Learning Tales: March 2015

Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Last Week's Learning March 23rd-27th

Water Travels in a Circle

Water travels in a circle… YES it does,

Water travels in a circle… Yes it does!

Water goes up with evaporation,

Then it makes condensation, and comes down in precipitation,

Yes it does! (Sung by Ethan Mitchell)

Last week’s sunny, cloudy, windy and rainy weather assisted Ethan Mitchell with real life experiences and proved the above lyrics to be true after he introduced the rhythmic tune to peers! Vermont’s fickle springtime weather is perfect for investigating the WATER CYCLE and CUMULUS and NIMBUS CLOUDS! Miraculously a large, puffy CUMULUS CLOUD floated into the classroom meeting space and introduced itself to scholars using a first and last name; CUMULUS CLOUD. As pretend water droplets (student’s bodies) evaporated and were absorbed into the large and puffy

cloud it turned dark and grew in size to form a NIMBUS CLOUD and raindrops!



Students transform into water droplets and gather to form a NIMBUS CLOUD!

A PRESCHOOL CLOUD FACT:

Clouds fill up with water and when the cloud is filled with water, it becomes heavy and the water falls to the ground.

Cloud Watchers also performed the following 3 experiments;

Experiment 1

Shape a cotton ball into a cumulus "cloud" shape.

Using an eyedropper, drop rain water onto the cotton ball (cumulus cloud). Continue dropping drops until it starts to "rain" from the "cloud."

Add more water via the eyedropper until more "rain" falls onto a paper towel.

Experiment 2

Fill a balloon with air to make it puffy and light (a cumulus cloud)

Fill a balloon with water to make it big and heavy (a nimbus cloud)

RAFI compares the weight and size of a CUMULUS and NIMBUS CLOUD

Experiment 3

Fill a transparent cup half full of water and add shaving cream to form a cumulus cloud.

Begin to add water drops to the cumulus cloud until it transforms into a nimbus cloud

Observe raindrops below the nimbus cloud as they fall

Mathematicians also used cloud dough to shape and count raindrops. As more rain drops were created and were ADDED onto cumulus clouds… heavy nimbus clouds appeared!



After reading Eric Carl’s book, Little Cloud and Charles Shaw’s story, It Looked Like Spilt Milk, writers authored a page and illustrated CLOUD SHAPES!

Monday, March 23, 2015

This Week's Learning March 16 2015

MARCH PRESCHOOL HIGHLIGHTS

“Children are born with a powerful natural impulse to investigate their environment. Lillian Katz

This week Preschoolers welcomed spring and spent time;

Asking and answering questions

Observing

Recording and discussing several hypotheses about wind and maple trees!

Scholars learned they have two lungs that are used for inhaling and exhaling air. After practicing blowing air out of a straw to create WIND (moving air) they participated in a COTTON BALL game! Each time the cotton ball stopped on the STOP sign (a red dot marked with an “S”), preschoolers earned a point. It was extremely tricky to navigate the moving ball on a piece of paper without blowing it off course!

After listening to a story about “JACK and JILL” that went up a hill to fetch a pail of maple sap, Preschoolers collected pretend sap using syringes and filled transparent buckets. They also learned that sap is stored in the roots of the maple tree during the winter months. When spring arrives, the sap flows from the roots to the trunk and then continues up to branches where springtime buds are formed. Maple tree Paper sack trees are on display in our classrooms!

“YUMMY, YUMMY, PANCAKES in my TUMMY!”

After stirring, pouring and flipping pancake batter, preschoolers enjoyed a sweet spring treat. The tricky part came when it was time to cut the pancakes…

Persistent scholars prevailed!

Next Week’s Learning

March 23-27th

New Vocabulary; Cumulus/Nimbus

Young scientists will explore various cause and effect experiments and learn the following rain and cloud facts;

Clouds fill up with water and when the cloud is filled with water, it becomes heavy and water falls to the ground.

Clouds have names just like people and their name tells us about what they look like.

Water from a cloud follows an UP, DOWN, UP, DOWN pattern, which is known as the water cycle.

Featured Book;

Eric Carle’s book, Little Cloud, will inspire Scholars to participate in being

“CLOUD WATCHERS”

I looked up in the sky and thought I saw a ____________, but it was just a cloud in the sky!

Graphing Sunny and Cloudy Weather

Cloud Experiment

Creating “nimbus clouds” that produce “RAIN”

Friday, March 13, 2015

This Weeks Learning - March 9-13

EARLY SPRING 2015

The Chinese New Year was celebrated from February 19-March 5 in the country of China. The festive Chinese celebration is also known as Spring Festival! This week, preschool scholars began investigating “spring happenings” in our country and also enjoyed a variety of rich CHINESE cultural activities. After discussing the annual spring Chinese celebration, each young learner created a traditional Chinese fan and later performed a FAN Dance! Each dancer wore a silk scarf and followed many movements that required children to understand a variety of math and directional concepts.

FAN DANCE

“Wave your fan above your head.”

“Wave your fan below.”

“Wave your fan in front.”

“Wave your fan behind”

“Wave your fan under your legs.”

“Wave your fan beside yourself.”

“Wave your fan to the left.”

“Wave your fan to the right.”

“Wave your fan in front five times.”

“Wave your fan to the left 10 times.”

Little Seeds GERMINATE in the Spring Time

OH MY… little wheat grass seeds DID germinate and grew eight inches tall!

Gardeners set to work sowing wheat grass seeds and learned the major parts of a plant (STEMS and ROOTS). They also discussed important ingredients needed for seeds to sprout… soil, water and sunlight! After pinching seeds and placing them on top of rich soil, gardeners sprinkled a top layer of loam on top of seeds and tucked them in for a wee spring time nap, “Good night sleep tight!” Finally a few drops of RAIN were added and transparent pots were placed in the sunlight!

FOUR DAYS LATER…

”Let’s go fly a kite

Up to the highest height”…

Preschoolers are learning that AIR is invisible; that WIND is moving AIR; and, that WIND is needed to fly a kite!

They are also learning that a kite is a RHOMBUS shape made up of 4 triangles. While designing individual kites, scholars drew a different line design in each triangle!