Science and HMH fun

In science today, my kindergarten friends had so much fun doing a collision activity to help them learn about motion with pushes and pulls. For this activity, there was square and they had a tennis ball as a "shooter." I put two wiffle balls inside the taped square and I asked the kids what would happen if I rolled the tennis ball toward the balls and they collided. They came up with a few wonderful ideas or predictions. Then, I showed them by putting the tennis ball in motion with a big push. Their predictions were correct. The tennis ball pushed the balls outside of the square when they collided and also caused the balls to change direction. Then I asked them to predict what would happen if we changed the "shooter" ball to a golf ball or a bouncy ball. They shared that the bouncy ball wouldn't provide much movement when the balls collided because the ball is very light. When we tested their prediction, they were right. Next I asked what would happen if the used the golf ball as a "shooter" ball. We talked about how heavy the ball is and how much force it would have when it collides with the wiffle balls. It caused both wiffle balls to move quickly out of the square when they collided. Next, I put the class is small groups and they experimented with all the materials on their own understanding force and collison. They had so much fun trying this activity with their kindergarten friends. After, we documented what they observed and learned in their science journals ensuring we were recording accurate information. Including coloring the balls the correct colors tha we used today. Way to go, K-1!

In reading this afternoon, I read the class a book called Ish by Peter Reynolds. It was about a boy, Ramon, who loves to draw until one day his brother makes a comment that changes his thoughts on his drawings for the worse. He quit and never wanted to draw again until one day his sister gave him a whole new perspective. His sister, Marisol, took Ramon in his room and showed him she had hung up all his crumpled drawings he threw on the floor and decorated her bedroom walls with them all. He was amazed and she told him that eventhough they weren't "just right" they were great! She explained to him that they were ish..almost perfect and that was enough! After that he drew and painted freely feeling good about all he created. We did an activity after that the kids LOVED! There were four frames on a piece of paper and I asked them to draw four seperate things and above it to write the -ish word that went along with it. For example: a picture of a fish would be "fishish" or a picture of school would be "schoolish." They had so much fun creatively drawing their own ideas. I LOVED seeing what they drew!

It was such a fun day in kindergarten today! Full of smiles, fun and so much learning! Wow...they are all growing so much as learners!

The Cat In The Hat Comes Back

On Friday, we watched a 20 minute Cat In The Hat episode from PBS kids that was so cute. Then, I did a directed draw Cat In The Hat with the class. They did a great job following my step-by-step directions in drawing the character as I drew mine on the board. I am so impressed with how far their drawing skills have grown this year! Their drawings turned out amazing! They were all so proud of their drawings and they had so much fun adding a background to their drawings!

In math, we did a mixed color addition and subtraction St. Patrick's Day activity. It was mixed so my kindegarten friends had to be careful because they needed to look carefully to at the symbol in the equation to see if they had to add or subtract. It was also addition and subtraction within 10. They loved doing this activity and they worked hard to figure out all the answers to color in the picture. Way to go, K-1!

In HMH, we are continuing to learn about prepositions in grammar and we have been reading a few different versions of The Little Red Hen to compare and contrast among the stories. Yesterday we read a Little Red Hen version that was a play. They LOVED pointing out all the similiarities and differences and they are also doing a great job identifying character traits too. Way to go, K-1! Have a great weekend, everyone!