Recycling Paper

One of the most fun science investigations we do all year in Kindergarten is Recycling Paper.  It takes a lot of hard work and listening to do this investigation correctly.  Luckily, there are great scientists in this class and they did an amazing job of listening and following directions!

We began by taking some single ply toilet tissue and tearing it into tiny pieces.  We placed the pieces in a small plastic bottle.  Next we added some water to the bottle and placed the lid on tightly.  Then we shook the bottles for about five minutes.  That was hard work!

   

   

This part of the investigation helped us create paper pulp, which is the name of the substance we now had in our bottles after shaking them.  We placed a screen on top of a plastic cup and emptied the contents of the jar onto the screen.  The excess water drained in to the cup below.

Next we placed a second screen on top of the paper pulp, squeezed the screens together and used a sponge to blot off the excess water.  The sponges worked great because they absorb water!

   

Our next step was to remove the screens and pulp from the top of the cups and place them on some newspaper.  We learned on Tuesday that newsprint floats so we thought it would be absorbent.  It was! We blotted the screens and the pulp as hard as we could to get all the extra water out of it!

   

 We took the top screen off and used our plastic bottle as a rolling pin to smooth out the recycled paper and squeeze out any last bits of water.  Finally, we carefully peeled the recycled paper off of the screen and placed it on wax paper to dry over night.

   

We really loved doing this investigation.  After spring break, we will be learning about fabric!

Paper and Water

On Tuesday, we shifted our focus from wood to paper.  Our investigation was called Paper and Water.  Our goal was to see what happens when you put paper and water together.  We got our lab coats, arranged ourselves in our research teams and set out to work.  

We started by gathering the tools we would need…water, eye droppers and paper samples.  First we explored the five paper samples.  These included paper towel, newsprint, wax paper, chipboard and cardboard.  

  

Next, using the eyedroppers, we added drops of water to each paper sample and observed what happened.

   

We discovered that some of the paper samples absorbed the water and some of them repelled the water.  Interesting!  Then we wondered what would happen if we placed each one of the paper samples in a basin of water.  Would they sink or float?  We had to find out!

   

Ms. Kieltyka chose scientists to place a sample of each type of paper in the basin.

 Once all the samples were placed in the basin, we watched.  The paper towel sank right away…but none of the others did.  We decided to keep an eye on it throughout the day.  By the time we went home on Tuesday, the chipboard had also sunk.  We decided to leave it overnight and check on it in the morning.

You'll never believe this…when we arrived Wednesday morning, the cardboard, newsprint and wax paper sample were all still floating!  We left them for another 24 hours and the three remaining samples were still floating.  We were surprised at our discoveries with this investigation!

Making Plywood

On Monday, our Science investigation had us discovering how plywood is made.  Plywood is a manmade wood, made by gluing thin layers of wood together.  To demonstrate this process, we glued wooden craft sticks together.  By doing this, we learned how much stronger the plywood was.  One single layer was quite easy for us to break.  However, when we glued several layers together, the plywood became much stronger and we were unable to break it.

   

   

During Writer's Workshop, we reported on the process of making plywood.  We shared our writing with our classmates.

   

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

What a fun day in Kindergarten!  Our day began with an all school assembly in the gym.  We watched an Irish dance demonstration put on by dancers from the Shamrock School of Irish Step Dance in Eagan, MN.  Four of the dancers are actually Northview All Stars!

They were so much fun to watch and we loved watching their fancy footwork!  Their costumes were also amazing.

   

   

Thank you dancers for a wonderful program this morning.  When we came back to our classroom, we read a St. Patrick's Day story and made some leprechaun ears.

   

We even made some for Mr. Ball, so he joined us for the class photo!

   

In Math, we did a shamrock sequencing project.

   

It was a great day!  Happy St. Patrick's Day, everyone!

Making Particleboard

Today's investigation had us making particleboard.  We used a special kind of glue, called resin, to start.  We each got some resin in a cup and took it to our table spots to knead it and get it to be a little more smooth.

   

Particleboard is a manmade wood, made by combining resin, wood shavings and saw dust…that is what all the particles are!

   

   

We added sawdust and wood shavings and shaped our particleboard into whatever shape we wanted.  We put it under our lockers to dry!

During Writer's Workshop, we did some community writing.  Our scientists were reporting what they did today.  We did a great job using some new vocabulary so that our readers now know the correct sequence of the steps for making particleboard!