Four Winds Sound

This week we had a visit from our Four Winds volunteers, Heather and Susan! The topic was "sound". The class had the opportunity to explore sound waves. They used film canister shakers filled with things that produced different sounds to see if they could match those with the same sound. They also used tuning forks (and hand claps) to try and make sugar "dance" on plastic wrap covered cans. They were really excited to see the sugar dance when they brought the tuning forks close. One activity may bring back memories...they went into the hall to "talk" to each other using an old-fashioned "telephone" made with a long string and two soup cans! They also used unusual contraptions made with string and metal coat hangers to hear how sound travels when the hanger is tapped with a metal spoon. Our afternoon finished by enjoying a crunchy, noisy snack! By covering their ears while chewing, the sound becomes amplified! What a fun afternoon!

Life-Size Penguins!

Brr, it's cold! While it is in fact cold here in Vermont, we took a virtual trip to Antarctica to study penguins! Our math unit focuses on penguins as a tool for learning to measure. We are studying four specific penguins: the Little Blue, the Rockhopper, the King Penguin and the Chinstrap. One of most surprising things we learned about penguins is that they don't all live in cold places although they do all live in the Southern Hemisphere! We learned the height and weight of each penguin as well as what they eat and who their predators are in their habitats. As we introduced each penguin they used their measuring tapes to measure a piece of yarn equal to the height of that penguin. After learning about the four penguins, each child chose the penguin they wanted to draw and paint. Their penguin had to be life-sized so they used their tape measures and marked the height of their penguin on the paper before they drew. Check out all the hard work that went into creating these wonderful penguins!

 

After the penguins were painted and cut out, I put them out in the hall for all to see! Check out our penguin parade!