Kindergarten Researchers: Writing Nonfiction Books

Our kids are fascinated with nonfiction books. They love reading about real things!  We decided to learn how to write nonfiction books by having all of us write one about castles. Each day, we learned about an element of nonfiction books such as labeling, fun facts, close up pictures, maps, questions and having fun with font to title what each page was about.  

After our first try with our castle books, the kids picked a subject they were interested in to research and write a non fiction book about. They were very focused during their research!

Some researched in teams since they picked the same topic to write about. 

I love how our friend below has literally surrounded herself with books to do her research!

They created web maps to organize their thoughts before writing their books. 

After they researched and organized their data, they started writing their books, using their web maps to remind them of what they had learned during their research.  Subjects ranged from worms, birds, Guinness pigs and insects to volcanos and planets! 

After writing their books, most of the kids wanted to put the books they wrote in our class library for others to read. Parents, the kids will be bringing home their books for you to enjoy soon!

Valentines Day

Valentine's Day was a day of celebrating our friendship! The kids brought in fruit to make a Friendship Fruit Salad! It was beautiful and delicious! I was worried we would not have enough fruit but we had plenty!  Our friends added the fruit they brought into our giant bowl.

Look at how beautiful this salad was!

I was worried we wouldn't have enough fruit! I obviously worried for nothing! Our families are extremely generous!  The kids loved it! I gave them huge helpings and they were still coming up for seconds and thirds!

We also created a friendship painting. The kids told me what they thought love was and I added their quotes to the painting. Such wisdom from the mouths of babes!

They created very creative boxes with their families to hold valentines from their friends. 

We have made some amazing friendships this year! That is definitely worth celebrating!

Force and Motion: Medieval Style

After learning about castle defense, I put out a challenge to the kids who were interested. I held up a foam cube and told them that the challenge was to design a catapult that would fling the foam shape the furthest.  They could use whatever materials they could find in our room. Many were very excited to take on this engineering challenge! They started exploring materials and testing out their designs. 

After the first challenge, a couple worked very well, but most still had some trouble! This lead to a discussion about why some worked and some didn't.  They looked at the designs of the ones that worked and noticed that they had a way to provide more power and force! 

The next day they all tried again.  I loved the way they would consult with each other and help each other figure out and solve design problems!  There was a lot of testing of designs collaboration, and problem solving going on!

The kids below came up with the idea to measure how far their catapults threw their shapes. 

We did the challenge again and this time almost every one was successful!  This lead to a great discussion about how things aren't our best if we only do them once!  Each time they tested and made changes their catapults improved!  It was a good lesson that showed them how persistence pays off!  

One group decided to design a catapult obstical coarse! I loved the thought, planning, collaboration, and problem solving that it took to create this!  Such a perfect example of learning important life skills through play!

Here are their catapult designs. 

There were a few more, some made with Legos, but they were taken apart before I could get a picture!  Here is the winning design:

We have now finished our investigation about castles! This week, the kids signed up to be in an expert group about a part of our castle inquiry! With thier expert group, they will create a presentation for other classes in our school and for our parents.  This is something new for me! I have had small groups take turns and present to other classes about inquiries, but I have never done a large scale presentation involving the whole class about an inquiry! I am nervous, but also excited and determined to give this a try!  I have met with three of the expert groups and they came up with a list of what they want others to know about thier topic and how they want to present their topic. I will meet with the other two expert groups Tuesday, then each group will investigate their topic further and work on projects for their presentation.

Stay tuned to find out how our expert groups are doing next week!

Investigating Castles Part 4: Knights and Defense

We learned that knights were the solders and heros of the medieval days. They started training at 7 by going to another noble families manor to learn manners, train, and serve food to the noble family. They next became a squire.  As a squire, they served and assisted another knight.  They helped the knight put on his armor, took care of his armor and weapons, and went into battle with him. They were very interested in the knights armor and wanted to make their own!  We created helmets to protect our heros heads.  It was very challenging to cut this mirror paper, but they used their strong fine motor skills and with persistence they did it! 

Knights put their coat of arms on their shields because their faces were covered. The coat of arms helped identify them. 

The girls wanted to be knights also. I loved how the helmet below has jewels added to it. 

They made swords since a knight must have a weapon. I wasn't sure how to make swords with the materials we had available. I showed them paper, paper tubes and told them I had silver paint. A couple students and I figured out a way by rolling paper, flattening it and using a paper tube as a handle. Sword problem solved! I was very impressed with how responsible they were with these weapons!  Swords could only touch swords, not bodies.  They were fairly gentile in their sword play because they didn't want their swords to bend or break. We talked about how they could use their swords in the classroom for training but not for killing! They did very well training to be knights! This was a great lesson in self control and responsibility!  I was very proud of them!

Swords, armor and crowns stored for future play!

They learned that knights had to live by a code of honor. A code of honor keeps us accountable for behaving a certain way. We have to stick to the code! We created our own code of honor for our class and displayed it, but I forgot to take a picture of it! I will add the picture later!  We also talked about chivalry and how that means behaving in a courteous, generous, trustworthy and polite way!

We explored other ways castles were defended. During our exploration time kids started making bows and arrows. 

They also created catapults for us to use as play and explore how they work. 

They had to predict what object would be catapulted the furthest and why! Many predicted that the lightest objects would go the furthest.

After experimenting, measuring and recording their evidence, they saw that the shape also had something to do with how far an object will go!

The catapults they made were set out and became a favorite toy as they experimented with loose parts to see how far they would go! We did have loose parts all over the place but they showed responsibility and cleaned it all up!

Because of the interest shown in catapults, I am putting out a challenge for those children who are interested next week to create a catapult here at school out of whatever materials they can find! They can use materials from here or bring some from home!  We will see who can create a catapult that can launch a foam cube the furthest!  Who could have predicted that a lesson in force and motion would have come from a study about castles!

The investigation phase is finished! We have turned our room into a castle while we investigated.  This week the kids will pick an area from our castle inquiry that they feel they are an expert in to create a project and get ready for our presentation for you parents and other classes here at school!

Another huge interest has been the challenge of producing both 2 dimentional and three dimentional shapes through drawing and construction.  They have been loving this challenge!  They all are determined to learn how to draw a hexagon, even though it is so much harder than constructing one! They have been coming up with their own statagies rather than me telling them how. I also love that those who know how are teaching others strategies that helped them!

Stay tuned to see what else our investigators, inquirers, experimenters, engineers and scientists will come up with!