What's A Slope Mrs. Heinrich?

The cutest thing, one of our kinders asked me this question yesterday. I looked down at her sweet face and said, "we are going to be scientists and conduct an experiment to find that out." She replied, "what's a experiment?"

We started our slope lesson asking if they ever went sledding. Duh, we live in Wisconsin and have a hill at our school. Vocabulary word number one, slope. Now to the experiment part... we are going to set up an experiment to find out if a big slope or hill makes us go faster or does a small hill make us go faster? We made a prediction. Look at all that vocabulary. I had our kiddos get a car to place on our graph. Then we went to set up our experiment.

We set up two slopes a big one and a little one. Then we raced our cars down the hills. We shared our findings to see if our predictions were correct. We then filled out a sheet to share our conclusions and findings. There pictures show it all...they got it. Before my kinders

left, I asked the class, "what is a slope?" "Moving on a slant!" "A hill!" Well then kids, what is an experiment? "A test!" Cool beans, when kindergartners "get it"!

Castle Catapults

Our FOSS 5th grade unit has us testing variables, however sometimes the kids have a hard time connecting to why they are making lifeboats, pendulums, or flippers. In an older post, I shared how I introduced the lesson...here is how I wrap it up. Each group tests for length of stick and angles. We figure out what angle gives the best distance and the length of stick that gives us the height we need. We then give each kingdom a chance to scale the wall of the there castles in the room. The can change the length of stick or the angle or both now to use what they learned in their controlled experiment. We give them a chart to tally out of three tries how many times they scaled the wall of a castle. The winning team gets Burger King Crowns and are rulers of the room. We discuss how kingdoms were won and lost due to battles such as this. It makes it make sense as to how it relates to history.
Castle Catapult Sheet

Here is a group trying to scale the castle walls. Who will be rulers of the kingdom?

Plant A Seed...

This last week, we focused on my plate. We watched this fun video based on the song Born This Way explaining the new my plate food guide. We then played the optional activity Growing a Garden Game called My Plate Hoopla from Nutritious Delicious Wisconsin. We set out hula hoops that portrayed plates. We set out bean bags, you could use colored paper. Orange=grain,m green=veggies, purple= meats or beans, blue=dairy, and red= fruit. I made sure that there wasn't enough of some and I added yellow for sweets. You could steal from someone and add a sugar. I only gave so much time and then I called it. We went around to see if we had a well balanced meal. Then we went back to our room to make a my plate,  plate. They did a great job making their favorite meal, but making it even healthier. 

We worked on creating balanced meals that would be use in our lunchroom to encourage others to think about half of their plate being fruits and veggies. My plate does...does yours?

Here is a great video that we watched that helped the kids understand the new food guidelines. It is sung to Lady Gaga's song Born This Way! 

Pushing And Pulling Our Kindergartners

So, as we continue to develop our unit on push and pull, I am helping set up two different activities for you. The first one is an extension for push and pull. I read (paraphrased) the book Push and Pull... and then showed them different pictures that helped them understand the difference between the two types of motions. We modeled pushing and pulling and that sometimes it is both a push and a pull. We defined a push as a force that moves something away and a pull is a force that brings something closer. We did a Venne Diagram with pictures I included for you to use. We then went outside for a few minutes...brrrrr it was cold. We practiced pushing and pulling on the swings, slide, and Rocking Boat. We went back in to practice being on a row boat. We pushed and pulled our oars in our boat as we sat on the floor. Another great resource for push and pull ideas are from a fellow blogger at Chalk Talk.

push and pull cards Used in the Venne Diagram. Are we pushing, pulling or both.

               Our little rowers. Push the oars, pull the oars, push the oars, pull the oars...

My Week In Review...

Here is what this science teacher is doing this week...

There Is Only ONE You!

Building a green team for a garden is one step in my goal for our school. I just came back from a Green Schools conference this week and am truly inspired to make a difference myself. Our green team started with our school garden, but a green team could also be a group that wants to make a difference in the world. A way to do that is to connect our kiddos to that fact that one person can make a difference. This is my way of getting my green team on board to recycle, upcycle, compost... the sky is the limit! I found this book on a blog hop.

 “There’s only one you in this great big world, make it a better place.” 
http://www.lindakranz.com/books_only-one-you.php



I am inspired...check back to see what Thomas Jefferson students can do to make a difference!

Cranberries...Thanks For Giving

Here is Wisconsin, we have cranberry bogs all around us. My son even went to a cranberry bog on a field trip. He brought me back a heaping bag. So....what did we do?  We decorated with cranberries, made cranberry muffins, made cranberry sauce, and even made a  yummy jello using our cranberries. I almost felt like Bubba on Forest Gump. I used these lessons last year...tested them out for you. Enjoy the fun!

Here is the Teacher Pay Teacher link: Cranberry Fun!

Here is a quick video that you can use to show some of the steps in the harvesting of cranberries. We have an Ocean Spray factory about a forty minutes from our house. If it isn't cows we see its...

Are you cravin' the craisin? Or the cranberry yet? What better way to tie in science, reading, writing...

To top it all off... our teachers read this book and use the recipe in it to make something with cranberries. This year is busy, we may use it at our monthly family night. Here our kiddos were looking at the cranberries to see why they float...they are hollow! Happy Fall!