Drawing, Observing and Labeling Trees

We started a new Unit of Study this week…Trees and Weather.  We started out by each drawing a picture of a tree.  We took a museum walk where we look at each other's work and admire it.

   

   

   

We have been talking lots lately about what a scientist is and what do scientists do.  One thing scientists do is observe.  Observe means to look closely.  We realized we don't have any real trees inside the school, so after we drew our pictures, we went outside…like REAL scientists…and observed some real trees.

   

   

   

   

   

   

We quickly realized that when a scientist observes something, they may use more than just the sense of sight.  We used our sense of touch and smell to observe these different trees around Northview Elementary.  I was so impressed at what these scientists noticed…They described the trees as rough, bumpy, smooth, spiky, pine trees, tall and short trees.  Such great describing words!  They noticed that the trees had bark and roots.  Some even had berries on them!  And there were some that had lost all of their leaves, while others still had some leaves.

   

When we returned from our observation, we talked about what we had seen.  then we labeled the parts of a red oak and a white pine tree.  We noticed that even though the trees were very different, they both had the same parts…roots, a trunk, branches and leaves!

Fourth Grade Buddy Class

Each year, we have the opportunity to be paired with a Buddy Class.  This year, our buddy class is Mrs. Holtz'a Fourth Grade Class.  This past Monday, Mrs. Holtz's class visited our room to share some stories they had written and published about bullying.  It was so fun for the kindergarten students to see the end result of their hard work.  It was also very cool to see the fourth graders, who used to be kindergartners, be the role models or "teachers" for these little ones.  Enjoy some photos of this special sharing!

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

Pumpkin Investigation

It seems like this time of year we see lots of pumpkins around.  We decided to do some investigating about pumpkins!

   

First, we estimated how much we thought the pumpkin weighed.  We came up with some pretty big numbers!  In order to find out how much it weighed, we decided we needed a scale.  A scale is a tool that measures weight.  We don't have a big scale in our classroom, so we went to the Nurse's office to weigh it on the scale there!  It weighed 12 1/2 pounds!

Next we had to estimate how many cubes tall it was.  We used unifix cubes (in a pattern, of course!) to measure.  The pumpkin was 12 cubes tall.

   

We also listed words that described the pumpkin and counted the number of lines on the pumpkin.

Writer's Workshop

Our kindergarten writers recently started writing their stories in their Drawing and Writing Journals.  We are working hard on learning that we all have stories to share.  Sometimes we tell stories so much of our focus continues to be on telling stories.  However, we are transitioning in to writing stories as well.  

This process includes telling a story, making a plan and visualizing the story, sketching a picture of the story in the journal, adding labels or even words to the pictures, and then adding details to the picture and the words.  When we are "done" with our writing, we have a little saying that goes like this:

When I'm done…I've just begun!

Then we ask ourselves Can I add anything to the picture?  Can I add any words?  If I can, then I add details to the picture or words.  If not, then I can always start a new story!

   

   

   

   

At the end of our Writer's Workshop each day, we spend some time sharing our stories.  Some days every student shares a story.  Other days, we might take turns sharing our story on the document camera and letting the students "teach" us about what they did today!