We launched our first science unit this week!! We are learning about the characteristics of different organisms, how living things are made up of small parts, how to report our observations, and how to conduct a fair test! As emergent scientists we are learning what it means to truly observe something. Looking at an object like a scientist isn't just a glance, its a way of studying the object and noticing all its details. We will be moving on to learning the process of how to create a fair test with only one changing variable. All of the skills that they learn will help them apply the scientific process to other interests/wonders they might have and encourage them to discover of their own. Science is taking the place of our traditional writing workshop time, but during science our classroom actually looks a lot like writers workshop! We are composing a science journal piece by piece that holds all of our notes, observations, recordings, illustrations, and explanations of our learning. Our journal is the living record of all the investigations that we have done and there is a need for us to record it so that others can discover what we have found out. Scientific writing is yet another great opportunity for us to share our learning through writing. | What do scientists do? (According to kindergarteners)- exploring - discovering new species - trying lots of things until it works - digging up dinosaur bones - observing - studying space - studying things that happened in the past - making potions - looking at small things - mixing chemicals |
Animals 2x2: FISH!
We learned the difference between and illustration and a scientific diagram by simply drawing a fish to show someone who hadn't seen one before and then the next day drawing a fish like a scientist and labeling all of it's parts. Once we knew about all of the fish's structures or parts, we learned about the functions of those parts. We continued to dive into what we think we know about Goldfish and what we still want to know.
we spent a lot of time observing our goldfish, noticing how they behaved when we added food and Elodea to their tanks. To get the kids to start thinking about how external things change behavior, I did a little experiment. We put a big "x" of tape on the door before they came into school. When they walked in, we watched to see what they would do. Would they stop, go under it, break it? I soon noticed a group of kids standing outside the door, not sure what to do. Soon enough, kids started ducking under the tape and going inside. Our next question became, are the fish going to act the same way when new items are added to the tank? We made predictions and recorded our observations with pictures and words.