Snow and Polar Animals

We gathered some snow on Monday and brought it inside. We watched and noticed that after awhile it melted. 

We noticed that there were little pieces of dirt in the water. We put the bag of water in our freezer...and observed that it was ice!

We decided to melt that ice, and put the water in a bowl. We marked the bowl and watched to see what would happen to our water. Some boys predicted that it would "evaporate". 

We introduced a new coping skill this week called "Size of the Problem". This is a coping skill that helps us match the size of our reaction to the size of the problem. The bottom graphic compares problems to animal sizes...we are beginning to understand that most problems are "glitches" (mouse sized problems). Glitches and small problems are easy to solve in a short time - we don't need to have a big reaction with these problems. 

We began learning about polar animals. We learned that penguins live south of the equator and that many live at the South Pole. Penguins are birds that cannot fly, but are very good swimmers. Polar bears live at the North Pole and are mammals who also swim well. 

We read about penguins and learned that some authors "label" pictures- we drew and labeled penguins in our journals. 

On Friday we conducted a science experiment with ice cold water and a "blubber glove". We learned that the blubber glove and the blubber on polar bears and penguins helps to keep them warm when they swim in icy water. 

We continued to enjoy our Center Time activities.