Pre K-4

Pre K - 4 Science

Science at the pre-k level is always hands on!  Four and five year olds spend these years learning about their world through the five senses and are always asking questions about the things in their world.  At Unquowa, the science curriculum entails investigation into subjects that are part of the theme for the week.  As an example, the children learn about what birds do in the winter during our "Brrr . . . It's Cold Outside" theme in early January.  Four and five year olds also like to dress up.  So in order to help them feel more like a scientist, they have to look the part.  Each child puts on a lab coat, as does the teacher, so that the classroom becomes our lab, and the children begin to collect the information they need to learn about their world.  Each week there will be new pictures and a short summary of what we did that week so that you can ask your scientist questions and learn more about what we do in our lab!

December 8th - 12th

Medieval Scientists - Introduction to Early Science

Before getting into our lab coats, we talked about how along ago, scientists were considered a little crazy because they were not afraid to explore with the items in their world.  They asked questions and tried to answer them.  There were never any exact answers to some of their questions but continued to ask them anyway.  Many people of the time thought them to be wizards or witches because of their knowledge and sometimes strange experiments.  So, with our lab coats on and our imaginations in full gear, we prepared to make a potion to cure our sick dragon.  The children were given many ingredients to use such as ground up dinosaur egg shells (flour), eyes of newt (black eyed peas), water from the king's mote, magical mushrooms that only grow in the dragon's cave (marshmallows), unicorn guts (spaghetti), whale blubber to bind the ingredients (glue), and perfumes from the Queen's collections (nutmeg and cinnamon).  The children were given their own "cauldrons" and allowed to mix whatever they wanted to create their potion to cure their dragon.

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December 1st - 5th

The Week of The Gingerbread Men and The Sense of Smell

This is the time of year where there are many smells that tell us that the holiday season has arrived - pine trees, sugar cookies baking in the oven, warm fires in the fireplace, etc.  We read a book that explained how the nose works, why we can't smell when we have a stuffed up nose, and even found out what a "booger" is made of.  Then we talked about some of our favorite holiday smells and thought of our "real" gingerbread men baking in the oven.  There are two spices that make that gingerbread smell so good: cinnamon and nutmeg!  We all had the opportunity to use our noses to smell the spices and use our tongues to taste the spices if we wanted.  The next step was to cut out their own gingerbread man.  Then they put glue all over so that the cinnamon and nutmeg would stick to it to make fragment gingerbread men to hang in the classroom!  Finally, the children put googly eyes on to make sure the gingerbread could see if he jumped down from the ceiling :)

November 17th - 21st

Sinking and Floating

How did that big Mayflower make it all the way across the ocean when it was sooooo heavy? Don't heavy things sink?  We began our exploration of sinking and floating with that question and found out the answer by the end of the week.  We began by experimenting with a penny and a flat piece of tinfoil.  Which would sink and which would float?  We found that the penny sunk immediately.  The tinfoil was interesting.  At first it floated, but when pushed down by the children, it sunk. Why?  It sunk because when the water got on top, it make the tinfoil too heavy to stay up on top of the water, so it sunk.  Then we tried a marble and a rolled up piece of tinfoil.  The marble sunk and the tinfoil, this time, floated, but did not sink.  Why?  This time the tinfoil had air trapped inside the ball which kept the ball lighter than the water.

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Sinking and Floating in the Classroom

Our next day of experimenting found us looking around the classroom for objects to test.  We each chose a small item from the classroom.  Before putting it in the water, we made a prediction.  Would it sink or float and then asked why.  Then we put it in the water and made our observations about what happened and decided why the item sunk or floated.  We learned what the word dense means and why light things are light.

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Making the Mayflower Float

On our last day of experimenting, we got at the reason why that big, heavy boat the Pilgrims were on, floated all the way across the ocean.  The wood is a light material on it's own because there are little bits of air trapped in the wood.  But, when used in large quantities, like the boat, it can be quite heavy.  But the boat also has sides where the water cannot get over.  Inside the boat there are areas for the pilgrims to walk around and in those spaces is air, which also helps the boat keep above the water.  All that open space makes the boat lighter!  Each child got the opportunity to make their own Mayflowers with a piece of tinfoil.

November 10th - 14th

Cooking with Corn

We finished out discussion of corn with an opportunity to use the cornmeal to make corn muffins.  We added the ingredients mixed it all up, and then took it to Chef Peter and Chef Dan to bake in the oven.  We discussed that the Native Americans baked their muffins in a fire but not until after the Pilgrims arrived and taught them how to do this.  Previous to their arrival, the Native Americans simply ground the dried kernels and made apuddign type substance.  We ate our muffins for snack that afternoon! Yummy!

November 3rd - 7th

Horse Tavern Brook Observation

Unquowa is beginning a new tradition this year.  For each year your child is here they, will make three observations (Fall, Winter, and Spring) of the Horse Tavern Brook which runs the length of the back of the school. Each observation from each year will be sent on to the next year's teacher.  When your child leaves the school, they will take with them a book of all their observations. Each year the observations will be different because as they get older, they will be able to observe and interpret so much more.  For instance, in the upper school they will be collecting data from the brook such as the velocity of the water flow and the temperatures.  In Prek-4, we will be observing the brook and then drawing what we see, focusing on the colors and shapes.  This week we did our Fall observation.

Corn

Corn is an important food this time of the year. Is was part of the early settler's diet introduced to them by the native peoples.  We gathered the information we knew already about corn and then I introduced them to the history of corn.  We looked at the hard kernels we use as to make popcorn as well as what is used to ground into cornmeal.  Finally, we looked at and compared cornstarch to the cornmeal.

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Germs!

Of course this is also the time of year for getting sick!  We took a break from corn and did an activity to show just how fast germs can get spread.  We read the book Germs Make Me Sick By Melvin Berger.  We learned that white blood and anti-bodies "eat" up the viruses or bacteria that can harm the body.  We also learned that germs all over including in the air and on the foods we eat, but not all germs make us sick.  Each child them got a squish of hand cream to emphasize the oils on our bodies.  I then pretended to sneeze into my hands and used red glitter to represent the germs that came from my sneeze.  Next, I took the hands of the first child in the circle and pressed my hands to theirs.  I then asked that child to grab the hands of the child next to them until the "germs" had traveled all the way around the class!  It was a concrete way to see how fast germs can travel.  The second part of the activity was to discuss how to get them off!  A paper towel didn't work!  water alone didn't work!  Only soap with water and soem scrubbing worked!  Finally we said the best way to keep those germs out of our bodies was to sneeze or cough into our elbows and make sure our bodies stay healthy with lots of sleep and healthy eating!

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Popcorn

We put the hard corn kernels into an air popper.  But before I turned on the machine, my question to the class was how does the corn kernels turn into popcorn?  What does the air popper do?  We concluded that the air popper pushes hot air all around the kernels.  The insides of the kernels get very hot and need to get out, so they POP out of the shell.  And . . . Tah-dah!!!  Yummy popcorn!

October 27th - 31st

The Case of the Disappearing Ghosts . . . or Water Evaporation

Since we were concentrating on Halloween this week, teh children came to science ready to learn a little about ghosts!  We used a damp sponge to draw a ghost on the small chalk boards that each child was given.  We then waved our fans over the chalk boards and said the following "magic" words : Little ghosts you can't scare me/ I know how to make you flee!"  As the children said these words and waved their fans, the ghost completely disappeared!  After a few minutes having fun, we gathered together and talked about when water is exposed to the air, it evaporates into the air around us. 

October 20th - 24th

Cheese Tasting

As we finished our discussion of the farm we talked how many different products come from the farm including milk and other items that are made form milk.  As our discussion continued, the children in both classes said how much they loved cheese!  So I asked them what kinds of cheeses they liked.  Most of the answers were either Cheddar or American!  Then I asked them, besides a cow, what other animals give us milk to make cheese.  There was silence.  We discussed that sheep and goats also make milk that we use to make cheese and told them that we would try some different cheeses.  Each child was given a piece of sheep cheese, goat cheese, and two types of cow cheese including cheddar and gouda.  We recorded who liked which and then Mrs. Beninati graphed the results in math.  It was a good lesson in learning what can come form the farm, but also a good lesson in trying something new which all the children did willingly!

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Pumpkin Reports

Scientists often collect information about a subject and then present that information in a report.  Since it is that time of year for pumpkins, each child was asked to bring in their own pumpkin to collect information from.  We weighed the pumpkins and compared how they looked to their actual weight.  We then measured their circumference by using a piece of string to wrap around the pumpkin.  We then placed the string next to a ruler and found out how many inched the pumpkin is all around.  Finally, the children used two adjectives to describe their pumpkins.  I took pictures of each of them with their pumkin and placed them on the final page of their report as a visual.

October 13th - 17th

The Farm

The children began our study of the farm by discussing what things we have on a farm.  There are many animals and most children were able to name some fruits and vegetables that grow on the farm.  As each child gave me the item, I drew it on a large piece of paper.  We also discussed what foods come from those animals and vegetables and how the farmers make money living on a farm.  This concept was a new idea for many of the children as we are used to seeing people go to work in a building!

October 6th - 8th

Conservation of Shape

For our short week, the children continued their study of shapes in science.  Each set of partners had a cup (a circle or cylinder) with a line at the top of the liquid level and an empty rectangle container.  The liquid began in the cup and I posed the question "will there be more, less, or the same amount of water when we pour the liquid into the rectangle?"  There were many different predictions and many reasons why.  Then we poured the liquid into the rectangle and everyone thought there was less water because the liquid level was lower than on the cup.  The next step was to pour the liquid BACK into the cup to see if the liquid level had changed at all.  Did the liquid make it back to the line in the cup?  YES!  The children learned that no matter what container you pour the liquid into, it will always be the same level (unless some spills on the table).  The rectangle was wider than the cup so the liquid had space to spread out, so it did not come up so high on the rectangle than it did on the cup.  This concept is called conservation.  The children tried several times to pour it back and fourth to see if the liquid level would change, but it never did!

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September 29th - October 3rd

Prisms

The sun came out on Monday and the children experimented with bending light with their prisms.  They looked at the lights in the rooms as well as the sunlight coming into the classroom.  They were able to point out the different colors of the rainbow in the order you always see them in.

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Introduction to Our Sense of  Touch and Sight

Our brains receive information about the world around us through our five sense.  In order explore shapes, we talked about how important our sense of sight  is.  The first part of the activity was finding shapes in the classroom with out eyes.  Then, in pairs, one person closed their eyes and looked for shapes around the classroom using only their sense of touch.  We made the conclusion that finding shapes without our eyes is challenging!

Sense of Hearing

On Friday, the children used their sense of hearing to follow the directions given in "The Bean Bag Boogie" song!  It was a lot of fun!  We observed that if you were talking to a friend during the song, then you could not hear the directions in the music.  Then you had to use your sense of sight to figure out what to do by looking at your classmates.

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September 22nd - 26th

Rainbows

To coordinate with our study of colors, in science we studied the rainbow.  We learned that in order to see a rainbow, you need two things: light and a prism.  The prism bends the light into the many colors that make up the light all around us.  We then made huge rainbows by tearing construction paper and gluing them in the rainbow's order.  When the sun comes out next week, we will experiment more with actual prisms so that we can see rainbows too.

September 15th - 19th

Substances that are Friends and are Not Friends

This week in science we talked about substances that are friends and substances that are not.  We started by mixing milk and water and observed that the water and milk are friends because they combined.  Then we added oil to water and observed that they are not friends because the oil sat on top of the water.  No matter how much we mixed them, they never combined!  The following day we added vinegar, an acid, to baking soda, a base, to see if these substances are friends.  Well, these two do mix but when they do, there is an explosion!  We decided that the two substances, the acid and the base, CANNOT have play dates because they get TOO crazy even though they combine!

September 8th - 12th

All About me!

Last week in science we talked about the parts on the outsides of our bodies. This week, each child “donated” a part of their body to trace to create a whole person on paper.  My class named their person “Fred” and Mrs. Beninati’s class named their person “Clara”. This week we learned about the parts that are inside of our bodies.  We learned about the bones, muscles, esophagus, lungs, heart, stomach, intestines, and brain.  We talked about the jobs of each of these parts and about how important they are when they work together to make our bodies run.  Then we added these parts to Clara and Fred to make them complete.  Both of these “people” will be hanging in the hallway on Monday morning for you to enjoy.

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Marigolds

Last year, in Prek-3, both classes planted marigolds around the tomato plants in order to keep the bugs from eating them up.  This year, with the help of Mrs. Curran, the children walked out to the Unquowa garden and observed how big the marigolds were and how many tomatoes there were!  Mrs. Curran then picked enough marigolds for us to make 13 arrangements for the lunch tables.  Each child was able to add water to the vases and then put in the flowers.  The lower and upper schools LOVED seeing our flowers on the lunch tables!

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September 3rd - 5th

Working Together

Our first experience in science this week was with an experiment that showed us that as Prek - 4 students we must all work together, in science and throughout the day, in order to accomplish our goals.  A way to show the children  this was with an experiment where we tried to clean some dirty pennies.  First we used salt alone, but it did not work! Then we used vinegar alone, but it did not work!  Then we mixed the salt with the vinegar, and after a few seconds, the penny was clean!  The salt and the vinegar had to work together in order to accomplish the goal of cleaning the penny!

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