MOXI’s mission is to ignite learning through interactive experiences in science and creativity.
The Dancing Dolphins had such a great time participating in the mission! There were so many opportunities to learn thru play. Check out the web site http://www.moxi.org/ to learn more about the museum.
I would recommend a trip to MOXI with your whole family. I know the EK kids would love to go again and show you around!
*Guest post by Mrs. Svedlund*
Sand is one-of-a-kind, like a fingerprint. The sand found on every beach is unique, a product of its local environment. It articulates a story from hundreds to thousands to millions of years of weathering, breakdown, and erosion. Grains have been tossed around by waves or washed through a watershed. Sand tells us information about rock types, shelled organisms, waves, and biota from the region it is found. Beaches are a river of sand, regardless of whether it is found on the slope of an ocean, lake, or stream.
Help us build our story! If you are headed somewhere over spring break and can grab a sample to add to the Lower School science lab collection, we’d appreciate it. We are collecting sand samples from around the world. A good sample is about a quarter of a cup, or about a baby food jar size amount, of dry beach sand – collected in a plastic baggie is great. Thank you, and Happy Spring Break!
Leading up to St. Patrick’s Day we read several books about silly leprechauns. We decided to make a leprechaun trap to see if we could be lucky enough to catch one! We visited the kindergarten room to get some tips. The kindergartners made traps at home with their families and brought them to school. The kindergartners were so great at explaining their traps as the EK kids stopped at each one.
After contributing lots of great shiny & sparkly things to lure a leprechaun into our trap we also made a rainbow to try to trick the little guy. Well, it seems the leprechaun visited our room, but we couldn’t catch him! He made a bit of a mess in our room, but he left us some cookies and fake gold for our efforts!
We enjoyed the music of a bagpiper who came to visit that day! Although the music was wonderful, it was very loud and lots of hands flew up to cover ears when he started!
We introduced a new favorite math game. We have been calling it the leprechaun game. The numbers are placed in rows and then the person who is the leprechaun gets to hide the pot of gold under one of the numbers. In order to guess a number the person must identify the number before checking to see if the pot of gold is hiding there. When the pot of gold is found, that person gets to be the leprechaun. We were lucky enough to get a “home version” of the game, so hopefully the kids were able to use it with their family!
We had a fabulous day. Hopefully there were lots of fun stories that came home that day!
Thursday we celebrated “Read Across America Day”! Also known as Dr. Seuss Day in EK. We had a fun day of Dr. Seuss silliness! We made some cute headbands which the kids got to decide if they wanted to be Thing 1 or Thing 2.
We read the Dr. Seuss book called Bartholomew and the Oobleck. Then we made Oobleck. Haven’t heard of Oobleck? It is a great mixture of cornstarch and water and a few drops of food coloring…that is all! Ooblek is a suspension (a liquid mixture that has particles large enough to eventually settle out of the mixture), just like quicksand or some paints. When you roll it between your hands like a ball or slap it on the counter, the force from your hands or the counter presses long starch polymers together. They trap the water and the suspension behaves like a solid. When you stop applying force, the polymers relax, the water flows, and it behaves like a liquid. But seriously, the kids just care about playing with the mixture! If you are interested in making this at home, here is the recipe:
We are officially 100 days smarter! Last Thursday we celebrated being in school for 100 days. We had lots of fun activities incorporating the 100 theme. We started the day making portraits of 100 year old friends. We also tried to stack 100 Dixie cups! The kids played a “race to 100” dice game. Playing dice games with them really helps with their number sense. Having them roll two dice and recognizing the higher number and counting on from that number is great practice.
We made a trail mix snack that included 100 pieces of food. We also made crowns that we wore while we toured the other classrooms to look at their 100 day collections. We ended the day with a countdown and a cupcake. It was a really fun day!
For our math lesson today, we sorted all of the dominoes in our classroom. The kids sorted a basket of 20 tiles at a time. They had to count the total number of dots on each tile. This really helps us see how the kids are progressing at building their number sense. Having a child recognize the set of 5 or 6 on the tile and then counting up from there is one good example of number sense. Counting up is an addition strategy taught in kindergarten. The kids had so much fun with this activity and kept coming back to get more tiles to sort. Next week, we will add playing a game of dominoes to our skill-set.
Actually, it was one die that we rolled to answer questions about what we like and love about ourselves. The students took turns rolling the die to answer one of these 6 questions:
They got to color in the heart with the question number after they gave the class their answer.
It would be great for you to ask your child a couple of these questions to hear their answers! It might take a little time to help them think of different answers. It is great to encourage your child with your positive words, but we love to help them realize these things about themselves.
On Friday, for social studies, we talked about Martin Luther King, Jr and what he did that was so important that we get a day off school to celebrate and honor him. We had a great conversation about kindness and how we should help others. We also talked about what we could do for other people to make our world a better place in which to live. Here are some of the things the kids came up with…
We have several new math centers to start the year. Several involve counting and one to one correspondence, really making sure that the kids have a solid number sense. We also have some shape play-dough mats which work on shape recognition while also using our fine motor skills to work with the dough!
This week was filled with learning about the letter C and the number 3! The Dancing Dolphins are working on fine motor skills by “playing” with play dough and a new gumball game that requires a strong pencil grip to move the gumballs. I am looking forward to introducing some new fine motor activities in the coming week.
If you pop into our classroom during the day, you might find us dancing! We need to move our bodies often in order for our brains to concentrate when we are learning. I like to think that the blurry picture is because the kids were moving fast and not because of my poor camera phone skills!
Ms. Horibe taught a Social Studies lesson on Friday about the types of houses families live in all over the world. The kids were very excited about the houses they made out of recycled materials. They all wanted to take them home on Friday, but I suggested they ask if there is room at home before they brought their creations home!
Dolphy, our class dolphin, was sent on her first adventure on Friday! She will spend the week with Ms. Horibe and return on Thursday. Ms. Horibe will include pictures in the journal and write about their fun adventures together. This is a great activity for the kids to work on with their families. When Dolphy is sent home with your child in the coming weeks, you will need to spend some time with your child talking about what they want to include on a page or two of the journal. We will have a sharing time on Fridays so the kids can tell us about their week with Dolphy. It is a wonderful opportunity for the kids to gain confidence in speaking in front of the class.
The kids took turns wishing Dolphy “good luck” on her first adventure!
And finally, our Mystery Reader this week was:
JP’s mom! She read Harold and the Purple Crayon! One of my favorites!
Thanks for stopping by!