November 20th, 2015
Snow Snow Snow! Winter is coming. This week was all about the season of Winter. Many questions were asked including where does snow come from? How come it is cloudy when it snows? And How is ice made? Quite the inquisitive minds we have here.
What will happen to water that we put in the fridge? What will happen to water that we put in the freezer? We placed beads into ice cube trays, filled them with water and placed one in the fridge and freezer. Everyone made a prediction about what might happen to the water. Some of us were surprised to see that the beads became frozen in ice in the freezer, but nothing happened to the ones in the fridge. Next, we had to figure out how to get the beads out of the ice! There were three things we could use; hot water, salt and our hands. We explored these options to find out which one melted the ice the fastest and which melted the slowest. Boy were our hands chilly after this!
Now everyone is fascinated with ice; finding it on the playground, watching it melt in our tea to cool it down and even noticing that “sidewalk salt” melts ice outside in a very similar way to the salt we used to melt ice inside.
We keep track of the weather everyday but have now also been recording the temperature on our thermometer number scale. We know that the numbers above the zero are warmer and the numbers below the zero are colder. The colder numbers are also called minus numbers. What a fun way to count forwards and backwards, while learning about temperature at the same time. As a side note; we have also been learning how to use an abacus to help us count.
In addition to the thermometer counting each day, we have been counting with snowballs (cotton balls). We have to read the number and put the corresponding amount of snowballs beside it. Sometimes we use numbers with dots to help us to figure out what the number is called.
To go along with our winter theme everyone has worked really hard at creating many wonderful crafts that focus on our fine motor skills, following instructions and just having some fun! We created winter paintings using marshmallows, Q-tips and paint. Squeezing glue to make lines and circles for our glitter snowflakes was tough work for our hand and arm muscles; producing some very sparkly snowflakes. We all thought it would be important to make a craft about the types of clothing we have to wear outside in the winter, since it is different than summer, so we practiced cutting out paper mittens, hole punching them afterwards and threading yarn through the holes. The intense concentration I saw on their faces was really cute.
In the spirit of winter, we used white fluffy stuff (shaving cream) to practice writing the letters of our name. A ton of fun and a ton of mess!
We have been reading Dr. Seuss stories and have noticed that some words sound the same; rhyming words! Particular words noticed were all, ball and fall. And then the funniest thing happened; a prediction of what might happen to the main character who was trying to balance many things above his head was made and it sounded like this “I think the ball will fall!”. We had a bit of a laugh when we noticed that this prediction rhymed.
To help us with our letter recognition we have been working as a team to sequence letter blocks to match the alphabet that we sing. We have also been working very hard at spelling words that we build in our puzzles. I was proud to see that there were some words spelled this week without any assistance! Even if they couldn’t get the proper letter they sure gave it a shot.
Can’t wait to see what lays ahead for next week!
Xoxo Miss Audra
Snow Snow Snow! Winter is coming. This week was all about the season of Winter. Many questions were asked including where does snow come from? How come it is cloudy when it snows? And How is ice made? Quite the inquisitive minds we have here.
What will happen to water that we put in the fridge? What will happen to water that we put in the freezer? We placed beads into ice cube trays, filled them with water and placed one in the fridge and freezer. Everyone made a prediction about what might happen to the water. Some of us were surprised to see that the beads became frozen in ice in the freezer, but nothing happened to the ones in the fridge. Next, we had to figure out how to get the beads out of the ice! There were three things we could use; hot water, salt and our hands. We explored these options to find out which one melted the ice the fastest and which melted the slowest. Boy were our hands chilly after this!
Now everyone is fascinated with ice; finding it on the playground, watching it melt in our tea to cool it down and even noticing that “sidewalk salt” melts ice outside in a very similar way to the salt we used to melt ice inside.
We keep track of the weather everyday but have now also been recording the temperature on our thermometer number scale. We know that the numbers above the zero are warmer and the numbers below the zero are colder. The colder numbers are also called minus numbers. What a fun way to count forwards and backwards, while learning about temperature at the same time. As a side note; we have also been learning how to use an abacus to help us count.
In addition to the thermometer counting each day, we have been counting with snowballs (cotton balls). We have to read the number and put the corresponding amount of snowballs beside it. Sometimes we use numbers with dots to help us to figure out what the number is called.
To go along with our winter theme everyone has worked really hard at creating many wonderful crafts that focus on our fine motor skills, following instructions and just having some fun! We created winter paintings using marshmallows, Q-tips and paint. Squeezing glue to make lines and circles for our glitter snowflakes was tough work for our hand and arm muscles; producing some very sparkly snowflakes. We all thought it would be important to make a craft about the types of clothing we have to wear outside in the winter, since it is different than summer, so we practiced cutting out paper mittens, hole punching them afterwards and threading yarn through the holes. The intense concentration I saw on their faces was really cute.
In the spirit of winter, we used white fluffy stuff (shaving cream) to practice writing the letters of our name. A ton of fun and a ton of mess!
We have been reading Dr. Seuss stories and have noticed that some words sound the same; rhyming words! Particular words noticed were all, ball and fall. And then the funniest thing happened; a prediction of what might happen to the main character who was trying to balance many things above his head was made and it sounded like this “I think the ball will fall!”. We had a bit of a laugh when we noticed that this prediction rhymed.
To help us with our letter recognition we have been working as a team to sequence letter blocks to match the alphabet that we sing. We have also been working very hard at spelling words that we build in our puzzles. I was proud to see that there were some words spelled this week without any assistance! Even if they couldn’t get the proper letter they sure gave it a shot.
Can’t wait to see what lays ahead for next week!
Xoxo Miss Audra
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