Wishing you and your family a year filled with

happiness, joy and love.

Snowman Name Graph

The wall outside our classroom looks like winter.  Brrrrr...  The children enjoyed making their name graph snowmen.  Which snowman was the tallest?  Which was the shortest?

Future engineers? architects?

The children enjoyed stacking sugar cubes to try to make towers as tall as they could before they tumbled over.  Then, with the use of frosting, they were able to "cement" the cubes together and continue building.  It was very interesting to watch their ideas of how to build the tallest tower.  FUN!

Cornstarch quicksand... oh, what fun!

Is it a liquid? Is it a solid? Neither, it is actually a suspension! The cornstarch and water mixture acts like a solid sometimes and a liquid at other times. This concoction is an example of a suspension - a mixture of two substances, one of which is finely divided and dispersed in the other. In the case of the cornstarch quicksand, it's a solid dispersed in a liquid.

In this experiment, we used ordinary cornstarch to model the behavior of real quicksand. The children had a blast!  This is great fun to do outside on a summer day using a garden hose to clean up!!  Thanks for another week of science fun, Science Mom!

Reading Street Fun

Dear Kindergarten Parents,

Success at school can be a shared learning experience! As a partner helping your child make the most of learning, Pearson SuccessNet offers the right tools for you and your child. It offers you the opportunity to look inside your child's day-to-day learning.

It all begins with a simple login at the website http://www.pearsonsuccessnet.com/.  User names and passwords were sent home at Open School Night.  I will  resend them in your child's homework folder by weeks end.

The children have been taking turns using our classroom computer to navigate around the site.  You will be amazed at how motivated and excited your child will be to share in the interactive learning experiences.  Watch as your child "teaches" you how to access the resources we utilize in the classroom.  

I wanted to let you know that I have been adding decodable readers and fun activities to the site. Please let me know if you have any problems accessing or using the site. Remember, this is a fun and engaging way for your child to reinforce many skills taught in school.  Have fun! 

Sincerely,

Mrs. Lyons

P.S.  If you ever run into technical difficulties, there is a Pearson SuccessNet online help connection to serve you between the hours of 7 a.m. and 6 p.m. (CST) 

You can reach them at 1-800-234-5832. 

Da Vinci's secret codes and lemon batteries?

Dr. Rosler (a.k.a. Science Mom) taught the children about Leonardo Da Vinci during our science class last week.  We learned that he lived a long time ago in Italy.  He was an artist and an inventor who loved science and nature.  Did you know that Da Vinci wrote with lemon juice so people wouldn't be able to see what he wrote?  To read the message, the paper would have to be held over a candle.  The heat from the flame would oxidize the lemon juice and turn it brown revealing the message (the first attempts at invisible ink?).

To begin the experiment of making a battery using a lemon, Dr. Rosler cut two small slits in each lemon about 1/2 inch apart. The children were given a penny, a dime and a small piece of sandpaper to clean off the coins. Once cleaned, the penny and dime were pushed halfway into these two slits. The children were then asked to touch both the penny and the dime at the same time with their tongue. Did they feel anything? Maybe a tingling? Not sure if the children felt anything... but they did have fun making lemonade afterwards!

How does this work?  The acid in the lemon reacts differently with each of the two different metals in the coins. One of the coins contains positive electric charges, while the other contains negative electric charges. These charges create current, which will flow if the battery circuit is complete. Your tongue acts like a wire and conducts the charges, making the circuit complete. The complete electric circuit causes a small amount of electricity to flow, which causes the sensation on your tongue.

Thank you Dr. Rosler... we learn so much and have such fun with you on Thursdays!

First author study... Jan Brett

Author studies are a wonderful way to engage students in the joy of reading.  Introducing kindergarteners to authors opens new doors of understanding that "real" people write and illustrate books.  This thought alone inspires students to dream of becoming famous authors and artists.  Most early readers have limited schema for specific authors, types of texts, and different text features.  Conducting author studies introduces these concepts to students in a fun and meaningful way.  Children need to be taught how to activate their prior knowledge when they encounter a book by a favorite author.  In addition to learning about authors and illustrators, students hone their comprehension skills as they compare, analyze, and synthesize information about an author's style.  These skills are demonstrated as students make relevant text-to-self, text-to-text, and text-to-world connections.
Jan Brett has an awesome website that you should check out.  Have fun!  http://www.janbrett.com/