Goats and Chickens!

Our school is very lucky to have therapy goats and chickens on campus.  Our Kindergarten class has recently taken on the task of the main egg collectors and distributors.  This has led to opportunities for math, data collection and animal interactions as well as inquiry into which treats the animals like the best and questions about the life cycle of a chicken.  Note, we do not have any roosters, therefore our eggs will not hatch.

Our two therapy goats, Cinnamon and Sugar, vying for a treat of carrots from the Kinders.

This is first time a chicken allowed me to pick her up and allowed the children to pet her!

 

After gathering we count the eggs and write the total on our calendar.  We also note the number of each color of egg collected that day.

We use the egg carton as a 12 frame to show the collected number a different way.

Checking the coop.  Note, this is an unusually large number of eggs!

Hopes and Dreams on Display

One of the ways I like to connect with families is to ask parents, at the beginning of the year or during parent/teacher conferences, to write their hope and dream for their child (for their Kindergarten experience).  This are displayed in the form of a chandelier.  Each child chooses and adds a peace bead to the chandelier.  In the future I plan to add the student's hopes and dreams to a ribbon also.  Here are the creations we've made so far.

This is the chandelier in progress at open house night.  This one uses a quilting hoop as the base or anchor.

The ribbons are attached to a piece of cactus wood I was given.

 

Making rain/ Learning about the water cycle

This is a great activity to try during a weather unit. You need 2 liter soda bottles (or another type of plastic bottle). Cut the bottle in half. Put about and inch of warm water in the bottom of the bottle. It helps to color it blue (for the ocean). Invert the top half into the bottom half (with the cap on). Fill the top with ice. After a few minutes clouds will form and droplets of "rain" will form on the inverted top. It's raining!

I had to update this post as we have done so much more around the water cycle and weather since the original project in 2010.  Weather has been added to our standards and our outdoor program affords us all kinds of opportunities to explore the power of water!  This year (2023) we had a week of extremely warm weather following an extremely snowy winter!  Our Mount Snowmungeous melted so quickly we actually had a sink hole on our campus!  The following is our water story.  One of our K teachers  taught us this song about the water cycle 

The Water Cycle

(Tune of O My Darlin Clementine)

Evaporation! (float fingers up from waist level like rising water vapor)

Condensation! (make cloud shapes with hands overhead)

Precipitation on my mind, (rain fingers down and point to head)

And it's called the water cycle (trace circle in the air in front of your body)

And it happens all the time.

This is another way to do the "making rain" experiment.  I like this one better because it takes less space, doesn't require ice and can be ongoing and used to collect data.

Mount Snowmungeous (a small section)

We visited the sink hole and talked about what we notice and what we wonder.

We used this simple video to learn more

A few days later these workers came and filled the hole and we were able to talk to them about what they were doing.  I think they got a kick out of teaching Kindergarten for a little bit!

Along with our learning about sink holes we also noticed the flowing water and did an inquiry about snow melt.  We followed the path of the water flowing from the snow melt, to the gutters and cracks in the parking lot pavement as it flowed into a drain that creates a small stream that flows into our school pond!

Checking the storm drains.  Are they full?

The water flows!  What can float?  What stops the water?  We reclaimed the work dam as a wall that blocks water.

Exploring the stream that flows to our school pond.  We are so lucky to have these resources on our school campus!  Rain boots are on our yearly supply list.

Making Felted Acorns

Felting/making felted acorns is one of my favorite fall crafts.  This is a great multi-sensory experience for little hands.  You will need a collection of clean acorn caps, felt, tubs for warm soapy water and hot glue guns for the adult helpers. 

Felting outside!

First, students select a thumb size amount of loose felt.  I like to use 2 or 3 different colors.  While dry, kids roll the felt into a loose ball.  Then they dip the felt into the warm water, squeeze out the water  and roll the felt into a tight ball.  They keep dipping, squeezing and rolling until the felt makes a tight dense ball.  Then the kids choose an acorn cap (previously collected and the teacher hot glues the cap onto the felt.  If desired the acorn can be glued to a magnet or a piece of yarn to create a necklace.

Proud of our creations.

I like to keep a collection for counting and other sensory activities.