"What shapes do you see?" Exploring shapes and figures in our neighbourhood!

Mathematics in the Full-Day Early Learning-Kindergarten program builds on children's desire to make sense of their world, and helps them develop and demonstrate their mathematical understanding.

Rich mathematical problems involve important mathematical ideas and arise out of real-life situations, and can be approached in a variety of ways so that all children can be involved in exploring solutions.

Ontario Ministry of Education. The Full-Day Early Learning – Kindergarten Program. 2010-11. Draft Version. Pg. 92

The students have been exploring and investigating 2 dimensional shapes and 3 dimensional figures. They have been creating shapes and figures using various art mediums such as paper, twist ties, and a variety of building materials.

Recently, we read the book, "Shapes, Shapes, Shapes", and "Cubes, Cones, Cylinders, & Spheres" by Tana Hoban. These two books became our inspiration for our "What shapes do you see?" neighbourhood walk and follow-up book creation.

As soon as we got outside, the students found shapes and figures everywhere!  They were so excited! Using their clipboards, they started sketching and labeling the shapes and figures they noticed.

"The top of the slide is an arch." M.P.

"The garbage is a cylinder." E.S.

"The pylon is a cone." A.P.

"They are a cylinder." I.R.

"This sign is a pentagon." B.S.

"I see a cut tree, it's a circle!" K.E.

"The roof if a trapezoid." E.S.

"The pillars are cylinder." R.H.

"The paper box is a rectangular prism." A.M.

"Rectangles in the school window." N.S.

"The green box is a cuboid." H.S.

"There's a sphere at the top of the flag pole." P.I.

"A tree is a cylinder." N.S.

"Why do shapes have corners? G.B.

"So they can stand up." D.S.

"So they connect." A.M.

The first few pages of our shape book! Students self selected which picture they wanted to write the caption for. Once the book is complete, students will have the opportunity to take it home and share with you!

The importance of flowers!

What we've learned so far during our Bulbs and Seeds Inquiry:

"Bulbs and seeds are different." A.M.

"A pit protects the seed." E.H.

"A pod protects the seed so animals don't eat them!" W.E.

"Bulbs and onions are from the same family because they are both white inside." W.E.

"Onions can grow from seeds or bulbs." E.S.

"Bulbs have food inside them that make them grow without soil." A.P.

"Some plants need soil, and some need just water to grow." I.R.

With all the knowledge we gained, we were still theorizing about how seeds are made. We decided to read a few books to help support our understanding further.

I then asked the students to use some of the knowledge we learned from the books we read and apply it to their own theories of how seeds are made.

"Plants make pollen, then the pollen turns into seeds and then the seeds fall to the ground and new plants are made." C.M.

"Pollen is dust and it flies onto the stigma of another flower and makes a seed." W.E.

"I think the plant flower makes the seed. Then the seed goes down through the stem, and then the roots, and makes more seeds." A.M.

"I think the flower makes seeds in the middle, then the bee collects the pollen and then weed pecker  put the seed in the ground and it starts all over again, it's a cycle!" M.P.

"I think that onions, carrots, and radishes grow flowers and then we get seeds." B.S.

"Seeds drop from the top of the plan." O.S.

"The important part of a flower is that it makes the plant grow." G.M.

"From the pollen in the flower, there's tiny seeds and the seeds fall from the flower." A.T.

"The seed from the pollen can go on to the stigma and then before it dies, the seeds go to the ground and it makes new plants beside it." G.B.

"The stigma is the sticky part in the middle of the flower. It sticks pollen and the seeds are made." E.E.

"Maybe the bees take the pollen from the flowers and then they bring it to another flower then it grows." K.W.

A few students had new wonder questions for the group:

"How does the pollen get made from the flower?" C.M.

"Why do bees come in the summertime and take pollen? Why does the book show bees? Maybe because they suck up nectar and the pollen is stuck on the body?" W.E.

"How do flowers get pollen?" I.P.

I can see a new theme of questions arising! How exciting!

As our indoor seeds continue to sprout and grow, B.S. came up to me one day and asked, "What are we going to do with our plants?". I thought this was a great question to discuss with the class so we can figure it out together.

"We can plant them outside, like where the dirt is. I can make an X of where we can plant them." E.S.

"Soil has food for plants to grow. Dirt doesn't. We can plant seeds outside and see if they'll grow?" E.H.

"We can find an area that has dirt and we can plant there." C.D.

"We can plant near the tree in Sydney's Playground?" A.M.

"We can go for a walk and get a decision of right near the window or near where we go home?" G.B.

"We should plant somewhere where we get sun!" A.M.

"We should plant them when it's warm." M.P.

"We should find an area where no one gets to wreck it." W.E.

What wonderful and exciting ideas! We are so excited to make plans for our outside garden! Stay tuned for new updates! We may need some help!!!

What is electricity? What does it have to do with Earth Hour?

In preparation for Earth Hour, we decided to ask the students what their thoughts were about electricity, and what it had to do with helping the earth? 

As a school, we were going to turn off the lights for a one hour period, therefore we wanted to make this event, relevant and meaningful to the students.

The following is the transcription of a twenty minute video discussion the students had about electricity and helping the earth.

"What are your thoughts on electricity?" Mrs. Ralph

"It's electricity that makes all the lights turn on and off.  And when you turn the lights off, it saves power so that if we keep the lights on all the time, then we'll run out of electricity. Then we won't have lights or t.v. anymore. And because if we keep the lights off, it doesn't make so much power for the electricity station." A.P.

"Each electricity station has five or six wires attached to it, so it connects to five or six houses, and when they turn their machine on, it sends power through the wires to the houses." D.S.

"I usually see wires in my house downstairs, when E.H. comes to my house, we see the wires at the back of the t.v. and then we turn on the t.v. with those wires behind it." G.B.

"The wires are there to make the t.v. run." E.H.

"What do you think is in the wires?" Mrs. Ralph

"Electricity!" E.H.

"What do you think electricity is?" Mrs. Ralph

"Electricity is a type of electrical that goes through the pipes that are behind my t.v." D.C.

"Electricity goes through a cord to the school and it goes under the road and it goes to many stations and the houses." G.M.

"Can you see electricity?" Mrs. Ralph

"No!" All

"They're inside the wires, and they don't let you see them so you don't get a shock." G.B.

"Electricity comes from an electricity station and then it comes through the wires, and then it goes through the wires to the t.v., then the t.v. comes on and works." M.P.

"Where do you think electricity comes from?" Mrs. Ralph

"I think they (power station) make electricity. I think they face two light bulbs together then a big electricity comes from one end and then the lights come together and you get electricity and they put it in a wire." A.P.

"What does all this electricity talk have to do with earth hour?" Mrs. Ralph

"Maybe if you turn off the lights it will make more electricity so you can see." K.W.

"If we turn off the light, we get more light." G.B.

"If we leave the lights on for a lot of time, it turns off and then you have no electricity." W.E.

"Why do we leave the lights on for the whole day? And W.E. said if you leave it on for a long time it goes out, but it doesn't go out for us? So why is it not going out?" E.H.

"But at lunch time we usually turn off the lights." G.B.

"What do you think we can do?" Mrs. Ralph

"Turn off the lights if we're all in music." A.M.

"If we leave the lights off all day, then it won't go off at night." E.H.

"We need to turn off the lights when we're not here so we save power and we don't waste everything." A.M.

What a wonderful student driven discussion on making meaning about electricity and it's connection to Earth Hour. My hope was that students gained a bit more knowledge about conserving and being aware of their actions. I certainly was blown away by their reasoning on such a complex topic.

The official Earth Hour took place the following day. Many families expressed how excited their child was to take part. Below are a few pictures depicting how Earth Hour was spent by some of our families including myself. Enjoy!

Investigating new wonder questions! Life cycle and natural habitat of hermit crabs!

While reading some of our "I see, I think, I wonder", post-it-notes, P.I. asked a very good wonder question!

"Where do hermit crabs come from? How are they made?" 

Everyone was pondering. This was a question that had yet to be explored. Thinking critically, the students expressed some of their thoughts both verbally and through writing.

"Maybe they have babies?" "I think they lay eggs." B.S.

"I think they (babies) grow in their tummy, because babies come out of mommy's tummy." M.P.

"They can also come out of eggs. If it has three, then they come out of mommy's tummy. But if they have one, then they come out of an egg." E.S.

"I think the hermit crab comes out of its shell and has a baby and then they try and find a new shell." K.W.

"It's like a cycle. It starts with an egg, then it hatches, then it grows into a big hermit crab, then it finds a shell and does it all over again!" C.M.

"Yea, it gets another baby. It's a cycle!" E.H.

"Maybe the baby comes out from the shell when they're breaking their exoskeleton?" G.B.

"How do hermit crabs first start out as a baby?" W.E.

To support our learning, we will read some non-fiction books, view videos of hermit crabs, and use our own theories to help answer our questions!

We learned that hermit crabs use salt water to bathe in and fresh water to drink.

Dote climbing in the fresh water dish

While reading more post-it-notes, A.M. had another great wonder question for us to explore!

"How do hermit crabs get fresh water when they're on the beach?"

The students had lots of great theories!

"Maybe they dig a tunnel and get fresh water then come back out." A.P.

"I think they dig a hole near a tree and get fresh water from the roots." D.S.

"Yes, inside the ground it's watery!" A.P.

"I think the water travels through the holes in the ground, it goes to the roots, and the hermit crab digs a hole and gets fresh water from the roots of trees." D.S.

"Maybe they find a pool near the beach and they drink from there?" W.E.

"But there's chlorine in the pool and they can't drink that!" E.H.

"When it rains the hermit crabs can get fresh water. They open their pincers and drink it. It's true! This is how they get fresh water because when I was in Cuba it rained and I saw a hermit crab!" E.H.

"Maybe people leave short cups of fresh water on the sand for the hermit crabs." C.M.

"I'm going to go to the Dominican and find hermit crabs and see if they go out of the beach to find fresh water." A.P.

Stay tuned as we explore this wonder question further!

Earth Hour!

We had a wonderful time taking part in Earth Hour at school this past Friday! The official Earth Hour is today between 8:30 and 9:30 pm. If you take part, please email me photos! We love making connections beyond the classroom. We have been discussing electricity, what it is, how it's made, and how it relates to helping the earth?  I am in the process of transcribing a 20 min whole group video discussion! It was fascinating to hear the students' theories and wonders pertaining to electricity!  Stay tuned for a follow-up blog post.

Students creating in the dark for Earth Hour. They absolutely loved this experience! 

Students creating a city and now adding hydro wires for the electricity!

Student theory on how electricity is made!