Making seed nests

During one of our guided activities today, several materials were laid out on the circle table waiting for the students: paper towels, cookie sheets, ziploc baggies, markers and a package of seeds.

Interest was soon sparked. "What are we doing here?" they asked ...

I sat with them and told them that we would start with the baggie. Students were given a plastic baggie and asked to write their name on it with permanent markers. Although it sounds like a simple concept ... only having 2 markers and 4 students and asking EVERYONE to write their name created some immediate discussion. Discussion such as, "You go first, then I'll go next," and "I want the rouge pas the bleu," and "Here, let me help you write your name."

They quickly made predictions about what we would be doing with the baggies, the paper towel and the seeds. One little guy even said, "the paper towel is to clean up the mess when we're done!" Too cute. Finally, after much discussion, they came to the conclusion that we would be planting the seeds. Of course, "Duh! Ms. Kidd! That's what you do with flower seeds!" To find out just how much they know, I asked them (straight up), "What three things do plants need in order to grow?" Sure enough, they answered with soil, water and sun. So, low and behold, without teaching this small group about plants (keep in mind that we have NOT been doing ANY sort of unit/theme on plants thus far), they already know so much! I later explained that we would be using the paper towel instead of soil so that we could watch it grow in the window before transplanting them. They made connections and said that the paper towel would be the nest, or the home for the seeds before we put them in the soil. Amazing.

 

This little guy waited very patiently for his paper towel to be completely immersed in the water tray. When asked how he knew that it wasn't all wet, he said, "It's a different colour over here." Then, when I asked him if he could do anything to make it go faster, he pushed his fingers onto the dry areas.

Students carefully selected 3 seeds from the bag to germinate in their paper towels. When I asked them why they thought I was stapling the baggies (I put some staples at the top, and some at the bottom of the bag), some answered that the seeds can't drown. Others said the obvious (or not so obvious to some), to keep them from falling out of the bag if they fall

 

 



Et voila! Our germinating seeds in their nests. When asked where they thought we should put the seeds to grow, some said in the hallway where it's light, some said on my desk because it's safe and others said by the sun. You'll notice a few without a 'nest' ... there were a few students convinced that you don't need a nest. Hmmm.

 

If you don't see another post about germinating seeds, it's because this activity failed to 'plant a seed of inquiry' ... haha. 

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All the world's a stage ...

While collaborating with a few fellow kinder teachers over some 'neat ideas' that we could implement in our classrooms, one of them showed me this:

 

 

And my wheels turned. And turned. And turned. Then I got Mitch's wheels turning. Finally, he said, "Amie, I'm NOT installing pot lights in a platform just for you to bring to school. You're crazy." So ... I settled on a shower rod and a couple of red curtains.

 

Drum roll, please ....

 

 

TADAAAAA!

 

 

These kinders have been putting on 'talent shows' since Monday. They've brought the chairs nice and close, they've hired a director (who, by the way begins the show by saying, "A one, a two, a one, two, three, four") ... They've brought their babies (from the dramatic play centre) to the show, they've made signs and invitations, they've asked for music ... And, trust me ... If they catch you walking down the hall they will surely ask, "Do you want to come to our talent show?" Today, they had two shows. The first one was called, "Butterfly Dance" and the second was "Halloween Spook Dance." So, so creative. At one point, there were some coats lying on the ground and although I was sincerely concerned that someone might trip, I exclaimed, "I'm NOT paying money to a show if the stage is a mess! A paying customer deserves a clean stage to look at!" ... and I pretended to get up. Haha. So, so sneaky!

 

I took about 50 pictures and none of them were clear because these kiddos just couldn't stop dancing!

 

We'll probably run with the 'talent show' idea for a few more days (extending and stretching them to their limits - finding books in the library about performances, making microphones, working on time-telling with clocks and timers, coordinating a dance or rehearsing some jokes, etc ...). Then, when they've exhausted all avenues of a 'talent show,' we might turn it into a puppet show or a stage for a play.

 

Is it just me, or do all of the super fun things always happen in the cubby area?! Honestly, it's where they gravitate to. We have this great big, beautiful open classroom and here they are cramped into a tiny corner.

 

Anyways, if you're out and about at the school ... good luck sneaking by the yellow kindergarten classroom door without being ushered in ... OH, that reminds me - ushers! Every good performance has ushers showing people where to sit!!

 

To finish our Shakespearian quote, "... and all the boys and girls merely players."

 

;)

 

 







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My little scientists!

Back to routines ...

In all honesty, I was a little bit 'scared and nervous' for school to start back up again after the two week holiday. I thought, "What if the kids cry ... What if they come back and aren't potty trained ... What if they don't like me anymore ... " Then, as they got off the bus and made their way down the hallways (picture them running, with their school bags bouncing up and down on their backs) and I saw their little smiles beaming at me, I realized that this 'fear/nervousness' that I thought I was experiencing wasn't fear at all. Instead, it was probably sadness from NOT seeing them every day! Now that we're back into the swing of things, I can truly say that I didn't realize how much I had missed them during the holidays.

What we've been up to ...

This week, we turned into scientists. I found an experiment for Borax Snow Crystals online (click here for the recipe) and we began our first 'science experiment' of the year.

I started our afternoon circle by asking, "What does SCIENCE mean? What is SCIENCE?" And these were there responses:

We brainstormed what we could be possibly making with "hot water, powder and pipe cleaners" and I took a few answers from them. I then asked students to go to a table, find a sticky note and draw what they thought would happen ... a teacher (myself, the ECE and the EA) in the room helped 'scribe' their answers.



Lots of 'explosion' predictions!

We then left it overnight and had a discussion the next day about what happened. Students sat in a circle while I walked around slowly with it, they put on gloves and got to feel it, then they were asked to draw (again on sticky notes) what did happen. So cute ... some of them said that it turned into diamonds.

 




One says "road salt" and the other says, "it turned into ice cubes and glass"



Later, students used magnifying glasses to get a closer look, they compared it to real snowflakes and they put it on the overhead projector to see the light shine though it... From this little 'spark,' we continued with a snow inquiry for the rest of the week. We brought snow inside and made a snowman (of course they had to wear their gloves - they were quick to realize that just because they were inside didn't mean that the snow wasn't cold!), we made observations about how long it would take the snow to melt. In addition, we made pattern block snowflakes, read a book titled "Le plus beau des bonhommes," sang "La neige tombe" (lyrics are posted under songs and chants and we also sent it home in their blue duotangs) and we continued with the literacy and sequencing that we started before the holidays with this cute little poem:

Une boule de neige.

Deux boules de neige.

Trois boules de neige.

Un nez et deux bras.

Un chapeau et un balai.

Voici, mon bonhomme de neige.
 

Here, you see students working at 'making a snowman' ... carrot and all!

 

 

Tada! Although the carrot nose just wouldn't stay on! We also made predictions about how long it would take to melt:

Since many 4-year olds have a hard time with 'time,' I decided to go with a basic timeframe (long time - overnight or short time - before home time).

Next week, we're planning more 'winter sports' and 'winter clothing' activities ... With the NHL back up and running, I'm sure the kids will hear lots of 'hockey talk' at home. We live in a BIG hockey community where the most used excuse for uncompleted homework is "I had hockey last night" and it's a perfectly acceptable excuse. Anyways ... I'll start them with a question: "Aimes-tu jouer au hockey?" and see where it takes us. I had my boyfriend (bless his soul, honestly) make little hockey nets. So, I'm hoping that the kinders are at least a LITTLE interested in it. Otherwise, I'll have to lie to Mitch ...

TTFN,



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Building Bridges!

We have wooden blocks. We have foam blocks. We have duplo blocks. We have lego blocks ... Let me tell you, we have blocks!

For the past two and a half months, they've built structures and towers and castles. And, they've destroyed structures and towers and castles. We've taken pictures of their structures when they didn't want to break them during tidy-up and they've tried 'recreating' them ... And we've even let them keep their 'structures' in tact to avoid meltdowns.

Something that they haven't done in the past two and half months is they haven't built BRIDGES!

Last week, I created a book titled, "Est-ce qu'on peut construire?" inspired by Megan Adams at Play to Learn Kindergarten to push the kids out of their comfort zone. After all, isn't that reaaaaalllly what FDK is all about??

Megan explained it as, "a book full of structures ... some from around the world like the London Bridges, some from our country like the Scotiabank Place and some from our community, like our school." Found some pictures on the internet, laminated them, put a ring through it and ... tada! Our 'Can We Build It?' book of structures!

This is a prime example of what 'planting a seed for inquiry' looks like in Kindergarten. I made the book and put it in the block centre and explained it to a few students and it 'took off' all on it's own. Not to mention ... from this book, I found out that students are amazed with the bridges! Why ...  hello, next inquiry.

This is a girl being the 'site manager' ... describing to everyone what to do next.

But wait ... they could use the piece that already looks like a bridge from the train tracks. Duh! Why didn't I think of that?

 

While I was sitting there, playing with the kids, one of the girls asked what the words said. I read, "London Bridges" and she exclaimed, "LIKE THE SONG?" ... Naturally, we then broke out into a sing-song ... 

And, when they compared their bridge to the picture they noticed that they were missing something ... boats! So, they used the trains as boats. Maybe we need to get some boats!

No word of a lie, I turned around to the computer station and this kinder was on abcya.com on a game called, "Build the bridge". Are you kidding me?!

Okay, now that I'm all fired up again and excited about our next inquiry, I'd better get to planning my next steps! Thank goodness it's the weekend!

Any ideas on how to probe their thinking and extend this inquiry?!


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All because of a cardboard box

One of the hardest things about teaching in the new FDK program is being able to "let go" of the reigns and let the children guide the program ... guide the curriculum, their classroom, what they learn, and how they learn it ... and then steering them in the right direction, probing their higher-order thinking and getting them to ask questions and present their findings or solutions. It really is a whole new way of teaching!

Let me take a step back. Deep breath in ... and I'll start by explaining what this looks like in our classroom.

Last week, we had an empty Halloween chip box in our recycle bin. One of our curious little kinders picked it up out of the recycle bin and asked, "What's this doing in there?" I explained (to the best of my ability) why it was in the recycle bin, but for him, this just would not do. I looked up from our conversation and noticed about 20 eyes on us. I had no idea that 4 year olds really were more interested in the BOX than what's inside the box. I ran with the idea ... I walked around the school and found about 4 more big boxes that we could "play with".

During centre time, I made sure that the cubby area was clear and we put the boxes in there to play with. Students climbed in, they pushed one another, they slid across the floor, they started a bumper-cars war (okay, that didn't really happen, but I'm sure that if I wasn't sitting right there with them then it would have happened) ...

As one student climbed in, I closed up the lid on her and knocked on the outside of the box and said, "Little pig, little pig, let me in!" ... and to my surprise, she responded, "Not by the hair of my chinny-chin chin."

TAAADAAAAA! Lightbulbs went off. From a planning perspective, there is so much that a Kindergarten teacher can do with "Les Trois Petits Cochons." I could not have been more thankful for that kinder to pull the chip box out of the recycling bin  ... It was just the inspiration that I needed. And besides, I had been meaning to start an AIM play with them! From this day, we have since read "Les Trois Petits Cochons" a few times (and they're starting to 'read' it and chime in - yay!), we have drawn the story and we have created both LARGE and small 'house' replicas. Here are some visuals:

Youtube video of the AIM play, "Les Trois Petits Cochons." This isn't me ... but I also look this crazy when I 'read' the play. Haha.

The first little pig in his straw house.

 

 

Students were asked to make 'pig puppets' and they were given a variety of tools but they were not told HOW to make them. LOVE the creativity that came out of this.

 

Creating popsicle-stick houses. Another 'thought-provoking' activity because we could NOT get those houses to stick together.

These centres were presented as 'choice' centres ... students were not told that they HAD to complete a puppet or a house, or a drawing ... but because most of them are interested in the play and the story, they are interested in the follow-up activities. In a nutshell, even though the students were steering where they wanted their learning to go, I was right there directing them and pushing them to their limits, giving them problems to solve and questioning their process. For the adults in our room (always at least 2, usually 3, sometimes 4 ... and maybe even more!) we posted some 'open-ended questions' to help guide the students. At any centre, at any point in time, we can ask things like, "What would happen if ... " and "What made you think of doing it that way?"... questions to probe vocabulary and get students thinking about the process of their learning.

Our questions are posted WAYYYYY up high. Not at the students' level at all because they're there for the adults in the room.

 

 

I promise not to ever disappear again (it's been 3 weeks since my last blog - eek!).

 

Sorry!!

 

TTFN,

 

 



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How 'bout them apples?!

Apples, apples and more apples.

I think this is a 'blogger-no-no' but my post is going to be mostly pictures. It's hard to explain INQUIRY without pictures!!

Here are some of the fun things we did during centre/community time this week:

1. We read stories about 'apples':

Click Here for Link to Scholastic

 

  

Click Here for Link to Renaud-Bray 

Click Here for Link to Amazon

2. We took a survey:

I explained the chart, reading the French words and making reference to the coloured magnets and pulled students names out of a baggie. As their name was called, they came up to the white board to choose which kind of apple they like best. In addition, they had to tell me the colour that they chose. We also counted the results in French and realized that green apples are the most popular kind of apple in our class!

3. We wrote apple sentences:

I prepared the following document (Click here for download) which includes our shared reading (which was later put on chart paper), sentence strips used to label pictures, and two writing activities. It's not very fancy, but it's the 'gist' of our 'teacher directed' centres this week.

**The obsessive-compulsive part of me just wasn't satisfied with this 'simple' version of our unit, so I created a fancy one and uploaded it to Teachers Pay Teachers. **

Students were not given examples of what the final products should have looked like and this allowed for some creativity in the activities. For example, there were apple die-cuts already made, but crayons were also made available along with pencils and markers. The result - no two pages looked alike! :)

4. Painting with apples:

I LOVVVVE this example. Inquiry at it's finest ... Green apple, orange apple, green apple, green apple, orange HANDPRINT?! Hmm ... In my 'instructions' for this centre, all I said was that there was paint in a shallow dish and there would be apples to use to put the paint on the paper. Stereotypically, you see this project look like beautifully placed apples stamped in perfect patterns. Well, when you don't tell students HOW to do it, they form their own interpretations of what to do. And by all means, it's not wrong ... the point of the painting apples activity was simply to explore the medium of paint with something other than a paintbrush. Obviously, this student in particular realized that her hands could also be used as a tool. A simple, yet astonishing discovery when you're 3 and a half years old.

When I put all of the students' work together on an inquiry board, this is what we get:

 

 

I still have to add 'words' and 'commentary' to the inquiry board, but for the most part ... this sums up our week in kinderland!

 

Happy Turkey Weekend everyone!!

 

TTFN,

 



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Apples and Worms

Where do I start?!

Okay, honestly … where do I even begin? There has been SO much happening in our Kindergarten class these past few weeks that I’m not sure where to start! This blog post will be a mix of things as I go through my Ipad and remember all of our fun happenings!

By the way, times like this make me realize just how invaluable the Ipads are to documentation for assessment purposes. I keep saying, “Oh ya!” and “Oh, wow I forgot about …” as I scroll through the camera roll. As the year goes on, I’m hoping to become more tech-savvy when it comes to apps but for now … the camera is coming in handy!

Yet another inquiry …

APPLES AND WORMS!

During snack time, one of my little guys pulled out a MacIntosh apple that had a little brown spot on it. He held it up and said, “Does a worm live in here?!” I told him that a worm probably didn’t live in his apple (I didn’t want to scare him from ever eating apples again!), but questioned him about it!

Next week, we’re going to focus on apples a little bit more. Some of our centres will feature apple patterning, apple poems (en français), counting and sorting by colour and of course – eating! Our school is fortunate enough to have a fully functioning kitchen, so I’m hoping (with the support of administration, of course) to give the children a true-making-learning-hands-on-and-as-real-as-can-be-experience by baking some apple crisp! If I peel the apples and give the students some plastic knives to dice them, it might not be as impossible as it sounds. Plus, they’re going to LOVE eating it!

After the 'worm in the apple' conversation, I decided to purchase some very REAL looking worms and soil for our sensory bin. The kiddies had a blast putting soil in their pails and digging for worms. The custodian on the other hand … not so much. Heehee.

TWO BOYS PLAYING IN THE DIRT ... ALTHOUGH I DON'T LIKE TO LIMIT CETNRES, THIS ONE HAD A MAXIMUM OF THREE STUDENTS ALLOWED AT ONE TIME.

Here are some pictures of some other learning centres in our room: Literacy Centre and Calendar Centre.

 

LITERACY CENTRE - PRACTICING NAMES - AND NOT JUST THEIR OWN!

 

 

CALENDAR CENTRE

 

Let me explain 'the Calendar Centre' ... with the focus OFF of long circle-time, where students are sitting for extended periods of time doing calendar, we decided that having a centre for the weather bear would be a better choice for our students. After dressing “Mr. Ours” for the rain (umbrella and all), they spun a spinner to dress him up for other seasons too. At this centre, we rotate the weather bear and the calendar and have students manipulate the date and the days of the week.

That's all for now! Stay tuned to see how our 'apple inquiry' goes!

TTFN,

 

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Our first inquiries!

The new FDK program is child-centered, developmentally appropriate and play-based. In our classroom, we focus on ‘inquiry’ … which means, we plan for tomorrow based on what the students are interested in and what their needs are today. This week, we had two really great ‘inquiries’ …

If you’ve ever tried to teach while a fly, a spider or a bee were in your classroom, you’ll understand that students are WAAAAYYYY more interested in insects than anything you have to say. So, we went with it. We trapped two wasps this week, put them into little glass containers, took out some magnifying glasses and set up a ‘science discovery’ table.

We asked questions like, “What do you see with the magnifying glass that you didn’t see before?” … and “What will happen to the wasp if we leave him in the jar? … How do you know?”  In planning for next week, I’m going to ‘revisit’ the wasp inquiry … I’m going to read “Les abeilles"

                                               (Click here for the link to Scholastic)

And we’re going to fill in our anchor chart (using as much French language as possible, sandwiching the two languages) using prior knowledge and our newly learned info from our inquiry and our read-aloud. I’m planning for this “mini-lesson” to take about 5 – 10 minutes … no longer than that. If students aren’t interested in it, we’ll cut it short.

 

I also have a cute ‘craftivity’ for students to complete, inspired by Kacey at Doodle Bugs Teaching Blog, which will look something like this:

I’ve cut out all the ‘pieces’ and students will be responsible for gluing the pieces together, including the stripes – this should turn out quite interesting! Heehee.

Our second inquiry began in the block area. My teaching partner read “If You Take a Mouse to School” by Laura Numeroff (Click here for a link to this story being read on youtube -  super cute link btw because it’s a child reading it). During centre time, a few of our students were building towers. When I inquired about their towers, one student said, “This is where the mouse lives like in our book.” Ding, ding, ding. Bells went off inside my head. I questioned further, and he went to go get the book. Sure enough, he was doing a fantastic job replicating what he had seen in the book. I asked him if it would help if he kept the book open and tried to ‘copy’ it to challenge himself. So he did.

 

Two of our kinders (one JK, one SK), looking at the book and trying to replicate it.

 

A few other students came by to see what the excitement was about. I encouraged some of the girls to ‘draw’ the mouse house. It seems that we have little architects and contractors in our class … drawing up plans, building according to the plan.

This is a picture that one of our JKs drew of the tower ... there's a little mouse in the picture too (how cute ... and yet, so detailed!)

Our next steps, as teachers … well, it’s time for us to get down and build towers!! Next week we’re going to build some towers, take pictures of our towers and challenge our little contractors to out-build the teacher. We can also use "wonder" questions in the block area to stretch their thinking and we can make connections to what's being done in the block area to other centres (i.e. write about it, draw it, create a playdough model, etc.. )

Have I said how much I love my job?

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