100th Day!

100 down, 80 to go! It's hard to believe we're more than half way through the year!
Today we celebrated the 100th day of school by comparing the 100 items students brought, counting 100 snacks, and making funny hats with 10 groups of 10 on them. The students had great fun!

Rock'n in the Classroom

Today we began our 2 week study of rocks, sand and soil. The children brought in different rocks to share - we passed them around to look and touch them. It is interesting how different they are! Then they used hand lenses (magnifying glasses) to study samples of rocks, sand, and soil. Tomorrow they will glue a sample of each into their Learning Journal and write a description about them. Ask your child what different words he / she would use to describe the rocks.

We also learned about verbs today and read a funny book called To Root, To Toot, To Parachute. Ask your child what a verb is or to simply show you an example! We will be focusing on using verbs in our writing this week.

In order for something to become clean, something else must become dirty.- Murphy's Conservation of Filth Law

Floating in Space

Today we read about gravity and why astronauts float in space. Ask your child what would happen if we did not have gravity here on Earth?

We observed a model of the sun, Earth, and moon with the sun lit up in the dark. Ask your child what orbit means and what 2 things orbit something!

We also weighed various objects using a balance scale. Ask your child what he / she weighed and what other object was put in the balance bucket to compare it to.

Have a great weekend!

Sink or Float?

The entire Kindergarten grade level performed sink and float experiments for the Science Fair. Our class conducted their experiment today with the help of one of our parents, Laura Rice. She discussed particles and density and the difference between the sugar in Coke and the artificial sweetener in Diet Coke and Coke Zero. They discussed their hypotheses and why they chose sink or float and then dropped a can of each soda into a large container of water. The students were excited to see what happened! Ask your child about our experiment and what happened today. Please stop by the Science Fair next Friday, February 5th, from 5-8 pm to see the results!

Sun Up, Sun Down

Today we learned how the Earth moves around the sun and why we have day and night. We made a sun and earth using a dixie cup and pipecleaner. Ask your child to explain it to you and show you how it moves!

Cute quotable moment of the day:

Teacher: Who can tell me why we have daytime and night time?
Student: Because we need to sleep!
(oh, if they only knew!)

Marshmallow Mania!

It has been a fun week learning how to measure things. Today the students worked in table groups to make a snowman and measured his height with a sweet squishy treat that they devoured afterwards! Ask your child about what his / her snowman was and where he / she lived!

Week of January 19 - 22

This week we're beginning our study of the solar system. We will begin learning about the sun and stars so keep your ears open for some interesting facts! We'll also be learning about length and how we measure things. In Kindergarten, there are many different units of measurement such as using paperclips or marshmallows!

When the homework packet comes home on Tuesday, please notice that the attached sheets are due back by Friday.

Dates to remember: Scholastic book order due Friday, January 22nd (website & login information is listed above)

Week of January 11 - 15

This week we completed our study of winter. We read several stories about mittens. Ask your child about the different versions and what was the same or different in each book. We made birdfeeders, which were sent home on Friday, and performed an experiment with freezing a cup of water to see whether it would expand or shrink in the container. Ask your child if his / her hypothesis was correct!