A Big Update!

My apologize for the extreme lack of updates. After a week of being quite sick and having lots of visitors, we are back to our regular routines and procedures. As a result of that (and, of course, my camera finally biting the dust), we are ready to head back into this blog!

So as for some classroom updates....

In science we have been doing colour mixing experiments! Last week we experiemented with what happens if we put two coloured waters in seperate cups and use a paper towel to link them to a middle cup. It looked a little like this...

We did yellow in one cup and red in the other... and it made orange!

We took guesses and drew pictures about what we thought might happen and a few friends were right! The colours mixed together and out popped orange.

This week in science we are doing new colour mixing activities. Today Mrs. Saini helped friends to dye pasta. We had to make the colours using primary coloured food dye and tomorrow we will be able to bead with them. At the art easel we used primary colours to create all the colours an artist could need by mixing them just right.


Our newest inquiry has become seasonal holidays. This week we are learning a driedel song and all about Hanukkah. We have read a book and we are learning important vocabulary, such as "menorah" and "driedal". Next week we are all very excited to play a driedel game with pennies and real driedels!




Here, in kindergarten, we know that parents sometimes ask for ideas of what to do over those long (rainy?!) days. Check back Friday night for a post with several ideas of what to do at home with your child.

The Egg Experiment

On Monday we set out in the science centre the following:
2 eggs
2 containers with lids
1 container full of water
1 container full of vinegar

We also placed a sign that said, "I wonder what this is for?". Many students explored the eggs, drew pictures and made predictions about what the eggs were for. The most popular prediction was that we were going to have a chicken come out of the egg.

In the afternoon, we put it together. One egg went into a container with water and a lid. The second egg went into a container with vinegar and a lid. The students made new guesses, but they still, for the most part, expected a chicken.

Today when we came in we saw the following:

Egg in water

 And...

Egg in vinegar

 It was amazing! The egg in the water was hard, smooth and easy to hold. The egg in the vinegar was not white, squishy, slimy, hard to hold and soft. What had happened? We made some guesses! Some students thought that the chicken was coming out. Others made a guess That the egg was disappearing. Others thought that the egg was changing "like our class". In the end, the egg IS changing!

Tomorrow we are going to look again. We are so excited to see what will happen! Will the rest of the white shell disappear from the egg? Will there be bubbles on the vinegar egg again?

Until then, enjoy some pictures of the "new and improved" science centre as well as our book nook!

Using our sense of touch to compare eggs.

Our science table, complete with our eggs and magnifying glasses.

A cozy new book nook!

Pumpkins, Pumpkins and MORE Pumpkins!

Today we learned about pumpkins, and, in fact, started an inquiry on everything "jack-o-lantern." It all started last week when some students noticed that we had put out word cards at the writing table. A few students really enjoyed writing "jack-o-lantern" or drawing a picture of their own jack-o-lantern. After this, we watched a short movie on Shapes and Pumpkins with Thomas the Train and added some stencils to our writing and creative centre with Halloween shapes.

It was the day to take complete advantage of jack-o-lanterns, however! Mrs. Saini read us a story about how pumpkins grow in the morning. Soon after we decided to measure our pumpkins. First we thought of all the ways we could measure pumpkins (how tall, how heavy, with our hands, with a scale, with a measure, with our bodies), and then we drew a picture of how we were going to measure them and began!

Diligently measured the pumpkin, then drawing a picture to record it!

 Many students used tape measures, rulers and the scale to see how they could measure the pumpkins. Often times it involved teamwork as students had to have someone help them to measure the circumference of the pumpkins. After we measured, we recorded our information on a paper by drawing a picture and doing our best job to write what we used to measure.

There were a few disagreements about what pumpkin was bigger, but in the end, it didn't matter because we all had fun exploring measurement.

After we were all done measuring, I got a carving knife and we decided to see what was inside. Our guesses were: seeds, slime, baby pumpkin, candy, orange, brown and nothing. When we opened it up we saw...

Princess and pumpkin guts!

Lots of seeds and pumpkin guts! Anyone who wanted a turn got to scoop out some of the pumpkin. Our students all felt that the insides were smooth, slippery and slimy. They certainly had fun exploring the feel of the pumpkin between their fingers.

At this point, a few friends were curious about the seeds. They asked questions like, "If we bring this home and plant it, what will happen?" and "Can you eat these?". While the first was a great question, there are few green thumbs in our class (nor the light for growing a plant in the midst of a cold windstorm), so we decided to see if we could eat them. I explained that you can eat the seeds, but you need to separate the seeds from the pumpkin "guts" first, and then cook them.

We quickly started separating!

Our red seed bowl was behind the cauldron. They did a great job! Mrs. Walt helped out by bringing them home, washing them of all their germs and marinating them in olive oil and salt.

We decided that we would cook them tomorrow morning.

In the meantime, many students were asking what our jack-o-lantern would look like and were coming up with designs.

Ohhhh! So scary!

Whose design will win for our two pumpkins? Find out tomorrow when we carve them to get ready for our spooky Halloween party on Wednesday!