Here it is 2 1/2 weeks into January and I finally had a chance to blog. Yesterday was Martin Luther King Jr. day so we spent the day learning all about Martin Luther King jr. and all the wonderful things he accomplished. Today we had a 2 hour delay which worked perfectly for our next unit of study.
To go along with our "arctic" temperatures we started our arctic animal unit.
To start off the study we discussed our walrus schema.
Whenever I start a new unit I create an anchor chart to document our schema, new findings,
and misconceptions.
This is a diagram of a walrus. We started off by sharing our schema (pink post its).
We then learned about walruses and added our new findings (orange post its).
Once we have learned new facts we realize that sometimes our schema is wrong.
That is why we have a misconceptions box.
According to one of my students...It's okay to have misconceptions because that means we learned! (Love kindergarteners!)
These charts become a part of my classroom routine. (I got this picture from one of my awesome colleagues who also created a walrus anchor chart because I forgot to take a picture of my chart). I wanted to share a picture so you could get get a visual.
We then decided to take the facts we learned and give them meaning.
I used the walrus fact sheet from my Polar Animal Study.
We learned that a Walrus tusk can be up to 3 ft. long. When one of my students held their fingers up to show me that is was about this big (3 inches). I figured they needed a visual. I measured this student from my class and discovered that from her shoulders down she was the size of a walrus tusk. My class was amazed!
After reading that a Walrus could reach up to 3,300 lbs. We decided to see how many kindergarteners it would take to weigh as much as a Walrus.
We weighed our entire class!
And then...
another kindergarten class...
 |
| (That's one of my teacher besties! Love her!) |
still not enough!
Three kindergarten classes and we finally reached 3,300 lbs. Enough to weigh as much as a Walrus.
It took this many kindergartners to reach 3,300 lbs.!
WOW!
In my class we discover. I can tell facts, we can write them down, or we can discover.
Now when I say a walrus tusk is 3 ft. they have a visual! When I say a walrus weighs 3,300 lbs. They realize that is a WHOLE lot. it is actually 3 kindergarten classes full!
So when we learn we not only learn... we DISCOVER! We dig deep, we investigate, we gain a true understanding of what is taught!
I hope this blog gave you lots of ideas!
If you are interested in purchasing my Polar Animal Unit check it out here!
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