Winter Inquiry

Our first day back to school after Christmas break was full of snowy fun!  After morning recess Ms. Marrella and I noticed a few new structures around the school yard (including inside the kindergarten yard).  We decided to take a closer look at these amazing structures with our students.

While the students were outside, their conversations focused on what the structures looked like, and how the snow and ice felt and sounded.   Later on that day we projected onto the wall a few images of our outdoor exploration, and asked the students to reflect on what they had discovered.

Our reflection prompted some students to ask a few questions about snow and ice.  We added these questions to our Wonder Wall.

The next day, we tried to answer these questions with an experiment. 

First, we filled an ice cube tray with toys. 

 

Then, we added water and placed
the tray outside for a few hours.

 

We predicted what would happen
to the water and toys.

Finally, our tray was ready to explore!

We couldn’t wait to touch the ice and toys.  As we were touching the ice-cubes, we noticed that the ice was quickly melting, but why?  One student realized that our hands were warmer than the ice, and caused the ice to melt.  What a brilliant observation! The students also observed that some pieces of ice broke into little pieces when they tossed it on the floor.   

Our observations.

After our experiment, one of our students wondered if all pieces of ice weighed the same.  This wonder led us to another experiment.  In order to find out if all pieces of ice weighed the same, we decided to fill and freeze an ice cube tray, gloves, a sponge (we had to soak it with water first), and an ice pack. We then make some predictions. 

It took a few hours, and two freezers to finally freeze the all that ice (the first freezer didn’t work!).  We decided to use our pan balance to weigh and compare all these pieces of ice.  We observed that not all pieces of ice weigh the same.  Some pieces of ice are heavier, some pieces of ice are lighter, and some pieces of ice are the SAME!  

Our Winter Inquiry has just begun.  We can’t wait to see where our curiosity will take us. 

The Art Studio

Dramatic Play Centre Transformation

Prior to the Christmas break, one of our students brought to school a piece of art that he created at home.  Ms. Marrella and I decided to display the art piece by the wall next to the classroom door.  As soon as we did this, we made two observations; the boy who created the art piece was very excited to have his creation on display, and students in the class were very curious about the art work (they questioned what it was, and the materials that were used to create it).   

Image of the boy's art piece.

Based on the interest the students showed towards this art piece, Ms. Marrella and I thought it would be a great idea to begin an Art Inquiry. We surprised our students by transforming their Dramatic Play Centre into an Art Studio. 

Our students were so excited to explore this new play area.  We have included some materials for our students to use and explore, and plan on introducing more materials/tools as the inquiry progresses.   Below are some images of our students exploring The Art Studio for the first time.

Our Art Inquiry has just begun.  We look forward to sharing our wonders and discoveries with you throughout this inquiry.

From Boxes to Castle

Boxes and Sticks Inquiry Continued


Inquiry Recap
For the past few weeks, our students have been involved in an inquiry about boxes and sticks.  This inquiry began on one of our nature walks when we collected a pile of sticks.  We then collected a bunch of boxes from our neighbour Ms. Johnston, when she moved into her new classroom.  

Recently, one of our students asked the question, "I wonder how to make a tower from boxes?" 

  A student wrote his question about how to
build a tower from boxes on this whiteboard. 

What a great wonder!  Together as a class we talked about what type of tower to build, and decided on a castle.  We quickly looked at some pictures of castles on the computer and then we made a plan of what to include in our castle.

Once our plan was completed, we selected our boxes and stacked them to look like a castle. 

Just when we thought our castle was complete, someone suggested we paint the castle.  We decided to vote on the colours Purple (my choice), Grey (Ms. Marrella's choice), Blue and Pink.  In order to avoid students voting twice, we decided to give each student a link (toy) to cast their vote.  

As you can see, Ms. Marrella and my colour
choices didn't even come close to winning. 

After deciding on our castle's colour, we talked about who would live in the castle and what else our castle needed.  

Here are some pictures of our students creating the characters and other items for our castle.

Here is our castle!  Though the castle is complete, the fun still continues. Students have enjoyed identifying the 2-D and 3-D shapes that make up the castle.  They have also enjoyed using their imagination to create stories and fairy tales with the characters they have created.

Not a Tube

Our amazing librarian, Ms. Pascot, surprised us one day with a Not A Tube, tube!  Ms. Pascot based this lesson on the books we were using for our Box and Stick inquiry, Not A Stick and Not A Box.

When we used our imaginations, our Not A Tube, tube could be used as... 

 

Below are some picture of us being creative with our Not A Tube, tubes.

 Thank you Ms. Pascot for a wonderfully creative experience!