Harvest Festival, Monday, October 23rd 2017!

Gardening with Kindergarteners!

With the growing success of our school garden, this year we are beginning something new!  One of my missions has always been to get more students into and using the garden. After spending the day last fall at PS 216, an Edible Schoolyard demonstration school, I thought the Edible Schoolyard curriculum would be an exciting program for our school!

First we used four of our senses to explore the garden.  The classes drew a picture of something they saw, smelled, felt and heard in the garden.

Some of the classes noticed the plants in the garden are starting
to look a little wilted!

The next time we went out to the garden, we learned about the different tools that we use to help keep the garden healthy!

The cultivator or claw helps loosen the soil.

Watering cans help us water all parts of the garden!

When using the rake, we have to be careful. 
They are big!

Placing the leaves in the wheelbarrow
so we can bring them over to the compost bin.

Most recently, we have been talking about harvesting vegetables from our garden.  How do we know if something is ripe or not?  Why would we weight our vegetables?  We made different combinations on the balance scales to see which vegetables were heavy and which vegetables were light.

Pre-K Explores!

Pre-K has started investigating objects in science through their 5 senses.  Sometimes we use one or two of our senses to learn about something, other times we may use more than two!  We haven't used our sense of taste yet, but we did notice that some of the critters have!

The wood feels bumpy.

These mealworms aren't squishy!

Looking closely!

The biggest pinecone ever!

Looking very closely at the snail who is looking very closely!

Touch bags!  What does this feel like?

The paper is crinkly! 

This feels....hard!

Hello there snail!

This feels....soft!  It's a feather.

The pine cone is prickly and kind of squishy.

Looking at apples...do they make a sound?

Look at that worm!

Looking at half an apple.

Ah!  It wiggles!!

The apple smells good!

It is so long now!

2nd Grade Investigates Rocks!

How can three volcanic rocks look and feel so different?  2nd grade is investigating and describing three very different types of rocks.  They have discovered that properties of rocks (what makes a rock a rock) are a great way to give a detailed description of a specific rock!

Drawing the rock is one way to show how the rock looks.

How does the rock feel?

This rock has holes in it.  

The shape and color are also good ways to describe a rock.

The cream rock comes off on your fingers a bit.

Is the rock dull or shiny?

One of the rocks is smooth.  The other two are rough.

Everyone is very curious what the rocks are called!

What happens when you rub the same rocks together?
Some of them make rock dust!

Exploring Mealworms with 1st Graders!

1st graders have started to learn all about insects.  How do you know if something is an insect?  The easiest way is to count how many legs it has...if it has 6 legs, it's an insect!  We have been making observations about mealworms.

The mealworms have lines on their bodies.

This mealworm is playing dead so it won't get eaten.

Does the mealworm prefer the soil or the oats?

My mealworm likes the soil.

Which will it be, soil or oats?

It can hold on to me!

The mealworm tickles when it walks on my hand.

Does the mealworm like light or dark paper?

"The mealworms need to start in the middle of
the container, otherwise that's cheating."

I think the mealworm likes the dark paper because it can hide.