Blog Archives
Cool Camouflage!!
You know I love all things Science (well almost all things!!) and helping my students explore the world around them is right up there!
I wanted to share this super simple idea that allows students to explore the idea of camouflage and helps them to understand why camouflage is so important to animals, insects, and sea creatures. With some nature themed fabrics and some super cute critters, my students were able to explore why animals are camouflaged.
We spent about an hour exploring all the ways we could best camouflage all of these animals and insects. It was very interesting to hear my students thinking about why they placed some of the animals and insects where they did to help hide them. We had fun after this taking those same animals and insects outside to try to camouflage them there!
Click here to read more about our fun adventures in camouflage and to get everything you’ll need!
Forces & Motion
For those of you who visit often, you know how much I LOVE Science! When I was asked to help write the new standards for science in Indiana, I knew right away that I wanted some Force & Motion standards in Kindergarten because there are lots of fun toys out there to help students understand how Force & Motion work.
Using a few very simple toys, I was able to help my students understand how they can affect Force and Motion. We used pinwheels, tops, spinning wheels, and several ramp kits. While working with these materials, my students not only had fun, but they learned about Force & Motion. We talked about how we can move the pinwheels with our breath, push the tops and spinning wheels in different directions, and help cars move more quickly or slowly down ramps by changing out the texture of the ramps!
Check out the fun we had here!
Seasonal Changes
With the change in seasons this week, I decided to share some activities with my kiddos that help them understand that there are different changes in each of the different seasons. These are all great activities that I can get out at the beginning of each new season and my students can learn new information each time!
We used the Earth Science File Folder Games, the Season Readers, and Create a Seasonal scene sticker activities from Oriental Trading to help us learn about and document our learning of the seasons!
My students ABSOLUTELY loved changing out the clothing options on the weather dog; one of the game options that is included in the Earth Science File Folder games.
Want to read more? Click here and find out how you can get your own seasonal supplies to enhance your students’ learning of the seasons!
Snowflake Science
You all know how near and dear to my heart teaching science to my Kindergarten students is! One of my favorite science concepts to share with my students is weather! If I weren’t a Kindergarten teacher, I would have been a meteorologist. I’ve always loved the weather and I’ve taken several classes in high school and college just for my own knowledge. It is neat to me to understand how weather works and how we can tell what the weather is going to be like just by understanding what the sky is telling us!
In Indiana (where I live!), we have a saying…”Wait 5 minutes and the weather will change!” It is SO true! So a few days ago, we were going about our day and when we looked out the window, the weather had gone from a wonderful sunny winter day, to snow!!
At the start of every winter, I get out my winter kit, so that when we get a snow happening while we are at school, we just pull it out and go! We do get outside to collect snowflakes on black paper, and then we come in and have some fun creating our own:
I got a class set of these fingerprint snowflake kits from Oriental Trading, just so we could talk about how each snowflake is unique, just like each and every one of us! We also created our own snowflakes out of pipe cleaners and beads, and we sorted some sparkly snowflakes! Click here to read more about our snowflake science fun!
Science Aprons
If you’ve been reading my blog for anytime at all, you know how much I like {ok–LOVE} science!! I was thrilled to be able to create some cute aprons for my students to wear when we “do” science experiments! They were super easy and quick to make and each one of my students will get to wear one each time we are investigating.
Check them out here and be sure to check out the book, “What is a Scientist?” to use to introduce science to your students!
Frog Foldable
We’ve been learning about tadpoles and how they grow into frogs ever since we got our tadpoles in our classroom. Because I had just attended our state science conference and learned how to make these super cool foldables, I thought I would try them out with my Kinders to organize our thoughts about tadpoles and frogs.
Dinah Zike is the master behind this foldable and I got this foldable from this book.
I used a 9×12 envelope and folded it as instructed in the book. We glued the side under the envelope flap into our Inquiry notebooks. I put a different colored “x” on each of the flaps and parts so I could show the children where to glue each part. On the two inside flaps, we glued a 5 green and speckled frogs song booklet and the life cycle of a frog accordion booklet. On the top back panel, we glued a model of a tadpole that can grow and change with our tadpoles. We hid the extra back and front legs in the secret pocket that you can open from the flap. On top of the secret pocket, we glued a life cycle fold up book.
On top of the envelope (when its all closed up and folded), we glued a frog tree map that we completed together. They turned out really great and I’m working on creating them for sale. We are going to create a new one next week for farms, so I’ll show you those soon!
Kristen's Kindergarten 