Whoa! What a busy last few weeks in Room 121! January flew by it seems! We’ve been super scientists over the past two weeks, and even threw in some awesome math concepts as well! Over the past three weeks the students have been enjoying learning all about Penguins! Our small groups have involved concepts and activities surrounding penguins, their habitats, the parts of a penguin, how they stay warm, what they eat, and the life cycle that they go through! The kids this month have been little sponges in soaking up all the new learning and science experiments.
Last week, we discussed the blubber layer that is under the skin of many arctic animals such as penguins, seals, whales, etc… that keep them warm even in the coldest conditions. Students got to experience hands on this idea of blubber and the insulation that is provides by testing their skin and a penguin mitten in ice cold water! We created a “mock” penguin wing filled with “blubber” and had the children place their hands in the mitten to try out the cold water. Many of the students were amazed at how much warmer that extra layer of blubber really is for those animals! It was a fun hands on learning experience for the children.
In the area of math, we have been learning about pairs! Using favorite winter stories like “The Mitten” by Jan Brett and “Three Little Kittens” by Paul Galdone, we began to explore the “pairs” concept and what makes a pair. We explored different pairs in our everyday environment looking at our shoes, boots, pants, glasses, mittens, gloves, even my earrings as a student pointed out one morning! There are pairs all over our world, we just have to look for them! See how many pairs you can find at your home! Over the course of one week, the students created their own pair of mittens with Miss Santiago. Deciding on the color, and patterns they would create on their mittens. This lead to discussion on symmetry and what that looks like. What you do on one side, you must do to the other to make a perfect pair! (Just like in the books we read). So this began to create a lot of dialogue among our students and made them really analyze and pay attention to the pair of mittens they were creating and designing. The children did such an excellent job with this, that we decided to create our February bulletin board with many of their pairs on display! Please stop by outside of our room to take a look.
Preschool in the City with Mrs. Gabelman 
