I don't Know Where I'm Gonna Go When the Volcano Blows

We have been talking about dinosaurs and volcanoes in the classroom. Beth visited Hawaii and brought back some real photos and video from her trip, which included a day trip up on Kilauea, one of Hawaii's to active volcanoes. 

In the classroom, we made a model volcano together and used the explosive mixture of baking soda and vinegar to make it erupt.

We started with a medium glass vase to function as the magma chamber and crater of the volcano. We used play dough to build the structure of the mountain around the crater. Then, we covered the outside in modeling clay, which will hold up to repeated lava eruptions better than play dough on its own. 

Once the volcano was finished, we put a bunch of plastic dinosaurs at the base. This is reminiscent of the one of the theories that an asteroid hit the earth and caused the dinosaurs extinction. Part of that theory is that the asteroid blast set off a number of volcanic eruptions that helped in the dinosaurs' demise.

Once we had our dinosaurs in place, we put baking soda in the crater (and into the glass vase). Next, we put food coloring and vinegar in a plastic cup. Each child was allowed to decide what color lava they wanted to make when it was their turn to pour in the vinegar. By the end, we were mixing colors to see what would come out. 

Then we poured the vinegar in and here is the exciting result. 

We will have the volcano erupting as long as it is still holding the kids' interest in the science area all next week.

Simple Machines: Pulleys

 One morning, one of the boys noticed that there were a couple of round things hanging from the crossbar on the sensory table. 
"What are those things?" he asked.
"Those are called pulleys," I said. "They are one of the things that make work easier for us. Do you want to see how they work?"
"Yeah," he said.

Soon we were joined by a few other inquiring preschoolers. We go some yarn to thread through the pulleys and we put it around one of the big, long hollow blocks. I showed them how to use it to make the block go up. The kids decided to add some of the sorting animals inside the block.

"It's just like an elevator," one student said. I told them this was a similar system to the one that elevators use to go up and down.

Let it Snow

On Tuesday, we were complaining that it was raining and we could not go outside. We really wanted it to be snowing so that we could go sledding on the hill out in back of the school.

Some kids made pictures of what they would like to do if there was snow. I suggested we write a letter to Tom Messner, the local weather man on WPTZ, to ask him to make it snow.

At closing meeting, the kids all contributed to writing the following letter:

I took pictures of the drawings the kids made and sent Tom Messner an email with all of the pictures attached. 

What did we learn? It works. Today we had enough snow to go sledding and make a snowman. We had a blast!

We still haven't heard back from Tom Messner, but we have our fingers crossed that he'll respond.

Feed the Birds

This year in preschool we have been playing special attention to trees. The very first week of school, we chose a tree near the playground that we will document all year by taking a picture of it everyday we are able to get outside. 

We have incorporated many other activities into our tree study. We went apple picking and then made several cooking projects with the apples. We have read books that include The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein, The Seasons of Arnold's Apple Tree by Gail Gibbons, and Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert.

Our latest project is to take care of the birds that live in trees and winter over in Vermont. We have installed two feeders on our preschool window so we can see the birds come to eat. We will be keeping track of the birds who come to eat there. We check the level of the birdseed each day. If they need to be filled, the kids who have the snack helper job help fill it. 

This week, everyone will make a bird feeder that we can hang on the tree we are documenting on the playground. They are simple pine cone feeders spread with peanut butter and bird seed. 

Here are some photos of the process:

First, Spread on the peanut butter with a spreading stick.

Next, roll your sticky pine cone in the bin of bird seed.

Place on the tray until other kids finish making their feeders.

Outside, kids hand the feeders to Beth to place in the tree.

Here is the first group of kids to hang their feeders.

Apples, Apples!

So, I am finally catching up on my blogging. After we all had conferences the week before Thanksgiving, I made a promise to myself to at least post a few times a month.

This goes back to late September, but I wanted to share what the students did with apples. We had our field trip to Allenholm Farm on Grand Isle. We tried to pick a more local place, but no one in Franklin County had apples for picking during the week. The early September frost killed a lot of the crop. Allenholm, however, was somewhat insulated form the frost problem because they are close to Lake Champlain. The Lake tends to keep the air warmer. As a result, they had many apples. They did have a number of apples with scabs on them. We had to pick carefully to get scab-less apples. 

The folks at Allenholm gave us a large bag of apples to bring back to the classroom. The first thing we did with these was put them out at open house and had everyone guess (estimate) how many apples were in the bag. I had to work math into this huge bag of apples. The guesses ranged from 2 to over 100. When we counted them as a group at Morning Meeting, it turned out there were 88.

We then invited Sarah Kittell in to show us how to make apple pie. The kids divvied up jobs. We took turns peeling apples, shaping our pie crusts, and mixing the ingredients in the bowl. Everyone was able to fill their own individual pie and put the strips of dough on the top. We baked them in the oven after preschool and the kids were able to take them home the next day to share with people in their family.

The next day, we used an apple slicer to cut up more apples and made applesauce. I got a recipe from online and we cooked the apples, cinnamon, brown sugar and lemon juice in a crock pot throughout the preschool day. The room smelled very yummy. The next morning, the kids mixed the mushy apples in to the sauce and we all got to gobble it up at snack.

We did the math again and found out that:

 88 apples - pie apples - applesauce apples = 42 apples

We also reenacted the apple sorting process we learned about at Allenholm. I spray painted several tennis balls red and left a bunch of them green. We used a piece of gutter and a mailing tube to "sort" the apples into different boxes. The kids really enjoyed playing apple farmers in the block area.

Song Practice for Winter Concert

Here are the words and a link to the YouTube video of "Seven Days of the Week" by They Might Be Giants. You can use this to practice the song with your kids at home.

Seven Days of the Week, I Never Go to Work

 Oh no, no I never go to work
 Oh no, no I never go to work
 Oh no, no I never go to work
 Oh no, no I never go to work

On Monday, I never go to work
On Tuesday, I stay at home
On Wednesday, I never feel inclined
Work is the last thing on my mind
On Thurday, it's a HOLIDAY!
And Friday I detest
And it's much too late on a Saturday
And Sunday is the day of rest

Oh yes, yes practice trumpet everyday
Oh yes, yes practice trumpet everyday 
Oh yes, yes practice trumpet everyday  
Oh yes, yes practice trumpet everyday 

On Monday (trumpet fingers)
On Tuesday (trumpet fingers)
On Wednesday (trumpet fingers)
On Thursday (trumpet fingers)
And Friday (trumpet fingers)
And I practice all night on Saturday
So on Sunday I play best

 Oh no, no I never go to work
 Oh no, no I never go to work
 Oh no, no I never go to work
 Oh no, no I never go to work

On Monday, I never go to work
On Tuesday, I stay at home
On Wednesday, I never feel inclined
Work is the last thing on my mind
On Thurday, it's a HOLIDAY!
And Friday I detest
And it's much too late on a Saturday
And Sunday is the day of rest...it's the day of REST!

Butterfly is Free

We  were lucky enough to get a few Monarch Butterfly caterpillars before they were all gone in early September. We have watched them grow. Three of them made it to the Chrysalis stage. 

One, unfortunately, formed its chrysalis on the inside of my plastic container before I transferred the caterpillars into the classroom habitat. I moved it in with the container top and taped it up so it could still develop. When that butterfly emerged over a weekend, it got stuck on the tape and didn't make it. 

The other butterfly that emerged that same weekend was happy and healthy when we got to school on Tuesday. We spent two days observing and drawing pictures of it. Then, we let it go at the end of Wednesday. Here is a video of the it leaving the habitat.

 The kids are saying, "Hasta luego," which means, "See you later," and, "Adios," which means, "Goodbye," in Spanish. Since Monarch Butterflies typically migrate down to Mexico, we used a little Spanish to send it off on it's journey.

We still have one chrysalis left. This is the caterpillar that kept sneaking out of the habitat. It made its chrysalis on the outside screen. I had to cut that part of the screen off and put in inside the habitat. We are not sure that butterfly is still developing. It hasn't changed into the darker colors that we saw with the other two. We're going to give it until the end of the week to see what happens.