Happy Tuesday everyone! We had another fun day full of learning! We started our morning making our mini straw snowflake ornaments! First, we sat down and counted 15 straws. Then, we used our super strong muscles to pull on the ziptie to bind all the straws together and we gave it a few extra pulls to make it super tight. We then used our nimble little fingers to wrap a pipe cleaner around the middle and made a little hook at the other end. We finished our little ornaments by spreading out the straws a little bit to make them look like a snowflake! We can’t wait to hang them up on our Christmas trees! After we were done making our ornaments, we either joined our friends in the play area and played with the toy cars or sat down at the play dough table and let our imaginations run wild!
Once all of our friends were finished doing their crafts, we packed away our toys then gathered into a circle and sang a few songs. We sang our, “Good Morning Song”, “ABC”, and the “5 Little Snowmen”. After our music time, we got ready for a fun science experiment! Nimo had a lot of things laid out on the ground. We started by looking at the ice cubes.
M: Ice! It’s cold!
K: From water!
Nimo handed each of us an ice cube to hold and feel. The little ice cubes felt very cold in our hands, but we quite liked the feeling! Next, Nimo got a bowl full of warm water.
E: Wash your hands! Hot!
K: Hot!
M: It’s a little bit hot.
Lastly, Nimo showed us a little bowl with some salt in it. He sprinkled a tiny bit into our hands for us to taste.
M: It’s salt! It’s melting!
E: Spicy!
S: I don’t want any.
K: Yummy!
For our experiment, Nimo prepared four cups, one with a picture of “cold”, one with “hot, another with “salt” and the last one with “nothing”. He lined up the cups and popped an ice cube in each cup. Then we helped Nimo scoop cold water from the bowl and poured it into the “Cold” cup. We scooped warm water and put it into the “Hot” cup and did the same with the salt. We didn’t put anything in the “Nothing” cup. While we waited for the magic to happen, Nimo asked us what we thought would happen to the ice.
S: Ice is going to melt.
Nimo: What happens when the ice melts?
M: It gets smaller.
K: Tokeru!
We took a look at our four cups. We noticed the cup with nothing it in didn’t melt much. The salt cup was a little interesting.
M: The ice is broken…
E: Broken! Big!
Next, we looked at the cup with the cold water.
M: Ice is getting smaller
E: So small!
Our last cup was the hot water cup, when we took a peek we couldn’t see the ice cube anymore!
S: It’s gone.
M: It all melted away.
E: No ice.
It was a fun little introduction to Hot and Cold! This wasn’t the end of our experiment though! Our teachers already know we know about hot and cold and what happens to ice cubes. Our main experiment was coming up next. Nimo showed us some pinecones and asked us what we thought they were.
K: Donguri!
S: Acorns?
M: Pinecones!
Nimo: Do you know where you can find pinecones?
Petals: ???
Nimo showed us a picture of a forest.
E: I see! Forest!
M: The forest!
We took a close look at one of the pine trees.
E: I see this one.
M: The leaves are different.
Good observation friends! Pine trees have needle-like leaves and they also make pine cones. Before we talked about what the pinecones were and what they did, we tried putting a pine cone into the cold water, hot water, and the “Nothing” cup.
Nimo: What do you think will happen to the pinecone?
M: I don’t know!
K: Go down!
M: It will melt.
S: It will go down.
E: It will go up up up!
While we waited for the pinecones to do their thing, we had a storytime. Today we read, “Santa’s Summer Christmas” by Jenni-Lynne Harris and Kelvin Hawley. It was a neat story about Santa delivering our presents with a helicopter! After our story, we washed our hands and ate our snacks. We got ready for the park and then checked back up on our pinecones. We noticed the pinecones changed shape!
E: Oh no! It’s baby!
M: It got smaller.
S: It’s wet here.
K: What happend!?
Nimo showed us a picture of a big forest fire, then he showed us a picture of lightning hitting a tree. He explained to us that lightning can cause forest fires and after all the trees are gone. The pinecones are actually seeds and they grow into new trees. Nimo told us the pine cones close when they are wet, (faster when the water is cold) and when the pinecones are dry and ready, they open up and start becoming a tree!
Our teachers set up a little science table for us with all the pinecones and magnifying glasses so we could examine the pinecones at any time of the day!
Thank you all for another fabulous day! Hope you all have a wonderful evening and we will see you all again tomorrow!
Love,
Petals