Volcanoes and Dinosaurs have taken over F 16!

We are in a prehistoric state in our room.  We are learning so much about volcanoes and about dinosaurs.  These two subjects have taken over our reading, our writing, our math and even our letter of the week.  Let me show you some of the highlights from the first two weeks of February.

The children are learning about chemical reactions in this science lab.  They combine baking soda and vinegar (thank you parents for sending it in) and watch the chemical reaction that is created. 

We are doing this science lab because this looks like a volcano erupting.  The kids cannot get enough of this lab.

The children here are developing fine motor skills by using the eye dropper (which we got through the Donors Choose project you helped to fund).  They are also negotiating how to take turns, how to share resources and they are expanding their vocabulary and their speaking and listening skills by discussing what they are observing.

This is a neat dinosaur themed math game using geometric shapes to create patterns and pictures.

We watched several short videos about volcanoes from Discovery  and National Geographic Kids.  I also shared with them books and pictures I brought back from my trip to Hawaii.  I was lucky enough to go to the Volcano National Park.  I even have some lava rocks which you will see later in this post.  This is one child documenting what she learned from some of the books and videos we have been using for our research.

This child is studying a lava rock and documenting what she observes (sorry it is so blurry).

This child is very closely examining this lava rock from Hawaii.  They had lots of questions.  Seeing the rocks up close helped them to understand that lava is hot, melted rock, and when the lava cooled it formed these rocks.

This child is examining another lava rock.

This child referred to himself as a vulcanologist! 

These children are building a volcano in the block area.  We also talked about symmetry.

This child is using the dinosaurs to sort them and arrange them from largest to smallest.

We are having a ball with this unit of study.  I have brought in lots of books on these topics from the St. Charles County Library.  We have some very serious researchers in our room.  I love it when they find out something new about either a dinosaur or about a volcano.  They are devouring the books and dinosaurs and volcanoes are starting to show up in writing workshop in some of the books they are writing. 

Next, when we get more newspapers donated, we will start constructing our volcanoes.  We are all so excited!  Check back soon to see our latest.