Building Buildings

We just can't stop building.  We love our construction zone!  We watched some time lapsed videos of different buildings and skyscrapers being constructed.  So inspiring that we decided to build a hotel.  We measured, designed, taped and redesigned. 

We watched another time lapsed video of a house made of popsicle sticks being built.  This is amazing, you'll want to check it out... Popsicle Stick House Building Time Lapsed

 



We built with sticks,

and boxes and began building a city.  We talked about geometric shapes, both 2D and 3D, and built with them.  We also learned some new vocabulary.

 

 

All this snow got us thinking...

Actually the igloo picture from the OLA picture book sparked a lot of conversation in the class.  Children began asking questions and making comments about the picture like:
"Igloos live in the Antarctic"
"Is that the Arctic or the Antarctic?"
"These look like little squares"
"I think there is a penguin or a person in it"
"Santa's reindeer live in it"

This led to talking about the North Pole.  We brainstormed a web of wonderings and information we knew about the North Pole.  You will notice that "penguins" was originally written but after we did some research, we learned that they do not live in the Arctic, but the Antarctic, so that is why it is crossed off.

 

 

We had so much snow this year, the children began to build their own igloo.

 

We continued to learn about the Arctic and Antarctic, and a parent brought in some beautiful beaded moccasins, and a ticanogan.  She shared stores about living in the North.  We also learned about inuksuk and we tried to make some using different materials.

 

 



 

May the "Force" Be With You

Our Construction Inquiry!

November 2013

Recently a building in our community was being demolished by a construction crew.  Many students from our class were glued to our playground fence to watch the construction vehicles in action.

During discovery play, some students began acting out construction workers jobs.

We added work gloves, wood, sand paper, tools and a tool bench to extend their play.

 

We read a variety of non-fiction texts and watched some videos to learn more about construction.

Our class had a surprise visit from real construction workers.  Each child was able to sit in a Bobcat and dump truck!  The students loved honking the horn!

Some Provocations to try...

This is a link to an amazing short video of a fish creating a pattern on the sea floor.  It is incredible and I wonder what children would have to say about it.  http://www.wimp.com/fishcreates/

Fish Pattern

A Zoomy and soap bubbles

Ice & Snow Experiments

Ice & snow Experiments

With the onset of winter, the students have been excited about the snow and ice, so we decided to do some experiments with the wintery white stuff.  The first experiment we did was called Boiling Water and Cold Air.  The question I asked was:  What do you think will happen if I through hot water out the window into the freezing cold air? 

Here are some of their predictions:

Alexandra:  “It will turn to ice.”

Evan: “It will turn to fog or ice.” 

Emma:  “It will colour the snow.”

Jersey: “It will turn to snow, I saw it.”

I then tossed the water out the window while the students watched and it turned to snow.  I asked them what they thought would happen if I were to use cold water instead.  Some children thought that the same thing would happen and some thought nothing would happen.  The water fell into the snow and turned into ice.

The next experiment was Instant Snow.  I started with a packet of instant snow powder and asked the students:  What do you think will happen if I add water to this white powder.  Here are some of their thoughts:

Brady:  “The water will go white.”

Paige:  “It will turn to ice.”

Josey: “It will turn to snow.”

After we made predictions, I added the water and the powder expanded and turned into fluffy white stuff that looked like snow.  They were really amazed!

The next question I posed was:  What do we know about ice?  The students had a variety of responses, here are a few:

Brady:  “Ice is slippery. “

Emma: “Ice is colourful.”

Alexandra:  “Ice is cold and white.”

Jersey:  “Ice melts.”

In the next experiment, I set up four plastic cups.  One had hot water, one had cold water, one had salt and the other had nothing.  I told them that I was going to put an ice cube in each cup.

We made some predictions about which cube they thought would melt first. 
Camryn:  “I think the ice will melt in the cold water.”

Jack:  “The salt one.”

Miya: “The salt.”

Sarah: “The hot water.” 

In the Big Block of Ice experiment, I froze a big block of ice and put it into a container.  The students had a chance to feel it and talk about what they were feeling. 

Some of the words the students were using to describe the ice were:  smooth, slippery, hard, and cold. I asked them what they think would happen if I put salt on the ice.  They had some background knowledge from the previous experiment, so many thought it would melt.  But a few others had some other ideas:

Josey and Evan:  “I think the ice will crack.”

Alexandra:  “There will be lots of water around it.”

I added the salt in four piles and told them to listen carefully, and we could immediately hear the ice cracking.  I then added four different food colours to the salt piles and we watched what happened. 

We continued to observe the salt melting the ice and we could see cracks in the ice and the food colouring was seeping into the cracks.

Our Forest School

In the late fall, the Junior Kindergarten class “carved out” an area in the trees next to Valley’s Giving Garden.  We now call this area our “Forest School”.  We love to hike out to visit our Forest School to spend time observing and interacting with nature.  

Now that the Forest School is snow covered, the children love to look for evidence of animal visitation.  They eagerly look for tracks and droppings in the snow.  This excitement made us wonder what else we could do to attract wildlife into our space.  Aha, we would make bird feeders!

On January 28^th, our JK students and parent volunteers made a variety of bird feeders.  As well, many families made feeders at home using recycled materials.  Working together, we made over 70 bird feeders!  Wow, that is amazing!

We now look forward to observing the birds in our Forest School.  Great job!