Wednesday Woods Day

On Wednesdays, we go into the woods. We spend most of our day outdoors. We hike and collect things. We build things with sticks. We make things. We explore the stream and look for critters. This week we had a fire and we cooked hot dogs for lunch. Ms. Carlson came outside and we had our music class in the woods. After music we roasted marshmallows. Then it was time to go home. Then we put out the fire with buckets of water.

Big and Little Buddy Hike

We had a wonderful day with our eighth grade big buddies. Before we left school, they made a waffle breakfast for us. It was very exciting to go all the way upstairs to the “big kids” room. They waited on us just like in a restaurant.  Then we went outside and learned a celebration cheer called Jazz Hands. Our big buddies even sat with us on the bus.

Once we got to the beginning of the trail, our big buddies helped to make sure we were always safe. They held our hands on the trail, encouraged us when it got hard and guided us up the fire tower. When we went to Little Baldy, they found good places for us to eat our lunch so we could be out of the wind. We love our big buddies and can’t wait to get together with them again.

We hope you enjoy these pictures as much as we enjoyed doing the hike.

Raising Monarch Butterflies

IMG_1201We started the year with some very tiny monarch butterfly caterpillars. They ate and ate and ate all the milkweed leaves we had for them. We observed the caterpillars as they grew bigger and fatter. We read many books to learn about how the caterpillars would change. We learned that the monarch butterflies migrate to Mexico in the fall and stay their until spring.Screen Shot 2015-10-17 at 9.40.45 PM

When our caterpillars were ready, they shed their skin and became a green chrysalis and after a week or so, it changed IMG_3040to black. We could see the wings inside. We even got to see one butterfly emerge from the chrysalis.

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When the wings were dry, the butterflies were ready to fly and we released each butterfly so it could fly to Mexico.

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Needle Felting Project

We learned how to needle felt and make a picture with wool fleeceIMG_8598.

All of the kindergarten classes worked on this needle felting project so we could enter it in the Deerfield Fair. We made an apple tree in the different seasons. Our tree was the fall tree.

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20151004-220422.jpgThe judges liked our project. We got a blue ribbon for our work. It was fun to go to the Fair and see our project.

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Learning About Maple Syrup

Mrs Knee makes maple syrup at her house and she taught us all about it. We read books about maple syrup too. One day, after it snowed, we collected some fresh, clean snow in bowls and Mrs. Knee cooked the syrup until it was thick. Then we had sugar on snow – just like the kids in a story we read. On another day,Tim and Wyatt’s mom made pancakes for snack and we put Mrs. Knee’s maple syrup on them. Some families went to visit Mrs. Knee’s sugar house to see how Mr. and Mrs. Knee make syrup. They had syrup with donuts and pickles.

Color Science

Our classroom was transformed into a science lab for several days, while we explored the science of color. We used water, color fizzer tablets, water jelly crystals, pinch and mix color goo plus test tubes, petri dishes, mini mixing trays and pipettes. We learned about primary and secondary colors and lots of additional colors. We love science. What do you do for science in your classroom?