Scientific Rigor

"You can only flip two cards at a time, and you need to wait until I flip the timer to start."

"Touch with one finger, and then tell me what you think it is: glue or oobleck."

"Take a small sniff, then tell me which scent it is."

Our scientists were doing their best this past week to conduct their science experiments. The participants often had their own ideas about what needed to happen, so they sometimes needed to re-start experiments or modify their procedures. We have some more trials to conduct, and then we will interpret our results and figure out how to best share them at our science symposium at the end of the month.

Morgan's PK and K Class

*Worked with scissors to cut up pine branches!

*Worked with counting books, dipped Q-tips in paint to trace the numbers 1-20, and practiced writing their numbers in sand trays.

*Explored different textures in the texture bin such as uncooked rice and beans. Also, explored hair gel, play dough, shaving cream.

*Worked with Kapla blocks creating neat structures. 

*Some children learned how to play dominos, and count and understand tally marks.

*Worked with stencils, markers, and colored pencils. 

*Played alphabet and number bingo. Then had to work together to find an item that started with that card letter or number. 

*Came up with stories using the felt people, story boards, and puppets!

*Worked with beads and pipe cleaners to count out bead bracelets for families and friends. 

*Did some science experiments with the big kids!

*Looked for different animal tracks in the snow. 

Tracy's 1st - 4th Class

In math, we continued to work on finding the areas and perimeters of different shapes. The fourth graders are learning how to multiply two-digit numbers - a process I'm calling the multiplication cha-cha as we move back and forth across the tens and ones places. The second-grade class is learning different visual organizers for number stories (ex: start, end, change diagrams or part, part, total diagrams).

It was the week of debates: watermelon versus mango, lasers versus lava, and red versus blue. I was so proud of our kids as they offered their "declaration of greatness," rebuttal, and "final six." They offered constructive feedback to each other and noted the strengths in each argument. Make sure your child shares their work with you.