We've certainly had our fair share of delays and cancellations recently, so it feels nice to get back into a bit of a routine this week! We've been working hard on our letters, sounds, and shapes, as well as exploring our unit of inquiry into how sound is made. As we head toward conferences, we're also entering assessment season: it's always exciting to see how much the students have grown! Our reading groups this week focused on the letters Mm, Ii, Ss, Ff, and Rr. We explored these letters and sounds by dictating words on whiteboards, building them with Wiki sticks, and sorting pictures by beginning sounds. The students are making amazing progress, and are beginning to use the sounds to make words! Math saw us counting all the way to 100 (wow!), exploring the concept of addition by using dice and unifix cubes, and building pictures using shapes. Using concrete materials like cubes help to make the very abstract concept of addition much more accessible. During Genius Hour, we wrapped up our exploration of the water cycle by returning to our original experiment cup. If you recall, we added salt to snow to see how it affected the melting process. After the snow had melted, it also evaporated, leaving just the salt behind. After learning about the water cycle, we had one final inquiry to make: what would happen to the salt if we added water back to the cup? We hypothesized, then carried out our experiment. Everyone was shocked to see that this time, it was the salt that disappeared! This prompted us to learn the new vocabulary words dissolve, and wrapped up our inquires into water. We used pictures to show the water cycle and how water moves through the different phases. We opted for a directed drawing, and even discussed the correct vocabulary words as we worked! A large part of our week was spent digging into sound. We spent our Unit time looking at various instruments, discovering how they made sound, and finding the vibration in each. We discovered that string instruments, like the guitar, create sound when the strings are plucked and vibrate. They even went one step further, inquiring into how the hollow inside of the guitar affected the sound it made. Some students connected this to YouTube videos they had seen where the guitar was filled with water, which made the sound deeper and more 'whooshy.' Although it hurts my musician heart to think about filling a guitar with water, it was a great connection! Each student had the opportunity to play the guitar and feel the neck and body for vibrations, and some even inquired into how the frets could affect the sound as they played. After everyone had had a chance to play the guitar, we took it one step further: we made our own instruments using geoboards and rubber bands! The students explored how different shapes make different sound, how stretching the rubber band more made a higher sound, and how a loose rubber band made a lower sound. We added our discoveries to our KWL chart, and will revisit this concept when it's time to create our own musical instruments at the end of the unit. Later in the week, we explored how our voices create sound. Using a hand placed gently on our throats, we spoke, sang, whispered, and shouted. We sang high and low, introducing our vocabulary word pitch, and discovered that the vibrations in our throats feel different based on the sound we're making. Finally, during Genius Hour, we used rice and beans to make individual shakers. We practiced rhythm by playing them as we sang through our story of the day, 'Oh, A-Hunting We Will Go.' Oh, a-hunting we will go. A-hunting we will go. We'll just pretend, and in the end We'll always let them go! The most impressive thing to happen this week was when a student described how sound waves work without being taught! Based solely on his own discoveries (specifically using our voices), he described how the sound feels like it moves up and down, then drew a model to explain his thinking. Little did he know, he was spot on! We then watched a quick video explaining sound waves, and it was like watching a lightbulb go off. What an incredible learning moment! It was a short, but full, week in kindergarten, and I'm hoping we can have a full week when we return! Despite feeling like carrots in the produce section, we got outside and braved the misty weather for both Woods and recess. Apologies for the bags of muddy clothes coming home - if there's a mud puddle, they will find it! The students were thrilled to be outside again after last week's cold chill, so a little rain wasn't going to bother us. Here's hoping next week brings a bit of sun!
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