The short week has changed our format a bit, but here's what we're doing and what we did!
Books We Read
Hi, Fly Guy!
The Very Hungry Caterpillar (pop-up)
Jump, Frog, Jump!
Other Things We Did
We figured out that one of our caterpillars was okay and healthy, but just taking a long time to turn into a pupa, but we figured that the one, little, dried up, motionless caterpillar probably wasn't changing any time soon.
Some of our pupa began to hatch, and we adjusted our class tallies so we could keep track of how many butterflies we had!
We "fixed" our count and got caught up to date. We figured out how many days there were left until the end of the school year, added a whole week's worth of days at one time, and tried to figure out how many days were in the school year overall based on the spaces left on the board.
After having made a caterpillar a few weeks ago, we moved to the next stage of metamorphosis! We used papier mache and covered some long balloons to make them look like cocoons, which will be painted next week!
Our Writer's Workshop focused on the difference between living things and non-living things. We decided that living things need to eat, drink, breathe, and most can move on their own, while non-living things can't do any of these things on their own. Then, we drew pictures of living and non-living things and wrote about it!
Tuesday 20 May 2014
Friday 16 May 2014
Week 34: Metamorphosis, Stage 3
Books We Read
The Trouble with Tadpoles
Who Put a Frog in the Kitchen Sink
Song of the Week - Who Put a Frog in the Kitchen Sink
Weekly Centres
Flower Diagrams
After learning that roots were like "straws" that helped flowers drink up water, we labelled pictures of flowers, noting their petals, leaves, stems and roots. We used straws and glue to create the root systems!
Plasticine Frog Life Cycles
We used green, white, black and blue Plasticine to create the full life cycle of a frog.
Frog Puzzles
Cooperatively, we built puzzles of frogs that showed the different stages of their life cycles.
Dice Bears
After learning how to roll and count dice last week, we played a game that involved rolling dice, counting the number, taking the right number of bear counters, and doing that until we emptied the bear container. Some groups made shapes out of all the bears they used afterwards!
Other Things We Did
Officer John came in to talk to us about being safe on our way to and from school. We learned lots of important things about wearing our helmets, what to do around cars, and how to cross the street. Each of us then chose what we thought was the most important rule for our Writer's Workshop and drew a picture of it, writing the words from the rule that were on the Message Board underneath.
Our flowers have started to grow well in our greenhouse, so we made a choice about whether we should keep our flowers in the greenhouse or move them to a flower pot. We also put our worms and their compost into the flower pot so that the flowers would have the best possible soil. Some people wanted to keep their flowers in the greenhouse, some wanted to see how the soil would turn out.
We started keeping a "tally" of which of our caterpillars have turned into pupa, and which are still caterpillars. We also talked about our smallest caterpillar, which isn't moving and looks a little dried up, and wondered if he'd make it to the pupa stage by Tuesday.
The Trouble with Tadpoles
Who Put a Frog in the Kitchen Sink
Song of the Week - Who Put a Frog in the Kitchen Sink
Weekly Centres
Flower Diagrams
After learning that roots were like "straws" that helped flowers drink up water, we labelled pictures of flowers, noting their petals, leaves, stems and roots. We used straws and glue to create the root systems!
Plasticine Frog Life Cycles
We used green, white, black and blue Plasticine to create the full life cycle of a frog.
Frog Puzzles
Cooperatively, we built puzzles of frogs that showed the different stages of their life cycles.
Dice Bears
After learning how to roll and count dice last week, we played a game that involved rolling dice, counting the number, taking the right number of bear counters, and doing that until we emptied the bear container. Some groups made shapes out of all the bears they used afterwards!
Other Things We Did
Officer John came in to talk to us about being safe on our way to and from school. We learned lots of important things about wearing our helmets, what to do around cars, and how to cross the street. Each of us then chose what we thought was the most important rule for our Writer's Workshop and drew a picture of it, writing the words from the rule that were on the Message Board underneath.
Our flowers have started to grow well in our greenhouse, so we made a choice about whether we should keep our flowers in the greenhouse or move them to a flower pot. We also put our worms and their compost into the flower pot so that the flowers would have the best possible soil. Some people wanted to keep their flowers in the greenhouse, some wanted to see how the soil would turn out.
We started keeping a "tally" of which of our caterpillars have turned into pupa, and which are still caterpillars. We also talked about our smallest caterpillar, which isn't moving and looks a little dried up, and wondered if he'd make it to the pupa stage by Tuesday.
Monday 12 May 2014
Week 33: The Life of Butterflies
Books We Read
Houdini the Amazing Caterpillar
From Egg to Butterfly
Weekly Centres
Butterfly Books
After learning about the butterfly life cycle, we practiced writing our butterfly words and drew a picture of each stage of a butterfly's life. Some of us used the word tracers, but most of us were willing and able to try the words freehand, even big words like "caterpillar" and "butterfly".
Dice Prediction
Using a similar table to the one we used in Sight Word Beyblade Arena, we predicted which number would show up most on a dice. We recorded our prediction, then rolled the dice, and checked our prediction against what happened. We then told Mr. McCullough what we thought would happen next time based on the rolls we did.
Camping
Our drama centre was turned into a campsite, where we built fires (Lincoln Logs & construction paper), caught fish, slept under the stars, and had all sorts of "outdoor" adventures. There was even a tent!
Snap Cube Garden
Using snap cubes, we created flowers with green stems, and then had "blossoms" made of white, blue, yellow and red cube. We then tried to join all of our flowers together to make a garden.
Other Things We Did
We did "Butterfly Yoga", starting off as an egg, turning into a caterpillar, standing up into our pupa, and then turning into a butterfly.
Our caterpillars continued to grow, and we saw how some of them had shed their skin again to grow even bigger!
Mr. McCullough brought us "Milk Fireworks", which involved filling a pie plate with milk and dropping food colouring into it. Then, we added hand sanitzer, which caused the colours in to swirl into all sort of patterns. We learned that milk and food colouring are both mostly made of water, and that alcohol (which is in sanitizer) can thin the water out, making it move. We also learned that adding more water to water doesn't make it move, unless you do something like add hotter water or push the water along.
The Gardening Comittee recruited us to help clean-up the Kinder Garden area. We took turns sweeping up wood chips and putting them back into the play areas.
We learned about solar power, using a solar powered butterfly, which would only fly around if there was sun. We learned that, for solar power to work well, there can't be a lot of clouds, you should be outside, and that temperature doesn't really matter, only a clear sky.
We learned the difference between the "ar" and "er", creating words with the "ar" and learning that the "e" in "er" isn't pronounced!
We had a "Card Making" session on Friday for those who wanted to make Mother's Day cards.
Houdini the Amazing Caterpillar
From Egg to Butterfly
Weekly Centres
Butterfly Books
After learning about the butterfly life cycle, we practiced writing our butterfly words and drew a picture of each stage of a butterfly's life. Some of us used the word tracers, but most of us were willing and able to try the words freehand, even big words like "caterpillar" and "butterfly".
Dice Prediction
Using a similar table to the one we used in Sight Word Beyblade Arena, we predicted which number would show up most on a dice. We recorded our prediction, then rolled the dice, and checked our prediction against what happened. We then told Mr. McCullough what we thought would happen next time based on the rolls we did.
Camping
Our drama centre was turned into a campsite, where we built fires (Lincoln Logs & construction paper), caught fish, slept under the stars, and had all sorts of "outdoor" adventures. There was even a tent!
Snap Cube Garden
Using snap cubes, we created flowers with green stems, and then had "blossoms" made of white, blue, yellow and red cube. We then tried to join all of our flowers together to make a garden.
Other Things We Did
We did "Butterfly Yoga", starting off as an egg, turning into a caterpillar, standing up into our pupa, and then turning into a butterfly.
Our caterpillars continued to grow, and we saw how some of them had shed their skin again to grow even bigger!
Mr. McCullough brought us "Milk Fireworks", which involved filling a pie plate with milk and dropping food colouring into it. Then, we added hand sanitzer, which caused the colours in to swirl into all sort of patterns. We learned that milk and food colouring are both mostly made of water, and that alcohol (which is in sanitizer) can thin the water out, making it move. We also learned that adding more water to water doesn't make it move, unless you do something like add hotter water or push the water along.
The Gardening Comittee recruited us to help clean-up the Kinder Garden area. We took turns sweeping up wood chips and putting them back into the play areas.
We learned about solar power, using a solar powered butterfly, which would only fly around if there was sun. We learned that, for solar power to work well, there can't be a lot of clouds, you should be outside, and that temperature doesn't really matter, only a clear sky.
We learned the difference between the "ar" and "er", creating words with the "ar" and learning that the "e" in "er" isn't pronounced!
We had a "Card Making" session on Friday for those who wanted to make Mother's Day cards.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)