Ants

 During our adventure to Castle Park, one of our assignments was to list living organisms.  One living organism that all of the students found was - ANTS!  Who knew that this would start an investigation that has so far lasted for more than a month!

As we learned that living organisms need shelter, we found that ants use ant hills for their shelter.  We read about how the ant nests are built, how the ant colony works together, how the tunnels are made, and how there are different "rooms" for the needs of the ants.  We also learned about the different "jobs" that ants have.

As we studied the structure of the ant hill, the kindergarten students wanted to create one out of paper mache.

They learned that ants create holes at the top of the hill to allow for air circulation!  Notice our holes!

Next, we focused on making models of ants for our ant hill.  The children know the colors for males and females, the specific body parts and names, how many legs ants have (since they are classified as an insect), and how many feelers they have.

We are using the subject of ants to perfect our writing, spelling and reading skills.  Ant was the word all of us got right on that weeks spelling test!  We are investigating the life cycle of the ant and we are all going to create a book together!

For our morning journal entries, we have focused on the ant life cycle......

Jaylin wrote 1. 6 legs
                   2. 2 eyes
                   3.  2 feelers
                   4.  hair

Annika drew a detailed picture of an ant hill and all of the different "rooms" the ant hills have.  After her picture was done, she used it as a blue print for a clay model.....

We have watched an Ant video, and learned about different types of ants and experiments to do with them.  We ordered some Harvester Ants.....

now we are watching them create their tunnels....

We took our ant knowledge to the art studio and created "Ant Art".  We have begun a Self Portrait Portfolio, and one thing we are studying in this project is complimentary colors.  The students chose the complimentary colors they wanted to use:

Purple & Yellow

Red & Green

Blue & Orange

We painted on canvas and then had a lesson on pattern making, and creating tints and shades of our complimentary colors using black and white paint.

  Our style of  ant art was inspired by African fabrics!  The children also made sure to show the three parts of the ant body, the 6 legs, and the two feelers.  Who would think that we could incorporate all of that in this art piece! ;0)

Take a look at some of the end products...........

This ant project is far from over.  We are learning the characteristics of the different types of ants, and we will use this to create charts and graphs.  We are looking at live and dead ant specimens in our microscope to get an up close look at the anatomy!  We can even look outside when we play and tell everyone whether we see wood ants, fire ants, or sugar ants! 

Check back soon!

Field Research at Castle Park

Our previous post on our study of birds,

http://littlewonderssummerafterschool.blogspot.com/2011/09/birds.html

shows how this project lead us to visiting Castle Park.  Annika suggested we go there to see "duck nests in hollow trees".  This was a perfect opportunity for us to do some "field research", and collect raw data in a natural setting. It  also helped to reveal the habits and habitats of various organisms present in their natural surroundings.

One of our course objectives is to identify the needs of living organisms and the difference between living and non-living organisms.  To help the children make these observations, they each were given a clipboard with two worksheets. 

1.)  The first was a Non-living Organism Chart.  The children were to observe and write a list of 8 non-living organisms we found in the park

2.)  The second was a chart to record any Live Organisms we found, and what their food and shelter was.

The conversations, observations, and writing started right away!!!!!

After spending some time noting our observations, we were off to find the pond with the ducks that Annika had been talking about...........

                                   But to our surprise, the entire pond had dried up!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The children were so amazed, it took some time for them to comprehend what had happened.  This lead to a wonderful conversation on EVAPORATION! ;0)  They got to see it right before their very eyes!  It was such an experience for the children to see a place that not too long ago was filled with water and ducks, completely dried up with "cracked ground"!

But we took advantage and started exploring........

We went to the famous hollow tree that housed the duck nests....

We climbed in, looked around and found several "clues" of what animals used to be there.  We found lots of feathers!  Hmmmm.....  Could it be the ducks Annika saw before. 

We took time to sit down and make connections from our findings and our observations. 

 - Why did the ducks leave?
-  Why did they choose the hollow tree as a nesting site?
- Why did the pond dry up?
-  What can bring water back into the pond?
We took out our charts to note our observations at the dried pond.......

When we searched around what used to be the pond, we found empty oyster shells!!!!!  Who knew Sugar Land had oysters??????
- Why were they empty shells?
-Who do you think ate the oyster?

After completing our notes, we just had to take one more run at the "cracked ground"!  This was too much fun!

However, the fun ended quickly when our teacher and friend sunk deep in the mud!!!!!! ;0)  No worries though, we pulled everyone out, washed off when we got back to the school, and learned a very valuable lesson......................................

Just because the ground looks dried and cracked, doesn't mean there is not deep, soggy mud hiding under it!!!!! ;0)

samples of our work........

stay tuned as this project continues .............

Perfecting Our Math Skills

For the past month the students have been working hard to perfect their math skills in addition and subtraction! Some of us are moving on to double digits, borrowing in subtraction and even carrying over in addition!

The children have been perfecting ANSWERING addition and subtraction problems, but how about MAKING the problems????

We put them to the test to see how well they would do when they created their own math problems for each other.  Each student used different materials to help create a math problems..

                                                                   Using Popsicle sticks...

               Each child wrote each math problem on their own, and picked what numbers they wanted to use..
                                          They counted out each item to help make sure they were correct!

                                                     Using the spinner to pick a number! ;-)

  Some of the students love drawing pictures, so we used their pictures to help create math problems.

 Mark drew out ten suns and than cut each one out to decide what math problems he would like to set up for himself.

                                         " I'm going to use the counter since I love it so much! "

                              Tirza said she wanted 17 hearts.  She made more than 17, so we number the page and she chose her favorite 17 hearts to use in her math problems. 

Mark made 5 orange suns, and 5 blue suns.  He created the math problem "5 blue suns and 5 orange suns is 10 suns" ~ 5 + 5 = 10

Here are some of our first math worksheets created by the students ;0)

                                                                          By: Shirmar

                                                                   By: Annika

                                                                   Jaylin's Math sheet

                                                                           By: Kyle