Fun Friday!

     Part of our Science program in Kindergarten is called Quirkles.   It is actually a science and literacy program.  We explore phonics through science.  Quirkles has a story that goes along with our letter of the week.  In a faraway galaxy named Quirk lived the Quirkles.  The Quirkles were unique little scientists who had vivid imaginations and loved to experiment.  There are 26 Quirkle friends; one for each letter of the alphabet.  Our busy schedule doesn't allow us to meet one of the Quirkles every week.  A couple of weeks ago we met Ollie Oxygen.  We observed a burning candle and learned that fire needs oxygen to burn.  Today, we took last week's letter G and read a story about Gilbert Gas.  Following the story we put a teaspoon of salt in a balloon and covered the mouth of a soda bottle with the balloon allowing the salt to go into the soda.  We observed as the salt released carbon dioxide from the soda, making the balloon inflate. 

     Ask your child about the "Pop Top Experiment."  It was really more fun.  We broke an antacid tablet (Alka-Seltzer) into smaller pieces and placed one of the broken pieces into a film container filled with warm water. We put the lid back on the container, placed the container on the concrete outside, and stood back to watch what happened!!  The water causes the antacid to react.  Carbon dioxide gas builds up pressure in the film canister until the lid pops off high in the sky!!  This all happened too fast to get a picture.  The kids loved it, and we had to repeat it several times!!

    

     Our Super Kid Treat today was Hamburgers for the Letter Hh.  The kids got to make their own. 

        Our hamburger buns were vanilla wafers.  The meat pattie was a mint pattie.  Each child had a choice of mustard, mayonaise, or ketchup (yellow, white, or red icing) to put on their hamburger. 

Yummy!

      A glance at next week:  In Reading we will continue our "Off to School" unit.  We will read a non-fiction story, "On Our Way to School,"  and a really cute story, "Chrysanthemum."  We will continue to listen for and learn rhyming words.  We will learn to read the sight word and in our Pre-Decodable Book School, and go in Go Play.  And, of course, we will continue to read a and the.  As you read your child's library book to him/her this weekend and next week, be sure to ask your child to point out letters he/she knows and also look for and point out our sight words we have learned so far:  a, the, and, and go.  Our letter of the week will be Tt.  In Math, we will continue learning to recognize and write our numerals 1-5, patterns, and measurement with longer and shorter.

     Have a great weekend!!