Kindergarten Kindergarten

Kindergarten Distance Learning Science Videos and Discussions

Like many of you, I am about to start teaching kindergarten--VIRTUALLY. And it's hard! How do I engage these little learners, many of whom have never been in school? How do I provide them with rigorous, inquiry-based, hands-on and FUN activities through a computer screen? How do I help them become independent learners? How do I make them love school? These are the questions I've been struggling with. 

I am determined to make this happen!

So I have created these Kindergarten Distance-Learning Science Videos and Discussions. These lessons are designed for distance learning--whether you are completely virtual (synchronous or asynchronous), or using a hybrid model where children come to school on some days and learn from home on others. 

Each unit comes with 8 short, but highly engaging video mini-lessons (most are 3-5 minutes long). The videos start with a guiding question and end by prompting children to complete a simple but meaningful activity (either a science notebook entry or a hands-on investigation). The activities are meant to get kids off the computer and exploring science in the real world. 

The videos are followed up by teacher-led discussions to deepen your students' learning, help clear up any misconceptions and even informally assess your students' understanding of the topic. Each discussion comes with a Google Slides presentation and detailed teacher instructions. I've also included Parent Guides for each lesson, with questions parents or other caregivers can ask their children, needed supplies and extension activities. And best of all--these lessons are very easy for both teachers and families! 

The first unit, What is Science? introduces kids to the amazing world of science and how it helps us, the different kinds of scientists there are, science tools, science notebooks and science safety. It is available in my Teachers Pay Teachers store. The second unit, Our Five Senses, will be available soon!

I am really excited about using these science videos with my kids! If you would like to see what they're all about, here is a preview of the first video!

NOTE: This is a Google Drive product. You must have a Google Drive account (free) to access it, but your students do not! These videos can be assigned in Google Classroom, SeeSaw, Schoology or any other learning platform that supports Google Drive. They can also be emailed. The videos are hosted on YouTube and embedded in Google Slides, so your students must be able to access YouTube from their devices (although they never actually have to visit YouTube, and there are no ads or suggested videos at the end). 

Please let me know if you have any questions about these videos, or about how I am tackling distance learning, in general. It's  not going to be easy--but I know we can do it!

Freebie Animal Slideshows

Here are a couple of slideshows that I use with my Physical Characteristics of Animals unit. They are super simple--meant to show kids the variety of animals in the world. I show these slideshows to the kids AFTER they have explored and come up with a list of characteristics on their own--kind of a wrap up.

The slideshows are Google Presentations--you just have to click on the links to view.

Enjoy!

ANIMAL BODY COVERINGS

Pictures of animals with fur, feathers, scales, shells and skin.

 

ANIMAL RAINBOW

Pictures of animals in all different colors.

 

There's a Zoo in our Room!

I've always struggled with my Animals unit in Science. I pride myself in creating hands-on, engaging lessons--but it's kind of hard to make animals "hands-on." I mean I have a few feathers, a turtle shell and a snake-skin. But my unit was still just a lot of reading books and watching videos. This year, I decided to shake things up a little--by creating a Kindergarten Zoo!

Whenever I plan a unit, I start by looking at the standards for that unit and planning my learning objectives. The standards for "Animals" in Texas are fairly simple:

(A)  sort animals into groups based on physical characteristics such as color, size, or body covering.

(B)  identify parts of animals such as head, eyes, and limbs.

That's it! I don't have to teach about adaptations or habitats or food chains. I don't have to teach kids the difference between reptiles and amphibians. My job is simple. And rather than spinning my wheels trying to teach my kids material that is (possibly) developmentally inappropriate and (possibly) causing them to develop misconceptions, I make darn sure they develop a thorough and sound understanding of the concepts I am responsible for. And I make sure we have lots of fun doing it!

I started by reading one of my favorite books.

I asked the kids if they wanted to make a (pretend) zoo in our room and the answer was a very enthusiastic YES! After I calmed them down and explained that--no--they could not bring their dog to school--we hatched a plan. We decided that we wanted to bring stuffed animals (and other animal toys) to school. We would make sure they were as realistic as possible (so no pink leopards or red teddy bears). We would make signs to tell visitors all about the animals. To do that, we would have to learn all about the animals.

(Translation: I knew exactly what I wanted to do. But I made the kids think it was ALL their idea. I'm good.)

We started by sorting animals and listing/defining their physical characteristics. This is how I made it inquiry-based: I did not tell the kids how to sort the animals. I did not even tell the kids what the different physical characteristics are. I let the kids tell me!

I used these animal cards, which you can download for free in my TPT store. 

First, I gave the kids a few minutes to explore and talk about the animals. Then, I let them work together in table groups to sort the cards any way they wanted to! They sorted them in some unexpected ways--like cute and gross (true story). I just let them do it and then eventually guided them to sort by the characteristics I wanted them to learn (again--making them think it was all their idea).

For example, I saw that one group sorted by color (YES!). So I had all the groups sort the animals by color. Then the kids listed all the colors they saw while I recorded them on an anchor chart. I pushed them to come up with any colors they missed through questioning: What animal is this? What color is it?

We took the vocabulary the kids came up with and worked together to create an Interactive Science Word Wall that the kids continued to use throughout the unit.

We used the word wall to write about our animals in our science notebooks.

On the next day, we repeated this process. Again--I had the kids choose a way to sort the animals. This time, they sorted by number of legs. I had to guide them to include all of the characteristics I wanted them to learn. For example, they pulled out the spider and all the animals that had 4 legs, then put all the other animals together in one big group. So I had to prompt them. Me: What about the bee? Kids: It doesn't have any legs! Me: Are you sure? If we're not sure, we look it up. We added "limbs" to our word wall and the kids wrote in their science notebooks.

We continued this for several days until we had covered all of the characteristics I wanted the kids to learn.

And we kept adding to our Interactive Science Word Walls and writing in our science notebooks.
  

All the while, we read lots of animal books...

And visited lots of zoo websites...

And, finally, we were ready for the animals...

We did a lot of comparing animals.

How are they the same? How are they different?

Here are a few examples of kid notebooks:

And then the kids made signs to tell visitors about their animals.

They wrote simple sentences describing their animal's physical characteristics using sight words, words from our word walls and phonetic spelling. Because most of the animals were plush, we had a few misconceptions about body coverings--some kids thought penguins have fur. So we had to double check a few things in books...

 

Finally, on the last day of the unit, we made our zoo!

We decided how to group our animals. Because we were not learning about habitats, I wasn't super concerned about where the kids put the animals. They decided on farm, arctic, savanna, forest, jungle, desert and ocean. I snatched a bunch of fake ficus trees from the library. We used butcher paper, leftover bulletin board fabric and whatever else the kids could find around the room. They had so much fun arranging the animals (they even hung monkeys from the trees). 

We made tickets and invited our families...

And we had popcorn, but had to remind the visitors:

DO NOT FEED THE ANIMALS!

The kids were the zoologists and taught our visitors all about the animals. 

The kids LOVED this unit. They were engaged every day throughout the 2 week unit and when it was all done, they knew so much about the physical characteristics of animals. Now, if only I can figure out a way to get some real pandas. They look so cute on YouTube...

Interactive Science Word Walls

Hello again! I know it's been a while since I've actually blogged, but I really have been doing some fun and exciting things in my classroom. 

One of the favorite things I've been doing is Interactive Science Word Walls. I LOVE them! But I can't take credit for them. They are the brainchild of Dr. Julie Jackson, an associate professor at Texas State University. I've been lucky enough to work with Dr. Jackson for the past couple of years (and also lucky enough to have her grandsons in my class!) 

So what are Interactive Science Word Walls? They are SO MUCH MORE than traditional word walls. Simply put--they are giant, colorful, engaging, hands-on, student-created graphic organizers! They help students develop a deep understanding of key science vocabulary.

Here are a few pictures of some of the word walls my kids and I have created. Over the coming months, I will detail some of the lessons that go with these walls. But in the meantime, here are a few important tips:

• The word walls are not "front-loaded". In other words, I do not pre-make the word walls ahead of time and put them up at the beginning of my unit. They are made with my kids in the context of hands-on, inquiry-based science activities. Vocabulary is introduced as children are having concrete experiences that they can connect all those words to. 

• That does not mean that the walls should not be planned out. Know in advance what vocabulary you want the kids to learn (look to your standards for that). Think about how the vocabulary fits in to the objectives that you are teaching and create a graphic organizer that supports those objectives. Dr. Jackson has some really good planning documents on her website (The Science Toolkit) to help with this.

• When possible, real-objects should be used on the walls. Real rocks, leaves, tools, etc! When not possible, pictures should be used (kind of hard to put the moon on your wall).

• The kids should help as much as possible when creating these walls. In kindergarten, I start out doing most of the work, because I want the walls to be usable (let's face it--there's a lot of scribbling in the beginning of kinder). But even at the beginning of the year, I let the kids pick out the objects that will go with the words. As the year progresses, and the kids gain more writing and drawing skills, they do more of the work. 

• Use these word walls every day! Don't just put them up so they look pretty. Use the vocabulary in discussions, with sentence stems, writing and in science notebooks. 
• The word walls need to be accessible! In kinder, that means down low. Because wall space is at a premium in my classroom, I use rolling pocket charts for my walls. The kids are able to take the words out, use them to write, and put them back when they are finished.

I have been truly amazed at how well my kids learn science vocabulary since I started using Interactive Science Word Walls. I highly recommend a visit to Dr. Jackson's website, The Science Toolkit and her Facebook page for lots and lots of pictures and resources to help you build your own walls with your students. 

Have fun!

Learning How to Use Science Tools

I just put another packet in my Teachers Pay Teachers store.

Click here to see it!

You know those times (in the first days of school) when you have those super-engaging, hands-on science lessons planned and you get a few minutes into the lesson and a couple of your precious angels have decided to use their science tools for some less than rigorous scientific exploration? Like maybe using the dropper to squirt water up their friends' noses? (True story.)

The activities in this mini-unit are fun enough to engage kids but simple enough to allow you to teach specific expectations for using those science tools.

(Like, I don't know, maybe DO NOT put the dropper in your nose).  

There are 6 activities, complete with recording sheets, including:

• How Many Drops of Water Fit on a Penny (dropper)
• How Many Scoops Fit in Your Cup? (measuring cups)
• Using a Hand Lens to Match Tiny and Big Pictures
• Using a Balance to Compare Weights
• Making Kool-Aid "Fizz"
• Science Tool or Toy Sort

So head on over to my Teachers Pay Teachers store to check it out!

I also made this freebie for you...

Download Science Tools Card Sort

Have fun with your little scientists!

My Big, Fat Five Senses Unit

I am happy to announce that I (finally!) have a new packet up on

 Teachers Pay Teachers!

 

I've taken the classic Five Senses centers that we've all been doing for years, and created fresh and fun Science Notebook recording sheets for them. They are simple enough for kindergartners to do at the beginning of the year...

I've included over 15 smelly, messy and loud center and activity ideas!

I'm especially proud, because I created all of the graphics and clipart myself (except on the cover).

So click on over to my Teachers Pay Teachers Store and check it out!

And for those of you that have been asking, I've been working really hard on Math Notebook Prompts and will publish them by August 1! In the meantime, I'm going to put up some more fun math freebies, so check back often!

Our Big Five Senses Book

Today I thought I'd share some pictures of a big class book my kids and I made this year. Basically, it's just a lot of anchor charts stapled together in a big book. I made it out of chart paper with a butcher paper cover. 

We would generally work on the pages as a wrap-up after we did some sort of hands-on activity.

 

There's the recording chart for an earlier version of the salt/sugar activity, and a page with pictures the kids cut out of magazines.

 

Here is a page where the kids talked about what their brain thinks when they see something.

 

Here's a page that talks about what their brains think when they hear certain sounds (that I played on one of those old sound effects tapes) and a page with all of the sounds we heard on our listening walk around school.

 

This page has different papers and materials with different textures. The kids thought of words to describe those textures and then things in real life that have those textures. (They also put some of these papers in their own science notebooks).

 

This page has texture rubbings and a page where we discussed how our sense of touch helps keep us safe.

 

Here's a page with magazine pictures of smelly stuff plus a page about what our brains think when we smell certain smells.

 

Here's a page with Good Smells/Bad Smells. Yes--that is a toliet, dirty diaper, poo, and underwear. We keep it real in kindergarten...

This page has magazine pictures of things we like to eat and a diagram of a tongue.

 

This page is a fold-out page and is a graph of our Five Senses Taste Test.

Often, the kids did similar pages in their own science notebooks. I'm working really hard on a TPT unit of Science Notebook recording sheets for my Five Senses Unit. I'm hoping to get it up sometime this weekend.

In the meantime, let me leave you with my favorite YouTube Five Senses Video. Warning: Once you get it in your head, it's hard to get out! I will now be singing this song for the rest of the day. Thank-you very much.

Five Senses Sort Freebie

Here are some Five Senses cards I made for my kids to sort. There are 30 cards plus one card for each of the five senses. Many of the cards can be sorted by more than one sense.

Download Five Senses Picture Sort

Enjoy!

Solving Real-Life Problems with our Five Senses

I love teaching about the Five Senses!

Afterall, we use our Five Senses to gather information and learn about the world. They're the basis for all learning that we do! There are a TON of really cute Five Senses activities out there...and trust me, I do them all. The smell jars, the sound eggs, the touchy-feely boxes...I mean, come one, who doesn't want to watch a five year-old stick a lemon wedge in their mouth? (It's funny.)

But I want to find a way to take my Five Senses unit a little deeper. Most of my kids already come to kindergarten with a pretty solid understanding of the Five Senses. So I'm always looking for activities that are a little more rigorous, inquiry-based and connected to the real world.

I start with a problem:

And yes...in my life, this could be a real problem!

I let the kids figure out how to solve this problem. Notice that I activate their schema by asking what they already know that could help us solve this problem. They know that although salt and sugar look the same, they taste very different! Now, these kids are really smart. So they all suggest just tasting them--end of problem. (DUH!)

But I ask them if they think any of our other senses could help us out. I "guide" them into coming up with a plan. We test the "stuff" in each jar using one sense at a time--purposely saving taste for last.

Sight is easy--they're both white. But get out a hand lens and the kids might see the crystals, which is always fun.

Sound? Neither one makes a sound. Unless you shake them. Then they both sound like a rattlesnake (who knew?)

Smell--I can tell the difference, but kids usually cannot. Although this year, my kids actually said the sugar smelled like cookies. Lucky Guess? Who knows...

Touch--The sugar will leave your fingers sticky. If kids make connections between sugar and candy or sweet drinks, they'll get it.

And then, of course, taste...the big give away!

Problem Solved!

Questions for discussion:

• Which senses helped the most? Why?
• Which senses helped the least? Why?
• Which sense(s) would you use to figure out the softest pillow to buy? What TV show is on? What TV show is on in the other room? What your mom is making for dinner? ETC.

So hopefully, after this lesson, the kids will see their Five Senses as another scientific tool we have for exploration, investigation and problem-solving!         

Safety Note: It is important to remind kids to never taste things in scientific explorations without specific permission from the teacher. Many things are not safe to eat.

Hands-On Science: Glitter Slime!!!

I love science--especially messy, hands-on science. This past year, I wanted to find some more messy, hands-on activities that would allow my students to practice the rules on our Science Safety Contract and get really, really excited about science at the same time.

So I tried this activity on Pinterest: GLITTER SLIME

(I used white glue. Because I'm cheap and didn't want to buy clear glue. The kids loved it just the same. We also used neon food coloring.)

My kids got to practice listening and following directions...

Measuring...

Stirring...

More measuring...

More stirring....

Mushing...

Squishing...

 I guess we could just go over the rules again and make another anchor chart. But seriously...look at that face!

We constantly reviewed the rules on our science safety contract...listening carefully, following all directions, not touching anything without permission, and definitely not tasting anything!

The kids recorded their experiences in their science notebooks. You can download the recording sheet here:

Download Science Notebook_Slime

I even included the recipe if they wanted to try it at home.

 
Definitely the best time I've had practicing the rules in a while!

Safety Note: The above recipe uses Borax, which you can find in the laundry aisle. It is not the same thing as Boric Acid, which I would never let kindergartners use. But it is still a chemical. I did a lot of research (as in googling) to see if it was safe for kids. I feel comfortable doing this activity with my students. The American Chemical Society even has a similar recipe on their website here (and I guess they would know, right?)

Make sure the kids do not eat any of the ingredients. Make sure they wash their hands after playing with the slime. And always check and follow your school and district policies about using potentially hazardous materials in the classroom!