Celebrating our Kite Inquiry

We have been reading a lot about wind and watching videos about kites. Everyones favourite was the kite ballet videos we watched!

These videos inspired many kite creations in our class.

We read a book about kites and learned about the various parts of a kite.

We decided to create a kite as a class. First we had to decide what shape to make it. We used a graph to organize our information.

The students voted for the shooting star kite

We used the book to help us design our kite

 We worked together to create our kite.

Measuring the spine 

Discussing how to make sure the spine is strong 

Measuring the spars 

Strengthening the spine and spars by overlapping the popsicle sticks and taping them

Explaining to Ms. Tompkins what step we need to do

The finished frame

The students decorated our kite

Our next conversation was how to attach the frame to the kite. The students suggested we use the book to help us. The book said to fold over the kite and tape it to the frame.

We added streamers to the points

Students signed the back of the kite

Our finished kite!

Our Kite Inquiry documentation

Kindercuts

We now have a hair salon in the classroom! The students voted to turn our drama centre into a hair salon. It has been great to see how students personal experiences can translate into play in the classroom.

Students record names of the customer and stylist in the appointment book 

Writing appointments

The students are working very well together. They are taking turns as stylists and customers. We have really enjoyed sitting back and observing the students as they play in the drama centre. Setting up dramatic play for students provides incredible oral language opportunities.

The trees from our apple orchard have been repurposed as winter trees. Students are creating snowflakes to decorate it

Measurment

We have been learning about and investigating measurement through various activities in our classroom. The students started to investigate measurement by using cubes to measure their pumpkin plants (which are still growing by the way!!). This exploration has now branched out into the students measuring various objects and people around our classroom.

We have brainstormed what we can use to measure and how we can be successful. The students suggested that we use books to measure. I gathered some books and began measuring one of the students. The students noticed that each time I measured it was different (see below).

Through these observations we realized that the measuring tools need to be the same size.

The students have created some success criteria to ensure they are measuring correctly. The measuring tool needs to start from the bottom/end of the object, the measuring tools have to touch/connect and the measuring tools have to be the same size.

Using markers

Using the snap cubes

Writing the numbers beside each marker to count correctly 

Using books that were all the same size

Using dice to measure

Home Challenge: Find objects around your house to measure, make sure your measuring tools are all the same size.

Do You Want to Build a Snowman?

We set up a provocation for the students that we knew might excite them...

Here are the students' creations: