Pre-Kindergarten
First Quarter
We finished the semester with a fun day of Halloween slime!
The pre-kindergarteners are beginning to look at fall, so we conducted a lab testing whether different fruits and things from fall (small pumpkins, acorns, Indian corn) would float or sink. Then, with all the rain we've been having, we decided to detour from fall in order to make our own rain cloud in lab using shaving cream! We learned about the trunks of trees this week. Bark is for protection, cambium is for growth, and heartwood is for support. We also had fun "painting" with chlorophyll and dirt! |
The first few science lab lessons for pre-K students have centered on the five senses. Students have learned that "Give Me 5" means to look at and listen to the teacher, point their noses toward the teacher, close their mouths, and keep their hands still. We have talked about touch and texture, and we have will also made our own noisemakers by funneling rice and beans into test tubes!
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Kindergarten
First Quarter
After learning that water loves water, we moved on to find out that water and oil do not mix. We played around with water, oil, and food dye, to see the layers of water and oil, and then added salt to make a miniature lava lamp!
Of course, the semester ended with some Halloween flubber! |
Kindergarteners are already becoming experts with pipets! Are they practicing at home?!! In the lab, they have used pipets to mix the primary colors into secondary colors as well as an assortment of new colors. Soon, they will even create their own colors (for a pretend crayon company), which they will name and then take home in a test tube.
The young scientists have moved onto learning about chromatography by filtering out the different colors in the color black. Then, they just had fun with water-based markers and coffee filters, creating pretty papers to hang in the window. Now that chromatography has been mastered by the kindergarteners, we are off to exploring the properties of water. We learned that paper towels are good for cleaning up water spills (absorption), but wax paper is fun to use to create water balls. The water molecules just love themselves and stick together (cohesion). The students played with water balls in their trays, but also helped a water ball find its way through a maze! |