The Wind!
Please CLICK HERE to see our Home Fun for the weekend - it’s all about the wind!
This week we started to have a conversation about the wind, and just what exactly it does and a little bit about where it might come from. We find it really important to value the children’s theories and ideas. It may not necessarily line up with the actual science of how things work, but there is so much time for them to discover that as they grow. For now we want them to come up with creative and thoughtful ideas that relate to our topic. As we start experimenting and playing with wind, they will start discovering the actual science of it!
Antoine: The tunnel makes the wind. Wind comes from the wheels of the train. When it’s windy, the people come inside [the train].
India: Fire makes the wind. Over the hills and far away. It’s only windy outside, not inside. It swishes my hair and I need a pony tail.
Millie: From the air.
Una: Wind blows my hair and blows the snow. It makes it fall down [the snow].
Cleo: It blows our hair. It feels good. The wind comes from trees. It comes from the leaves. The wind goes only outside.
Chase: It windy today. It cold. You blow away! I fall down in the wind.
Aris: No, it’s not windy inside.
Adeline: A cow make wind. When says, “Moo.” I do it my mouth (she demonstrated by blowing).
Louisa: The wind helps my friend Una feel better. I feel the wind in my hair, too.
After having a discussion about the wind, we started to do some preliminary experiments. First, we threw dancing scarves up and into the air with just our own momentum. They did go up in the air, but not very high. Our next step was to turn on the fan (some wind can happen inside!), and let the scarves go flying! It was super exciting. We used both the fan on the wall and also a fan that we could all reach.
More experiments will occur next week- we are so excited!
Tic Tac Toe
Our game board and pieces are complete- we got to learn how to play tic tac toe, three in a row! It was really fun to put our hardwork into play. Each child got a chance to play a game against another child. There were some winners, and some who ended in a draw. Either way, it was great to start learning how to strategize, differentiate the Xs from the Os, and enjoy time with friends.
Inclines
This week we continued exploring inclines/ramps.
An inclined plane is one of the six classical simplified machines- it’s use is of so much importance to us in our every day lives. The more we play with ramps, the better we will comprehend their value and how to use them to make our lives easier!
Lunar New Year
We like to celebrate diverse cultural traditions in our classroom. For lunar new year, we read poems about dragons, created our own green dragon, explored red and gold paint, and tasted some very sweet and juicy oranges! Thanks for helping us celebrate the year of the Rat/Mouse.
Specialists
Diane helped us create a delicious salad with radishes and cucumbers with a honey vinegar dressing.
In Spanish, we sang the days of the week, spoke about farm animals, and thought about polar animals as well.
Coach C had us do a lot of kicking practice this week, and we played a silly game where we kicked the ball toward him to wake him up!
Andrew got a lot of requests to sing different books with us today- head shoulders knees and toes, baby bear, and from head to toe were on the docket.
Reminders
Next week is our Kindness week; a lot of our activities will have a basis in empathy and kindness.
The science fair is coming up! Saturday, Feb. 8th.
Monday, Feb. 10th is school picture day- we will let you know our time frame as soon as it’s available.
We are closed Mon & Tues Feb. 17 & 18 for Presidents Day