Mrs. Garrabrant's Classroom: Discussing Polar Areas & investigating through I Wonder stations

We began our "I Wonder" work areas this week where the children were able to further investigate polar animals and they have really enjoyed them so far! Take a look below at some of the pictures of the children working and exploring.

They observed animal fact cards by looking at pictures of the polar animals, learning facts and matching the name of the animal to the picture.

Here they rolled the dice with 6 different animals on it. They then put a tally mark next to the animal that showed up and discussed which animal received the most tally marks.

In the library they explored and read books about various polar animals.

In the art area, they used various materials such as ripped paper, markers, crayons, yarn, etc. to create illustrations of polar animals. In the handwriting station, the children trace names of polar animals with a dry erase marker.

In this area, children must put the pieces in number order to create a picture of a polar animal. They had fun guessing what the animal was going to be as they starting putting them in order!

Here they had to put the polar bears in order from smallest to biggest and biggest to smallest as well as match the animal to their tracks.

In this I wonder station, the children trace the numbers from 1 to 100 on the hundreds chart.

Here the children use natural materials to create habitats for polar animals.

One of the children pointed out that people who live in these areas might live in igloos so we looked up pictures on the internet and they were so amazed! We also looked up ice bergs and glaciers and the children thought they were very interesting. Take a look below at some of the pictures we found!

We started an I wonder work area called the "Polar Animal Rescue" and it was a big hit! Only two children were able to do it at a time so we talked about how we will have to wait our turn but everyone would get a turn to try it. I froze some polar animal figurines into a block of ice and we put it in a tub. We told the children that they had to free the animals using salt, water in squirt bottles, a child size hammer and screw driver. Take a look below at the children freeing the animals!

One of the questions the children had about polar animals was how they kept warm in the extreme cold weather. We did a blubber experiment to help the children understand how they are able to do this. We had a tub of ice water, an empty ziploc bag and the children placed their hand in the bag that was in the ice water. We discussed that it was very cold!

I created a "glove" out of vegetable oil by filling two bags with oil, sealing them and placing them inside a larger bag. The children then placed their hand into the "glove" in the ice water and we found out that our hand was warmer. In order to compare directly, the children put one hand in the empty bag, one hand in the "glove" bag and put them both in the tub of ice water. We weren't able to get pictures of this because Mrs. George & I were both assisting with this!

After discussing what we found out, we filled out our documentation paper as a class. At first we used our senses to tell that our hand was 'cold' in the icy water. We also discussed that Polar bears stay warm because of 'bubber'. We recorded our results which were that "The blubber glove was warmer". Lastly, our conclusion was that 'Blubber" keeps polar bears warm in icy water.

The children also wanted to know how penguins walked and how they carried their eggs so we looked up some videos to see how they waddle and put their eggs on their feet to move them.

Using plastic eggs, we decided we wanted to try and walk like a penguin carrying their egg on their feet. We had a couple kids at a time try to 'race' to see who could walk the furthest with their egg on their feet. The children didn't realize how hard it would be and they were having a great time!

We ran out of time and didn't get to finish this. I told the children if they didn't get a turn that they could try this week!

On Friday we were invited by Ms. Harvey to join her class in a presentation by a man from the Metro Parks. He asked who had been to one of the Metro Parks in the area and the kids were excited to say that we had been to Cox Arboretum! He brought a turtle shell and the children got to feel it which they thought was so cool.

He also brought a black rat snake (which was one of the snakes our snake group focused on during our Ohio Animals study). The children noticed that we had learned about it and they were so eager to touch it. This snake was getting ready to shed so it was very rough. I am not too fond of snakes and I actually touched it too!

He also brought a turtle that they could touch and they were impressed with this as well!

We also had some visitors from the Dayton Dutch Lions Friday who talked about how they got to where they were (Education, Practice, Listen, Eat healthy & Be active), showed us some tricks and called some friends from the school up to try some tricks. Tristan from our class got called up to show his skills with the ball!