A Hoot of a Kindergarten Class!: week of February 22

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

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 also performed an experiment using ice.

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.