Fall is in the Air

We have been busy observing and discovering the world around us as the seasons change! After a walk in the neighborhood observing nature, several questions popped up, such as: " I wonder why leaves turn yellow, red and orange in the fall. I wonder if trees fall down in fall. I wonder why trees have small branches and are different sizes." We brought back leaves and the students drew them in their observation notebooks. We even conducted an experiment to determine why the leaves changed colors!

 

Later, we went to the Pumpkin Patch to observe other plants and trees ready for fall harvest. We also observed our surroundings, as we are comparing the country to the city since reading "Town Mouse and Country Mouse." In the classroom, we are examining different types of communities and beginning to explore the many roles and jobs people do to make our community work.

Lastly, we continued to observe and discover many things that we harvested at the Pumpkin Patch. It was so wonderful to have parents help us weigh, measure and compare our fruits and vegetables. More discoveries were made, such as "a pumpkin weighs more than my apples AND potatoes. I noticed that my pumpkin had lots of lines on it."

Using Technology in Kindergarten

Technology plays a big role in our lives. They help us learn lots of new things about our world, and keep us entertained.  We are fortunate to have regular access to six classroom ipads that will be used a tool for learning and documenting our ideas.  We have a variety of educational apps that we allow the children to use, and this week I explicitly taught the Bumblebees how to document using photos and (later) Keynote--an apple version to Powerpoint. 

 

 

After taking pictures with the photo app, each group presented their pictures to the class.  In addition to using technology, documenting our learning, we are also learning how to share our work with others through formal presentations.

In addition, we used the ipads to help us with our self-portraits.  Every month I will have the students draw a picture of themselves. This informal assessment looks at the developmental level of your child, as well as observing how the see themselves.  I took pictures of some of the kids so that they had an image to study while drawing. This made a significant difference between this month and last month's drawing.  Those observation and drawing skills will be used throughout science to make new discoveries with nature.