Monday, November 30, 2015

The Chubby Frogs are Here!

You may have heard that our dear Cuban Tree frog Hoppy passed away last month.  She lived a good long life, but we were all sad.  

So, I called my local pet store to find out if they had any frogs available!  The had three different types: a fire-bellied toad, an Argentinean horned toad and a chubby frog.  All 22 classes that I teach voted on which frog they would like to have as a new class pet. Twenty one classes voted for the chubby frog!  

After many attempts to get the chubby frog (they kept selling the frogs before I got there), we are proud owners of not one, but two chubby frogs!  The next thing we have to do is name them!!


Our new chubby frogs!

So far we have discovered that chubby frogs like eating crickets and love to burrow in the soil.  They burrow backwards so only their eyes are showing! Stay tuned for more information about the chubby frogs as we observe it!

Saturday, November 28, 2015

Pre-K Explores their Sense of Hearing!

We were so surprised that we could hear so many different sounds when we closed our eyes!  Sounds from the classroom next door, in the hallway and even from Carroll Park across the street! Then we started exploring the sounds in the classroom.


Matching the sound to the image.


Shaking the sound shaker.




We wondered....

Does the size of the container change the sound it makes?

What happens when you add wax paper over the top?



What if we bang the top fast?




How tall can we make this before it falls?























We met some new classroom pets..

The snails are so slimey!


They love to climb on each other.

This one is the baby!

Monday, November 16, 2015

Kindergarten Wonders....How do Plants get Water to the Leaves and Flowers?

For the past month, kindergartners have been exploring the various parts of the tree.  Recently we wondered if trees really do bring water all the way up their stem to the top of the tree!  So we tried an experiment.

The Daisies before we started our experiment.

Each class voted on what color of food
coloring they wanted to add to the water.

Green water!

Blue was a popular color!

"The middle is the pollen."





We made some predictions about what the flowers would look like a week later. "Maybe they would be die because the water isn't normal." "The leaves and pedals might be blue." "The plant will grow roots." "The flower will be very brown and sick because it's been a week."


There is brown in the center of the flower.

"We were right! The petals turned blue!"

It doesn't smell that good.
The stem is blue too.
And now to record our observations.






Wednesday, November 11, 2015

Outraghisss Pets visits 1st Grade!

Outraghisss Pets arrives at PS58 for another awesome visit!  Nicole shared with the 1st grade classes some perennial favorites!


The hissing cockroach!



Feeling right at home!





The hissing cockroach is nocturnal.

They hiss only when they are alarmed.


Scorpions glows in the dark when
they are under a black light!
Scientists aren't sure why scorpions glow like that.
Tarantula's don't spin webs to catch prey, they pounce!


Tarantula's have exoskeletons
that they shed as they grow!

When the giant millipede gets scared,
it coils its body into a spiral.
Thank you Amelia Stuto, Lindsay Wilkes and Lisa Terrio for sharing your photographs!



Sunday, November 8, 2015

2nd Grade Explores River Rocks!

2nd grade has moved from igneous rocks to river rocks!  They have been observing and sorting river rocks by different properties: color, shape, luster, size, and texture.  What happens when the rocks get wet?  Do their properties change?
 
We noticed that the river rocks had
so many colors in each rock.

Some rocks surprised us!  "Look a crystal!"







We wondered what would happen to the river rocks when they got wet.  Would there be bubbles like some of the volcanic rocks?

Some of the dull river rocks turned shiney
when they got wet.

Sorting wet river rocks by color.

No bubbles, but when some of the rocks got wet, they showed additional colors in the rock that we didn't originally see.


After exploring the river rocks, we sorted them one last time to make a Rock Museum!



This museum included a map!





In half the Museum you were allowed to touch,
the other half you just had to look!
Don't forget to bring your wallet for the gift shop!

Wednesday, November 4, 2015

1st Grade Compares Crickets to Mealworms!

1st Graders are becoming experts about insects!   They have been looking at crickets and seeing how they are the same as mealworms and how they are different from mealworms!

They both have 6 legs and antenna.

They both have lines on their bodies.


The cricket has wings and moves around a lot.


They both drink from apples.
"That cricket is a female!"








The cricket can jump but the mealworm can't.
Crickets can escape from their habitat
but mealworms can't.