What animals go bump in the night? This time of the year is the perfect time to learn about nocturnal animals. The Super Kids first brainstormed different animals they thought came out at night and sleep during the day. Next we looked them up using the Pebble Go website to confirm that they were nocturnal. The list consisted of spiders, bats, owls, foxes. wolves, fireflies etc. So many questions came out of these discoveries. Why do some animals come out at night? How do they see? Do they have super senses? With the help of our 5/6 buddies we began researching and learning more about the nocturnal animal each student picked to learn about.
The class discovered that many nocturnal animals have heightened senses. Owls have huge eyes and have heads that can turn around almost the whole way! Bats have a super sense of smell. We tested our sense of smell with a science experiment. When the class came in on Thursday morning there were cotton balls at each table spot. Their mission was to smell their cotton ball, describe the smell, and find a partner in the classroom that had the same smell.
They described their smells as candy cane, pancake syrup, cinnamon buns, ice cream, and cleaning supplies. Not to bad! All were cooking extracts with maple, peppermint, lemon, cinnamon, and vanilla flavours. The class found some smells harder to distinguish like maple and vanilla. We concluded that bats must have a very strong sense of smell since they have to find their food at night. We also watched a “Sid The Science Kid” on smell and a Franklin the turtle video on nocturnal animals to tie our learning together. We wondered why Mr. Owl, Franklin’s teacher, taught during the day since he is a nocturnal animal too. Excellent question! We plan to tweet or e-mail Paulette Bourgeois, the author of the Franklin books to find out! We just have to find out her contact info. We’re on the hunt!
Home reading is in full swing in the Super Kids classroom. In a multiage classroom there is a wide range of reading abilities. Each day the students are randomly paired with each other to practice a “just right” book and their sight word cards. The reading skills that each student is working on varies, but they’re learning to work together and to be each other’s coaches. Beginning readers are working on looking at the picture, one to one match, recognizing sight words in the book, and looking at the initial letter. Others are working on the flow of they’re reading so it isn’t so choppy, understanding what they’re reading, and reading with expression. A big thank you goes out to the Super Kid’s families for taking time each day to practice our “just right” books with us and using the Raz Kids program to have more selection of books at our levels.
Below are a few pictures from our choice time centres. The kids enjoy picking centres that interest them and extending on lessons learned together.
There was no school on Friday because of MTS PD day. All teachers in the province of Manitoba had the opportunity to pick professional development opportunities that they were interested in and attended throughout the province. I went to the Manitoba Association of Multiage Teachers (MAME) event. I attended a session on integrating art into the early years room which I loved because I got to be creative and see many of my teaching colleagues from other schools.
I hope everyone enjoys their weekend and remember that it’s early dismissal on Tuesday. 🙂
