FOSS Science-Trees

We use the FOSS hands on science kits in our district and our current unit is TREES.  So we have been looking at trees and the seeds they grow from.  It’s fun to show them a foot long Sugar Pine pine cone, and then a giant redwood cone which is smaller than my thumbnail.  We’ve looked at maple seeds, and pine nuts and Walnuts and Acorns.  We’ve looked at tree rings, and counted them.  I showed them a picture of a giant redwood where the growth rings indicating that the tree was around 1000 years old when they cut it down.

ANYWAY,  Friday, after breakfast duty I escorted the kindergarten kids from breakfast over to the kindergarten playground. (I’d like to meet the idiot architect that designed this school, but that’s a different story, sufficeth to say that for security and safety, it requires an adult escort to get the kindergarten kids from breakfast to their playground…….) When I got there the other two kindergarten teachers where kind of laughing.  I asked them what was so funny and they told me to ask Samantha what she had.  Now, Samantha is a little bit odd, nice, but odd.  She has spent most of her short life as an only child, but recently got two new little brothers.  She talks and acts like a miniature adult having spent most of her life mostly around adults.    Anyway,  as I walked up to her she held out a Ziploc baggie full of water to me.  Well sort of full, it was dripping, having developed a leak or two.  And sloshing around in the water was two small brown things.  I asked what they were, and she proudly said, “They are apricot nuts!”    “Uh huh, and why are they in water?”  “To keep them clean.”

Of course.

Actually, within the context of our Tree unit, and with all the talk we have done about seeds, what she had, minus the water, was perfectly logical.  But the other two teachers thought it was hilarious.

Sea World Assembly

We had some representatives from Sea World do assemblies at our school today.  They said that they were bringing live animals.  Not much other information.  So even among the teachers there was a lot of speculation about just what animals they might bring.  It’s not like we live even close to the ocean.

Turns out that even though they represented Sea World, the animals they brought weren’t really “sea” animals.  They brought a Great Horned Owl, a lemur from Madagascar, a red fox, a mommy kangaroo with baby and a 6 foot alligator.  The kids were impressed.  They let the kangaroo hop around the MP room and the alligator scared the heck out of even the principal.  I had two little girls crying when they saw it trying to wiggle loose from the handlers.  I explained that they were really safe, being back in the middle of the room, the alligator would have to eat a bunch of kids before it got to them………  That seemed to satisfy them.

All in all it was a pretty good assembly.

Earth Day

We did a grade level Earth Day project yesterday at the end of the day.  Since I wasn’t in session last year during Earth Day, and missed the activity, I deferred to the other teachers on the activity.  The activity was fine, it was just the implementation that was messy.  Give 90 kids styrofoam cups (yeah, it’s Earth Day alright…..) tell them NOT to break them, then let them come up  get dirt, and then seeds,  and then dirt again from TWO stations.

OF COURSE most of them will have a hard time staying out of trouble……. not enough supervision and not enough to do…….  Each of us could have predicted who the kids in our classes were who would have had the most trouble with the project as impemented.  We should have been more pro-active in finding ways to keep them busy.   Just hard to do when you have 30 kids each and no help…..   Probably should have done it as a center type activity in each of our rooms throughout the day instead of all at once, all together. 

I think part of what made the idea attractive to us was that we were doing something collaboratively for a change instead of each of us off in our rooms by ourselves.

It just could have gone a little better,  like it would have been nicer without the rain………

Worms

In our Trophies reading series there is a book called Wonderful Worms.  It’s a non-fiction book about worms,  where they grow and how they are good for the soil.  As part of the unit, I went to a fishing supply store and bought some night crawlers.  After lunch today I got out some paper plates and put them in the center of each of their tables, but didn’t really say anything.  It was hilarious, they were all speculating on what the “treat” was going to be…….

After explaining to them that the worms were living creatures and that we didn’t hurt living creatures.  And we talked about how that might or might not happen, I then put a couple of night crawlers on each table.  It was fun to just listen and watch as they explored and observed.  One girl was determined to pick one up, but every time she would get it part way up, it would wiggle or feel too slimy, and she would squeal and put it back down.  She finally managed it.

Why is it that the bravest ones in my class,  are the girls?