Celebrating Poetry, maps, and planting a garden

We had yet another very busy week in kindergarten.  Every morning when we start our day, I go through our events with the students. The students now say: "Let us guess,  we have another BUSY day, right?"  They are ALWAYS correct.  Our days are packed and we use every moment!  

As you all know, we celebrated national poetry month in April by writing poetry and inviting families to a Poetry Cafe.  The students spent the month of April writing several types of poems.  The list includes, but is not limited to: list poems, the five senses poems, place poems, and concrete poems.  Monday, the children also made sun tea for their audience and wrote invitations.  

We practiced our poems by reading them to friends, and also reading them in front of the class.  Tuesday we had a dress rehearsal in front of Mrs. Gore's friends.  We also all dressed in our "fancy" attire for this very important day.   

Below you will see some photos from our Poetry Cafe and our after party.

Later in the week Mrs. Garrabrant and I presented the students with their very own "book of poetry."  They were all so excited to share poems with their friends.  Later, on Friday, we shared them again with our preschool reading buddies.  

In addition to poetry, we continued working on our playground map.  We decided to use Google Earth to see what our playground looks like from a "birds eye view."  What an amazing resource!  We are able to now see the shape and outline of where everything belongs on our playground.  Here is the progress we made this week.  

Students working on the grass area for the garden. 

Students adding grass. 

These two photos show students adding bushes and trees!

Below you can see the start to our key.

The students labeled their work.

Two barn/sheds located on our playground.

A view of our board thus far.  

In addition to everything else, the students have been asking about what we are going to plant.  We talked about one of the nice features of our garden is that we get to plan for  next years kindergartners.  The children decided they wanted to plant a "salad" for the children next year.  We planted lettuce, carrots, onions, and peppers.  A couple weeks ago when we were weeding the garden, we found some potatoes that were not harvested last year.  They had already started growing roots so we replanted them.  Therefore, we are growing potatoes too!

Here are some of the potatoes we found last week.

The potato plants are beginning to grow.  

We wrote labels on paint sticks so we know what is growing where.

Students working together as a team to complete a hard task!

Lastly, this week we presented Miss Kristen with "Asset builder of the Month."

It was a beautiful weekend and I hope everyone was able to enjoy the weather.  

Have an amazing week!

Mrs. Julie Atkin

Maps and Fancy Day

 We had yet another exciting week in kindergarten.  While we were preparing for our upcoming poetry cafe, we were able to squeeze in a lot of other amazing learning experiences!  As mentioned previously, the students decided they wanted to map the playground and document for all to see on our hallway bulletin board.  

Before we started the project, we read several books about cartographers (people that make maps),  what designates a map, and much more.  We learned that maps are made to look as if you are looking down on it with a "bird's eye view."  We also read that all cartographers must study and know the space they are going to map.  The students thought the playground was very appropriate since we typically spend time there every day.  

The first thing they thought they should do is to actually go outside on the playground to study the space and "really look" at what makes up the playground.  

We gathered the clipboards and pencils to sketch...  

Together we decided that we should break up into four teams: blacktop, garden, climber, and miscellaneous.  Students chose the space they wanted to work on.  Next, we talked about making a plan on our bulletin board.  It was decided that we should map the spaces out before adding any actual materials or items for the map.  We showed the spaces by stapling yarn to the board.  

The students working on the blacktop area shredded black construction paper to simulate the black mulch under the climber.

This week we also had "fancy day.".  Here are a few photos of the students dressed in their fancy attire.

The upcoming weeks are very busy for us.  This Tuesday the students are looking forward to poetry cafe!  Please join us at 2:00pm in our classroom.  

Have a great week!

Mrs. Julie Atkin

Humpy Dumpty Design Challenge

This week we took a break from our transportation/map study to focus on completing our Humpty Dumpty STEM lesson.  As you know from last week Humpty is the castle guard and keeps falling off the wall due to bad weather. The students design challenge was to design something for Humpty so he wouldn't continue to fall off the wall and hurt himself.

We began the week looking at how materials can be combined to make something new. We tested materials to see how they hold together in both "rain" (water) and "wind" (fan). Some noticed specific materials didn't work well with water and wind.

Testing with wind.

Testing with rain.

Next, we studied different types of seats that keep people safe. We looked at a pilots seat, cars eats for children and babies, and high chairs. The students noticed that they all had some kind of seat and seat belt. They documented what kind of seat they thought Humpty should use and then got together with their engineering team to start their plans.

There were four jobs for the team members; materials engineer, information engineer, project engineer, and test engineer each student had a job.  They talked together as a team, put their ideas down on paper and began building. We gave them plenty of time to design and build but reminded them that all engineers have deadlines!  When they all finished they did their first round of testing. The test engineer poured the "rain" and I controlled the "wind". Take a look at Humpty's new seats.

This seat is complete with a lap bar and Humpty has a safety helmet with a whole for his "eyes".

This group created a safety belt as well as a seat.

This design also has a seat belt and a wind shield to block the "wind".

 This group designed a house for Humpty to use on top of the wall for shelter.  They also gave hims a seat to sit in with a seat belt that goes over top of his head (It's hard to see in this photo.).

 This group wanted Humpty to be sitting higher up on the wall.  They also gave humpty a seat and rather than a seat belt they gave hims a safety rope.  The rope is at the top of the egg. 


Here is how the safety rope works.

 

Testing:

As they tested, they documented weather Humpty stayed intact or if he fell. When the first test was over there was time for redesigns or to make their first design better.  It was amazing to see how creative and different each design was.  All the students embraced this challenge and had a great time.  I know we have several future engineers in our classroom!

Next week we will continue looking at maps as well as celebrating Earth Day for the whole week!!!

Don't forget Wednesday is fancy day. Have a great week.

Mrs. Julie Atkin