A Hoot of a Kindergarten Class!: last week's snapshot

all about groundhogs! that's what we know!

we started the morning off with the question, will the groundhog see his shadow?

then we watched Punxsutawney Phil to find out. and he did :(

here's a few facts that we learned:

they enjoyed making their headbands, too! they turned out great!

the students also enjoyed making Valentine's Day cards for the residents of the Nursing Home here in Sumter County. the cards were passed out at the Valentine's Day Banquet. <3

in limited centers this week, the students used a gift wrapping paper tube as a tunnel. loved seeing the open-ended uses for this tube in the classroom...

in art, the students used green, brown, and white paint to paint shadows in their drawings and paintings and learned how to draw a groundhog...

in literacy, the students printed in a tray of sand their vocabulary words hibernate, spring, winter, burrow, groundhog, shadow.

in dramatic play, the students put on a puppet show with puppets and a flashlight...

and in discovery, they had fun with the February sensory tub and red play-dough.

our focus last week was on hibernation and migration. we wondered, what is migration? migration is the movement of a group of animals from one place to another and, in most cases, back again. mammals are often a good example of a group of animals that are considered nomadic migrants. they wander from place to place usually with the change of seasons. they might end up where they started or they could be somewhere completely different. not all migration journeys are long. while some birds fly incredible distances when they migrate, some amphibians may only move a quarter of a mile when they migrate. and we wondered, what is hibernation? technically, it is a time when animals sleep through the cold winter. however, it is very, very different than a human's deep sleep. an animal can actually be moved or touched and not even be aware of it! a hibernating animal's body temperature drops drastically and their breathing slows. their body fat (from all of the extra eating they did in the summer and fall to prepare for this time) gets them through the winter. during the winter, these animals can actually be moved or touched and not even be aware of it! in springtime when they awaken, they are very thin, but healthy. we also learned a very interesting fact! bears do NOT hibernate. bears actually go into what is called torpor. this is when they sleep soundly for weeks. their body temperatures do go down and their breathing slows. but, they can wake up, it just takes them longer and they are groggy for a while. most bear cubs are born in the winter months and Mama Bear needs to wake up to feed them. how interesting is that?!?!

what animals migrate? some animals that migrate are butterflies, elk, birds, whales, geese, and fish. so then we wondered, what animals hibernate?

some animals that hibernate are badgers, bats, chipmunks, dormice, ground squirrels, groundhogs hamsters, hedgehogs, raccoon, and skunks.

the students LOVE write the room. here are few pics of them doing so!

and a few pics of them in the library with Miss Callie. she follows the same theme as the teachers. they had fun making bears last week!

in math, we did number talks using ten frames and worked with numbers 11-19 to gain foundations for place value. (K.NBT.1)

we did a really neat experiment to show the students how an animal's fat keeps it warm from the cold weather while it hibernates. super easy to do:

Put a large amount of Crisco in a baggie.
Flatten Crisco to a layer in the baggie and seal.
Give each child an ice cube and discuss winter animals that sleep (hibernate) through the winter. They eat a lot in summer and fall and the fat keeps them warm.
Now give a few of them a Crisco baggie.
Lay it flat on their open palm.
Place the ice cube on top.
They should not feel the ice.
This is similar to how animals' fat keep them warm from the cold weather.

I let each student smell and or feel Crisco since none had seen or heard of it before.

Thursday was our Hibernation Party. we wore pajamas and hibernated during quiet time. and we even made a special snack! each student chose a winter cookie cutter to make their piece of toast, chose the jelly flavor they would like to eat, and hot cocoa if wanted. and we settled in for movie time!