Saturday, January 8, 2011

Snow

Happy New Year to all!!!  We are back at school and started the new year with a unit on "Snow".  The kiddos thought this was a great unit because they want it to snow and are ready to build snowmen.  I, on the other hand, must be the only teacher that does not want a "snow" day!!!  I enjoy my time away from the farm to spend with my kiddos at school. Plus, snow means I stay home and work outside in it!  YUCK!!! 

Special thanks to my k-buddies for inspiration and a new blog they introduced - www.thoughtsofesme.blogspot


Snow!!! 


Our first project was an emergent reader I am Snow.
The story taught us all about snow.  Did you know that all snowflakes have 6 points and are all different! Amazing!!
We took the sentence and cut and pasted it in order and then wrote it out.  We made the snowflakes on blue construction paper using glue and glitter.  Our objective was to show the six points and that indeed all flakes are different.
Thanks to Musings of Me blogspots winter unit (http://www.thoughtsofesmeblogspot.com/).


This project was an experiment.  We use to take calendar pictures and place them around the room and have the 6th graders walk around and write what they saw and then work together to form a poem.  So, I took 4 calendar pictures of winter and we discussed what we shall in each picture.  We asked questions about if the snow was gone, how would we know it was winter?  We had a great discussion on winter and snow.  Next we had to pick one picture and write what we saw.  This picture was picked by most and I love what they wrote.  I did start them out with I see.......I will do this again!






We talked about snowflakes being crystals and here is our science experiment......borax snowflakes!!!
I have wanted to do this for the longest time and finally got it done....it worked!!
Of the 16 snowflakes they made only one didn't turn out, it was touching the bottom of the cup and for some reason it all settled at the bottom.  If you plan on doing this make sure the pipecleaner isn't touching any part of the cup.
We used 1 cup boiling water and 3 tablespoons borax, mix well.  Hang pipecleaner from pencil and set in cup.  Let set overnight.



Next week is Penguins.....I can't wait.