ladybug and penguin Thinking Maps and Anchor Charts are our way of helping our children make...connections to the Science content. And sometimes it does look "cutesy" because we understand the mind of young children. We are so lucky as Kindergarten teachers to work with children who view the world through innocent eyes and an innate natural curiosity about the world around them. It is that innocence and curiosity that is almost magical when we explore Science with young children. For many of us, it is that connection that draws us to our profession.


As teachers of young children we often get criticized for not teaching Science to the depth that is required or without enough rigor. If we read a book about a Science related topic and make some cute and crafty product and leave it at that, then I would have to agree that the depth and rigor has not been met and our goals and objectives have not been met either. Science should be so much more than just a book and discussion. Children have to experience it, discover it and question it several times before they begin to make connections. Multiple experiences lead to a deeper understanding and often leads to more questioning as children begin to understand the content. A skillful Science teacher can increase the rigor by conferencing with children, guiding and supporting independent problem solving and setting the stage for more investigating, discovering and exploring. And just like a real Scientist, children may have to retest their discoveries before they actually believe and understand them.


The reason why When Rain Falls made the connection within my classroom because it connected so many things we have studied in Science this year from how animals and plants use and depend on natural resources, animals in their natural habitats, landforms within our Social Studies unit and weather. The book provided us a visual that connected our classroom experiences to the world around us and helped us see the connection between different organisms and their environments. And our discussion was rich with those connections.

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Investigative Reporting



Well it has been busy to say the least. We have had fun with rocks, soil and earthworms! As we were rapping up our study with rocks, the children keep coming in with unique and interesting rocks to investigate. In fact, today we got a rock in the shape of a perfect triangle. We put that special rock in a safe place for further investigation. As part of our Science time we have included a "share" time after our investigations. We use some super special Scientist glasses and aprons when we are reporting to the class. As we are moving on to the study of other things we have found a way to keep rock investigations going at the same time. We now have Rock Reports. If you find an interesting rock and you want to share what you have found you have to fill out the Rock Report and you have to report that data to the class. We wanted to share that with you so you could keep your investigations going too!

Click on the image above to get your copy!

Classroom Freebies Manic Monday


 

Sunday, April 15, 2012

Take A Break!


Well it seems that there is a big sale going on around the blogs and I wanted to join in the fun. Instead of 15% I am reducing prices 20%! You can shop at my TeacherspayTeachers store or Teachers Notebook. This sale is a great way for us all to grab those items that are on our wish list!

Thank you to What The Teacher Wants for the sale image!

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Saturday, April 7, 2012

Ladybug's Teacher Files!

Hey Little Miss Hypothesis fans! It's Kristen from Ladybug's Teacher Files and I am delighted to be visiting my sweet friend's blog today!!

I wanted to share a note-taking form our class has been using during Science lately--it's been very helpful for my newcomer English Language Learners.

We've just started our unit on ecosystems and have been taking notes on food chains, omnivores, carnivores, herbivores, food webs, producers, consumers, and decomposers. We've used some interactive websites as well as our textbooks to help us write the notes.

And...

These graphic organizers for each vocabulary word:

Students sketch out diagrams and illustrations for each term, then write the definition below. It's pretty basic, but it has been a wonderful visual for my students and has really helped them learn new vocabulary.

If you would like to grab these file, you can download it directly here. I hope it will be of use to others on this lovely blog!

Thanks Mrs. Coe for inviting me to stop by--I had a wonderful time!!


Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Earth Day With Can Do Kinders!

Hi Y'all!  It's me... Pam from Can Do Kinders!  I was so excited that Laral asked me to guest blog for her while she was at a conference. 
I hope I do a great job for her while she's away.  I'll do my best to make her proud.
I love Earth Day and I can't wait to celebrate it with my kinders.  Although we teach our children all year the importance of recycling at school, I still think it is important that we celebrate this special day. 
Did you know that over 100 different countries come together to celebrate Earth Day on April 2nd?  It is the most celebrated environmental event worldwide.  Wow!  I think it is a great way to teach our kiddos to appreciate nature and learn ways to protect our environment!
One thing I am going to do that week is have my children write about ways we can help our Mother Earth.  If you would like to have a copy of the vocabulary cards and writing paper click here.  I hope you enjoy!  If you do download, please leave Little Miss Kindergarten a love note!  Maybe she'll let me do this again if you do!

Monday, April 2, 2012

Earth Day With Mrs. Parker!

Hello, Friends! This is Mrs. Parker from 

Today,  I would like to share with you an Earth Day craft that is great for all ages. 


What I love about this project is that it can be completed in little time with little prep. You can find the directions for this craft here.

Here is my bulletin board display from last year.  Do you see that recycling can in the center?  My first grade student made it using recycled materials found in our room.  How creative is that!  


I created this Earth Day Pledge exclusively for Little Miss Kindergarten's Followers as a thank you to Mrs. Coe for inviting me to be a guest on her blog.   I hope you like it.  If you do, you can Follow me at

Learning with Mrs Parker


Sunday, April 1, 2012

Best of the Best!



Well, it is kind of hard to believe that this has been my most popular post of the year. It was a simple idea and it made a point and that is probably why. It seems I can never really distance myself from the dreaded Glitter Germs post so now I just have to embrace it. I will say this... my kids came in the next day coughing and told me that my "germs" made them sick. I guess the lesson worked. I have never had to have another hand washing lesson because this might just have put the fear inside of all of us with such a vivid visual. The glitter tends to linger so it is perfect to use for this activity. We all know now that you have to wash, wash, wash your hands! 

I have had a lot of requests about the activity we did with the glitter germs. I was planning on doing this activity before I learned that I was having a Science visitor in my class and I decided to go ahead and include the person visiting in the activity. We have just begun introducing and talking about an I Am A Scientist Unit. We had only been in school for 7 days when we started this activity. We had been discussing safe practices during our Science time and part of that discussion is proper hand washing. I pretended to cough as the children gathered in the group area and I excused myself to get some hand sanitizer that contained the glitter. We played Dr. Jean's Hello Neighbor as a warm up activity and as everyone shook hands the glitter spread from hand to hand. It did not take long for everyone to notice the glitter. Once the song was over we discussed the transfer of germs and that germs are unseen. We decided that we needed to wash our hands to get rid of the germs. When we returned to our meeting area we realized that some of us had glitter still on our hands and we looked at our hands with hand lenses. We had a discussion about proper hand washing. After hand washing the proper way, we recorded our observations in our Science Notebooks and then we discussed the results!

I wanted to share this information from a reader, Ms. Jodie
"I did a fun germ lesson with my class yesterday. Everyone got either a pink or a yellow paint dot on their hand and two kids got a blue dot. I let them shake their friends hands and after a 2 minutes I had them stop and make a hand print on the paper. They then went to wash their hands. We looked at the prints and I told them the blue signifies germs. 16 of 17 kids had blue on their hand print. Then I had them look at their hands. A few kids said that they still had some blue on their hands. We talked about how this means they were not washing their hands well enough and they could have germs left on their hands : ). They all seemed to get it and they were all scrubbing away today!"







Glitter germs were made by using Germ-X and cosmetic super fine glitter. You would not want to use any other kind of glitter in case it gets into your eye. I put it on my hands, pretended to cough and then started shaking hands with each child to a Dr. Jean song, Hello Neighbor. They started noticing the glitter right away and it transferred very well. When the song was over we had our discussion, washed our hands and notebooked about our experience. We even investigated our germs with hand lenses.
So, have fun giving this one a try, but just be careful because GLITTER GERMS have a tendency to linger!

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