Pre-K Parent Orientation will be Monday, August 4th at 5:30pm.  This is a very important evening.  All parents need to make plans to attend.  Please meet in the Library.  

  Teacher Meet and Greet will be Tuesday, August 5th at 5:30pm.   Your child will not want to miss this night! 

Link to YOUTUBE site (better quality video)- CLICK HERE

Digital Storytelling and STEM resources

STEM-tastic Digital Storytelling Apps

My Story ($3.99) 

Little Bird Tales ($2.99)

ScreenChomp (free)

Educreations (free)

Explain Everything ($2.99)

Sock Puppets (free)

Tellagami (free)

Videolicious (free)

Pic Collage (free)

SpokenPhoto (free)


 STEM Classroom Resources

STEM Sprouts 

 STEM in the Early Childhood Classroom 

Hatch Early Learning STEM kits

Teaching STEM in the Early Years

Pinterest STEM activities

NEA- STEM resources

Solar System and Insects- STEM

 " Immersion in experience is the most fundamental learning mode throughout life."
Guy Claxton

We have been busy little bees this past month!  We had so much fun studying the Solar System.  We planned on spending two weeks on the unit, but ended up spending almost four weeks studying our amazing solar system!   We wrapped up our unit with a trip to the planetarium at JSU.   

The class created a digital story.  Please click on the link to view it!  

SOLAR SYSTEM Digital Story  

 

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We made telescopes and looked at constellations. 

Layna loved looking at all of the different constellations.

The students went bananas with this new augmented reality app.  The planets came to life!

We used a flashlight to demonstrate how the moon reflects the light of the sun.  We studied the phases of the moon.

We watched the video of Neil Armstrong landing on the moon! They loved it!

 We will spend the remaining weeks of our school year studying insects.   For the past two weeks, we have been studying the characteristics of insects.   We learned a song to help us remember all of the parts of an insect.   The students are enjoying fourteen new QR codes in our technology center.   The QR codes are linked to kid friendly science videos.   We also have a few QR codes that will read the students books that go along with the insect that we are studying.   They are especially fond of "The Hungry Caterpillar" by Eric Carle.

This week we used one of our favorite apps called ScreenChomp.   This app reminds me of Educreations, but is a much simpler version.    I think it is a great app for the early childhood classroom.  This app is also free, which is a lovely bonus.   I also give it 5 stars because of its user friendliness and the simplicity of sharing the screenchomp with others.   With the click of a button, I am able to email the link to myself or the student's family.

Below you will see the links to a few of our ScreenChomps.   The assignment was to select a photo that showed the life cycle of the butterfly.   I helped them browse through the Google images.   After they selected a photo, they pressed record.   Each student recorded a snippet about the life cycle.   It was a great way for me to assess and see what they had learned.   

 Kaylan's ScreenChomp

 Tyler's ScreenChomp

Gavin's ScreenChomp

Ross' ScreenChomp

Bella's ScreenChomp

Abbie's ScreenChomp

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2 Week Plant unit -STEM

“The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.”
― Albert Einstein

For the past two weeks, we have been learning all about plants.  Ms. Carpenter (our JSU intern) has been doing some awesome activities that has kept the students highly engaged in learning.    From planting and recording the growth of onion bulbs to learning the parts of the flower, these four and five year olds have been immersed in many hands on science lessons.   I am not going to spoil the fun, so click on the links below and listen to the student created digital stories all about plants!  Once again, I am so very proud of them! 

**Please make sure you click the green arrow on the bottom on the story picture.   You will be able to hear the student telling the story. 

Bella's story
http://msty.me/1nK50XS

Layna's story

http://msty.me/1giSNFy

Jake's story
http://msty.me/1hODocX

Abbie's story
http://msty.me/1hOyqwO

Gavin's story
http://msty.me/1hOxQiC

Ross' story
http://msty.me/1giPdLB

Tyler's story
http://msty.me/1hOuDiT

Kaylan's story
http://msty.me/1nKjMhd

Kerrigan's story
http://msty.me/OIbc2C 

We love Mr. Scientist.  We are learning that we can ALL be scientists!!! 

Five Senses- 2 week STEM unit

"Tell me and I forget. Show me and I remember. Involve me and I understand."
- Chinese proverb

Let us introduce you to Mr. Five Senses man.  We learned a song about the five senses and pointed to our chart as we sang.   I try to find a song to go along with every unit.  Music sticks in our brains and we seldom forget! This is a link to the song we used: Five Senses song by Dr. Jean 

We started off our unit focusing on our sense of smell.  I created smelling jars for the students.   They had a great time trying to guess what was inside each jar.  We smelled cinnamon, garlic, onion, vanilla, baby powder, peppermint, coffee and mint.

Next, we focused on our sense of sight.  We took a walk around campus to find things with our eyes.   It was a great time to practice how we walk and carry our iPads the correct way.  They did a great job! 

The students took pictures of different objects and saved them to the camera roll. 

The students found dinosaurs hiding under the playground equipment!

Later, during center time, the students used their photos to create a photo collage.  We love the Pic Collage app.   We saved their work and added it to their digital portfolio. 

We used our sense of touch to try and guess what was in the mystery bags. We really had to focus in order to make a good guess! 

For our sense of hearing activity, we filled plastic eggs with different objects such as coins, marbles, rice and paper clips.  The students had to listen very carefully to match up the eggs with the matching sound.

We tasted sweet, salty, and sour types of food and made a chart of what flavor we preferred most.  We loved using our sense of taste!


We created some QR codes to go along with our five senses unit.  The students listened to short videos about the five senses during morning station time.  I love how independent they have become with scanning the codes.  I often catch them helping one another when there is a problem.  Its amazing to see 4 and 5 year olds troubleshooting. 
 Here are the links to some of the videos we watched: 
Five Senses song by Dr. Jean 
Amazing Science- The 5 senses 
Hearing- 5 senses 
  


To wrap up our Five Senses unit, I assigned two projects to be completed at home.  The first project consisted of creating a video using the Videolicious app.   I am so proud of my students! Please take a few minutes and watch their self-made five senses videos. 

Gavin's Five Senses Video

Layna's Five Senses Video 

Bella's Five Senses Video 

Abbie's Five Senses Video 

Ross' Five Senses Video 
Kerrigan and Kaylan's videos were unable to be uploaded to this site.  They both did a GREAT job! 

The second project was to create a poster with pictures that represent all five senses.  We took time during our morning gathering to share our projects with the class.  I am so proud of all of the students.  They were so creative! 

What a great two weeks we have had learning all about the five senses!  

We will have a short mini-unit on Sharks this week as we prepare for our field trip to the McWane Center.  Our IMAX movie will be about sharks.  

Ramps and Pathways- Week 2

"Play is our brain's favorite way of learning."  Diane Ackerman

We are discovering that ramps are everywhere!  Did you know a pool noodle can be cut in half to make a ramp for our marbles?  The inside groove is a nice place to roll a marble!   The pool noodle will also bend.  Our marbles can go up and down!   We added pool noodles to our ramp area in our classroom this week. 

We also discovered that we have a ramp in our hallway!  We walked up and down the ramp. It definitely takes much more energy to walk UP the ramp.  

  This week we performed an experiment.  We needed more room so we went into the hallway.   I told the children we were going to use the same ramp with several different balls and objects.   I asked each child to predict how far their individual ball was going to go.  

First, each child took time to look at the qualities of the ball.   Is it heavy?   Is it smooth?  Is it round?  Is it hollow or solid?   We are learning that all of these qualities affect how far our balls will roll.   We are learning to make good educated guesses.     

Next, I  gave each child a piece of tape and they marked the spot where they predicted their ball would roll.     Next came the fun part, we watched intensely as each child tested out their ball.   Wheeeeeeeeee!!!   The children discovered that the small, round balls will roll very far!    The big, heavy balls did not roll very far.   We also discovered that if the ball had a rough texture, it would not go very far.    The children had a BLAST conducting this experiment.   We also attracted several students from the upper grades who were passing by...they were fascinated by our ramps! 

WOW!  Look how far Abbie's ball is going!

RAMP CENTER EXPLORATIONS

Layna is excited to see how far her marble will roll.  She has connected 3 pool noodles in order to make a very long ramp.

Katelyn created a tunnel for her marble.   She also put a large ball at the bottom to stop her marble from falling off the table and onto the floor.  We are learning that obstacles can be useful! 

Gavin is testing out his marble on his newly designed ramp.   Will his marble go down and then up? Gavin is becoming a pro at creating ramps!



VIDEO:  This week we used our QR Codes to look at Outdoor Ramps. 

We are VERY thankful for our new discovery ramp set!   The wood is smooth and the students have been having a blast creating and designing new ramps.    Thank you! 

 
We also celebrated our 100th day of school.  We focused on literacy and math activities for the day.   The students really enjoyed seeing a picture of how they might look at 100 years.   They created an oral story using Audioboo.com.  I am very pleased to see their oral language skills increasing.  

We know that strong oral language skills leads to strong reading and writing skills.