Sink or Float?

Students participated in sink or float experiments with their fifth grade buddies last Friday. Students worked with their buddy to select five different objects from around the room. Each Kindergarten student wrote the name of the object, predicted whether it was going to sink or float, and then conducted the experiment with their fifth grade buddy. After testing five different objects, students discussed their observations and conclusions. As a whole group, we talked about objects that we thought would float, but didn't and objects that we thought would sink, and they didn't. Our fifth grade buddies really help guide the students to think deeper and question why a particular object sank or floated. One group tested a rubber "counting bear" from our Math area and it sank. Another group tested a similar bear, except their bear floated. We talked about how this "counting bear" had a small hole just on the bottom, so it depended on whether water filled that hole or not. This made for a lot of great questions and conversations. We then conducted different experiements with pumpkins, trying to decide whether they would sink or float. We cut holes in the bottom of the pumpkins and holes in the top of the pumpkins, trying to see if our "counting bear" experiment would prove to have the same results. Ask your child about what happened when the pumpkin had a big hole carved out of the top and the bottom and ask them what their initial prediction was. Hands on experiments are so much fun!

Our Class Fall Celebration

This past Monday we had so much fun at our Class Fall Celebration! We celebrated with many different Fall fun centers! Students spun spider webs and made their very own spider, they worked on a Fall Sudoku, they made apple trees with their hands as the tree leaves, they made ghost "boo" pops and a ghostly windsock, and they stuffed their own scarecrows. Each student also took a turn trying to pin the nose on the jack-o-lantern. This was such a fun activity to watch! After lunch, students rotated through different game stations, such as: toss the bean bag into the hole, toss the "boo" pops into the cans, ghost toilet paper bowling, predicting how many pumpkins in the jar, decorating and eating a Fall leaf cookie, and making funny faces and posing for the camera. Then, everyone got a "taste" of Fall as we enjoyed many different pumpkin food items including pumpkin seeds, pumpkin pie, pumpkin pancakes, pumpkin muffins, pumpkin bark, "little pumpkins", pumpkin bars, and pumpkin cranberry bread. It was all so yummy and gave kids a great opportunity to try different foods. THANK YOU SO MUCH TO EACH AND EVERY PARENT WHO VOLUNTEERED, DONATED ITEMS, AND/OR SENT IN A PUMPKIN ITEM!!!

Fall Celebration (Morning Centers) on PhotoPeach



Fall Celebration (Afternoon Centers) on PhotoPeach

Pumpkin Unit

We have been studying pumpkins for several weeks now. We have read many books about pumpkins, compared pumpkins, and made lots of different predictions about pumpkins. We predicted how many seeds were in our pumpkin, touched the inside, and even got to taste roasted pumpkin seeds and many other "pumpkin" foods at our Class Fall Celebration Pumpkin Tasting Center. We used different sized pumpkins that were sent in by several parents for most of these observations, comparisons, and experiments. We also used our Literary "Humpty Dumpty" Pumpkin for some experiments too. Students estimated and then measured how many "pumpkins tall" they were. Students used a lot of their science skills for this unit and discovered some interesting things about pumpkins and DENSITY when we conducted our sink and float experiments with pumpkins.

Field Trip to JCA

We went on our first field trip in Kindergarten to the JCA to see "The Three Little Pigs" play. We had a great time! Thank you to our wonderful chaperones!! The kids enjoyed seeing the actors up on stage, interacting with them after the play, and eating lunch together. But the truth is... this first field trip was ALL ABOUT THE BUS!!! They were soooo excited about riding the bus. From one of our math questions of the day, 11 of these students had never been on a school bus before. This memory and first time experience was AWESOME to witness!

Field Trip to JCA on PhotoPeach