New Trimester - New Project!
Hello Friends!
This week we launched our new project all about Dinosaurs and Fossils! Our class has shown an immense amount of interest in the topic of dinosaurs all year long so far, so it became very clear that we just had to do a project about it! We even have a group of friends who call themselves "Team Dinosaur" and love to play dinosaur games every recess!
So we decided to start off our new project by examining first what we already knew about dinosaurs, and secondly what things we were wondering about them to spark our new investigations. Some things our class already knows about dinosaurs:
Dinosaurs lived a long time ago but aren't around anymore
There are many different kinds of dinosaurs
Dinosaurs liked to fight!
And here are some things our class is wondering about and wants to learn more about dinosaurs:
Why did dinosaurs fight so much?
How are dinosaurs born and how do they grow?
Which is the fastest/biggest/scariest dinosaur?
If there are no dinosaurs left today, how do people know about them?
Can some dinosaurs swim or fly?
What happened to the dinosaurs?
While coming up with many of these "known" facts and questions, there were also a few issues our class had differing opinions about, including what the dinosaurs looked like, whether or not they all laid eggs, and what kinds of food they ate. These points of contention and lingering questions will be great research opportunities for our class to get to the bottom of during this project!
We then launched our project on Monday by examining a very special type of fossil left behind by a real dinosaur: coprolite! Our class did not know it at first, but they soon found out coprolite is the scientific name for fossilized feces! We were examining dinosaur poop!! This produced a lot of laughs, as well as plenty of groans and "Ewws!" from our kindergarteners. We read a great book called Jurassic Poop by Jacob Berkowitz which taught us that you can learn a LOT from ancient animal waste, including what the creature might have ate and its size, all based on what it left behind!
After learning about the coprolite, our class did some Dinosaur and Fossil provocations (activities that spark intrigue, investigation and questioning) to get our imaginations and curiosity flowing about these topics! Our class examined some real fossils and attempted to classify them just like true paleontologists, they looked closely at a model dinosaur and recreated an artists rendition of it using watercolors, they worked on dinosaur puzzles, played with a mini-dino world, and studied the models of some dinosaur skulls to create some scientific drawings.
We also spent a lot of time doing literacy activities around dinosaurs and nature this week. We had the chance to preview a whole bunch of new non-fiction and fictional dinosaur books that were recently added to our class library. Then on Friday our 7th Grade Buddies came to help us read these awesome texts and stories and we always enjoy this special time together!
In Reading Workshop we had a shared reading of a cute dinosaur poem called "Five Big Dinosaurs". Our class hunted for sight words that they knew in the poem to help anchor their reading, which also helped them check their on-to-one matching as they used their pointer power! At the end of the week we acted out the poem with some exceptional dinosaur impersonations!
After building more curiosity and excitement about dinosaurs and fossils, and after examining our current understandings and lingering questions about these topics, I realized our class might need to start with some basics: What is nature? What is the difference between living and nonliving things? We went on an awesome (very muddy!) nature walk behind our school with our 4th Grade Buddies and took some time to notice the things around us. We learned about how to be safe and maximize our learning while out in nature, and we came up with our 3 Learning In Nature Rules:
Stay with the Group
Respect Nature - take care of all living things and be aware of your surroundings
Listen to the Adults
After we returned from our Nature Walk we made a list of the things we noticed during our adventure. We spent the next couple days revisiting this list to further develop our understanding of nature and living things. After watching some videos about living things and reading the book Living and Nonliving by Carol K. Lindeen we came up with a checklist to see which of our nature finds were alive. It was hard! We still need to do some further investigations to determine if bushes or grass are alive or not alive... stay tuned!
Up next we will continue learning about living things and their needs, as well as animal classification. We will spend a little time learning about the animals of today in order to understand the ancient dinosaurs.
See you all again soon!
With Love,
Ms. Jeanine
