What a groovy, busy week!
Dr. Howard's classes came over twice and read with our students one-on-one using books from the book fair. They enjoyed the special attention from their big friends!
Here's Charlie with our Miss Shelby!
This week we learned all about the Ice Age and Alabama dinosaurs.
We learned that Ice Age is a time period that glaciers covered much of North America, our continent, and Europe. This period lasted until about 10,000 years ago. There were glaciers (we looked at some amazing pics), which are large sheets of ice that do not melt. They move like very slow rivers pulled by their own weight. The Great Lakes (I showed them on map) were formed by ice sheets. Many valleys on our continent were also carved out by glaciers long ago, when the climate was colder. Ice Caps were great chunks of ice formed during the Ice Age. We also learned about Beringia, which was a resultant land bridge during the Ice Age and looked at it on the smartboard.
click {here} to watch the land bride video
click {here} to watch the land bride video
Since we had just spent a week learning about migration, we talked about how dinosaurs also had to migrate. We learned about the mastodon, bison, woolly mammoth, and the woolly rhinoceros. Did you know the giant ground sloth lived in Alabama (but not during the Ice Age) at one time? Other Alabama dinosaurs we learned about this week but not during the Ice Age are APPALACHIOSAURUS, NODOSAUR, DROMAEOSAUR, ICHTHYORNIS, ORNITHOMIMID, and PTERANODON.
APPALACHIOSAURUS
Pronounced: APA-lay-CHEE-o-SAW-rus
Meaning: “Appalachian Lizard”
Common name: Alabama tyrannosaur
NODOSAUR
Pronounced: NO-do-SAWR
Common name: Armored dinosaur
DROMAEOSAUR
Pronounced: DRO-me-O-sawr
Common Name: Raptor
ORNITHOMIMID
Pronounced: OR-ni-THO-mi-MID
Meaning: “Bird Mimic”
PTERANODON
Pronounced: TE-ran-O-don
Meaning: “Winged and Toothless”
ICHTHYORNIS
Common Name: Fish Bird
Evolution of the Mammoth
Explore geography games on ice age at NeoK12
We wondered if ice melted faster in fresh water or salt water.
Most predicted: salt water.
Our conclusion: it melts faster in fresh water.
And on Friday, we learned that fossils are the remains or traces of an animal or a plant from millions of years ago, preserved as a rock. we learned the importance of having correct information from long ago during the ice age so that we can learn more about the time period. we learned that the job of a paleontologist and of an archaeologist is important and we depend upon these people with these skills to share information from the Ice Age with us.
Grady's mom, Ms. Ashley, who is also a professor of History and Social Science here at UWA, gave us a presentation on dinosaur fossils. We learned that the large animals during the time of the Ice Age were called Megaphona, which means really big animals. We even saw fossils from the mastodon and the woolly mammoth! We learned a great deal from Dr. Dumas and we are so thankful she took time from her busy day to come see us.
The students got a kick out of growing/hatching foam dinosaurs this afternoon.
I always see these in the store but never think much about them.
I certainly will never forget them now! We had a ball!
Today was the students' first session with Miss Jarhonda and Miss Ashanti is the Science Lab.
They experimented with water and oil and had a blast!
They also did the color changing milk experiment.
If you haven't seen this before, please watch our video.
Check out the easy directions on Steve Spangler's site, too!
limited centers:
dramatic play- add binoculars, magnifying glasses, etc for students to become paleontologists
frozen ice sand- frozen Epsom salt and glitter, polar animals, and dinosaurs
discovery- March sensory tub
math- Stegosaurus maze
Paleontologist maze
computer- Dinosaur Train
art- painting with ice cubes and food coloring
learn to draw a dinosaur
blocks- add plastic dinosaurs
Thank you to all the parents and grandparents who came to Groovy Goodies!
You are appreciated today and everyday!
And to end our week, we did the Sid Shuffle :D
#happyclassrooms
