This mama duck and her ten ducklings were spotted on the pond behind school this morning. Our PreK class took this video, When I went out to see them, they were nowhere to be found. I think she has them tucked away safely somewhere in the bushes. Click here to watch a video.
After college, I taught kindergarten for twelve years, so this age group is my first love. I partnered with the kindergarten and Pre-First classes to present I Don’t Want to be a Frog by Dav Petty. I had so much fun working with these students!
We held our second annual Minnow Tank, our name for Shark Tank, this morning. Many, many thanks to Dr. De La Rosa, Mrs. Kurtz, and Mr. Lamkin for sharing their expertise and wisdom with our fourth grade entrepreneurs. It was such an opportunity for our students! The panel gave their ideas about improving, pricing, marketing, and packaging the students’ inventions. This was a memory-making day!
I reviewed the states of matter (solid, liquid, and gas) with my kindergarten scientists. We discussed how one state of matter can change to another.
Then we placed liquid whipping cream in a jar and churned it, by shaking the jar, until it became solid butter. We drained off the buttermilk and ate our lab!
Click here to watch a short video that we watched prior to making butter.
Try this at home and add honey to your butter.
Lab began with with an engineering challenge. We defined frustration and then I told my second grade engineers that I was going to purposefully frustrate them. I explained that frustration develops problem solving skills, creativity, and perseverance. Teachers call it productive struggle. The students were tasked with building a tower with index cards only. At first the cards kept falling and collapsing, but they quickly changed their designs and began experiencing success. Try this at home with a deck of playing cards.
