Marshmallow Science

Engineering With Marshmallows And Spaghetti
Our class was able to put some of their engineering prowess to work. After a brief description of how a stable structure is built with input from the kindergarten classes, we allowed them to go wild with their imagination. The structures were wonderful. There were pyramids, cubes, and many other unique structures that gave the students some real hands on time.

Here are a few of those wonderful creations.

Group Spider Web

Our Class Creates A Community Spider Web

The class took part in a "group plan" activity today to build community and to show how when we all work together the finished product is better than if we struggle all alone. The activity required the students to roll a ball of yarn to another student and then that child holds on tight. This continues until all students have a piece of the web. A construction paper spider was used to see if the students could make it stay on top of the web. A fun and important activity that they all enjoyed!!

Thanksgiving At City School

Our Class Welcomes Families To Our Thanksgiving
Many students welcomed members of their families to our school today. The feast included many of the fixings for a pre-Thanksgiving gathering. It was a fun experience for the students to spend a little extra time with their loved ones. On this day we can think about all we have and what wonderful people we have in our lives. Have a safe and very happy Thanksgiving!!

Veteran's Day Parade

Our Class Joins In The Veteran's Day Celebration
Our class took a walking field trip today to the St. Albans Green. The entire school walked to the park and watched as the parade went down Main Street. There were many veterans who participated and were accompanied by firetrucks, a marching band, baton artists, and floats. The students waved flags and said thank you as the armed service members went by. It was a wonderful learning experience on freedom and at what price it comes to us as Americans. The service they provide for our freedom was discussed before and after in the classroom and the students were able to draw a picture on our return to school with a sentence describing what they saw and felt today.

Fire Safety

Our Class Learns About Fire Safety
Our class had the pleasure of having two area firefighters come to talk to our class about what we can do to help stay safe in our classroom and at home. The firefighters gave our class some wonderful advice. At home, as within our school environment, we should follow these safety tips.

• Always have a meeting site outside our school and home if a fire ever occurs.
• Remember to stay low and crawl if there is smoke.
• Touch a door to see if it hot before leaving a room.
• Have your child become aware of your personal information, such as your address, phone numbers, and how to use a phone for calling 911 in an emergency.
• Stop, drop, and roll in case of fire.
• Never play with lighters or matches and to be very careful around all stoves or heaters.

The lesson was really informative and the firefighters showed us how they "suit up".

In the next few weeks we will be heading into a couple of new themes for science with extensions that will be used in our literacy and mathematics centers. We will be studying bats and owls with lots of fun activities. Echolocation and how bats use this will be a major theme and we will take apart owl pellets to see what owls eat.

Fall Themes

Our Class Exploration Into Fall Themes Continues
Our class had the opportunity to go outside and see how apples can be pressed into cider. Each student had a turn cranking the wheel on Mr. D's apple press and watching the juice run into a bucket. The cider was then heated up and we were able to try the end product, delicious!

This past week we observed how pumpkins of many sizes all floated in water. The students made predictions as to whether a small, medium, and large pumpkin would float in a large container of water. We also predicted which pumpkin would have the most seeds. The students all weighed themselves and decided if they would weigh more or less than the largest pumpkin. They all had wonderful guesses and used scientific thinking for many of our weeks experiments.

Field Trip

A Trip To Hudek's And Price Chopper
Our class got to see how the compost from our school becomes rich soil. Mr. Hudek showed our class how the use of wood chips, leaves, manure, and compost becomes rich soil. He even turned some of the huge piles with his bucket loader to show us that it gets hot, very hot, (160 degrees). We got to pick out pumpkins and painted them in the green house and then listen to a story over a glass of freshly pressed cider and fresh apples. We saw how a hand crank machine can take dried corn off the cob in seconds.
We also traveled to Price Chopper to learn how food is processed into the products we buy. We visited the bakery, meat, and seafood departments and every student got to become a check out person. It was a very enlightening experience!!

Pumpkin Time

Our Class Learns About Pumpkins
In an introduction to our pumpkin investigations for the upcoming week, our class took some time to figure out what the pumpkin life cycle looks like. The students placed cards in order on the morning meeting rug to decide how a pumpkin grows from a seed to a harvest ready pumpkin. We took a look at the sprouts, vine, blossoms, and mature pumpkin. This mini lesson is a preview to some exciting literacy and math adventures we will be studying this week. Our class will also be able to get their own pumpkin at Hudek's Farm Stand on Monday and our science workshop this week will include seeing what is inside a pumpkin and we will be doing some measurement exercises as well. Maybe even a pumpkin pie in our future!!

Seed Science

Kindergarten Explores How Seeds Travel
Our Friday science workshop investigated how seeds travel. Mrs. Scott's class joined us for an exploration into the many ways seeds find a new home in nature. Some travel in water, in the air by wind power, or hitchhike in the fur of animals or on our clothing. Seeds can also be carried by birds or ingested by animals and deposited in other locations. Our centers were made up of a seed tasting area that also included looking at fruits and vegetables to find out where their seeds were. We also went outside to see how seeds travel by the wind. We also did a craft that had the students building a sunflower and gluing seeds on the plant. It was a lot of fun for all!!

Geometric Afternoon

Creative, Spacial Learning
After having our class build pictures from user friendly geometric mats, I asked them to create with the blocks anything they wanted. This is when the real fun started. The class built straight up, stretched patterns in all directions, and made images of favorite things. Their creativity was fun to watch and their awareness of spacial connectivity between the different shaped blocks was outstanding.

Kindergarten Vegetable Garden

Bright Beginnings gathers a late season harvest
All five kindergarten classes went to our Bright Beginnings garden to gather carrots, onions, celery, and herbs this morning after breakfast. Our class was astonished to find huge carrots and celery plants that were nothing short of remarkable. We will clean, chop, (Mr. Lewis), and add to a crock pot tomorrow with other ingredients to produce a class "stone soup". Stone soup is a folk tale telling how a community that has very little themselves, can add all the ingredients into one pot to make a feast for the whole town. This will be another community building, hands on experience for our class.

Pumpkin Time

Our Class "gets cooking"

Today we ventured upstairs to our school's professional kitchen for a lesson in muffin making. Mrs. Lamb and Mrs. Smith were there to help our students understand the importance of kitchen sanitation, safety, and know how of cooking pumpkin and chocolate chip muffins. All the students helped with ingredients and the final scooping of the muffin batter into the muffin tins. Mrs. Smith delivered our final product and in the afternoon everyone enjoyed our success, YUMMY!!! The pumpkin was from Hudek's farm stand, where we will be going on our next field trip, and the flour was from King Arthur Flour and the butter from Cabot Creamery, another lesson in buying close to home.