Kindergarten Curriculum
Interdependent Relationships in Ecosystems: Animals, Plants, and Their Environment
This trimester students will be exploring the needs of plants and animals. They will continue to develop their engineering skills through the design of fair test plant experiments, and learn how scientists can use tools to measure and interpret their observations. They will also begin to explore how plants and animals can effect their environment. This will lead to students generating solutions to reduce the human impact on the land.
Forces and Interactions: Pushes and Pulls
Kindergarteners will be working to explore the effects of forces on the movement of objects. They will use hands on experiences with a variety of materials to investigate speed, directional change, and collisions. They will also begin the process of designing and conducting their own experiments through guidance and collaboration with peers.
Weather and Climate
During the spring, students will use data measurements collected throughout the year to identify patterns in the weather. They will investigate these patterns in relation to sunlight, wind, precipitation, and temperature. The identification of these patterns will be connected to meteorologist forecasting and the importance of preparing for severe weather events.
Updated September 15, 2017
Kindergarten scientists have been exploring forces. They began the unit by testing toys that use pushes and pulls. We discovered that scientists call these pushes and pulls forces, and that forces cause motion. We will look for examples of how we use forces in our daily lives.
Updated October 13, 2017
Kindergarten scientists have been making some amazing discoveries about forces and motion! Students experimented with a variety of supplies to determine that forces make things move. We also discovered that forces can change the speed of something in motion, and the direction of motion. Next week, kindergarteners will collect data about how collisions affect the motion of objects.
Updated November 12, 2017
Kindergarteners are excited to begin their study of magnetism! This concept was introduced this week by reading the book That Magnetic Dog. This silly story compares a dog pulling towards her favorite food to magnets pulling towards different objects. Students experimented to find out what types of objects would be pulled toward a magnet. They discovered that only certain types of metals are magnetic. In the coming weeks they will be collecting data about the strength of different magnets, and exploring how a magnet interacts with another magnet.
Updated December 7, 2017
This week, kindergarten scientists wondered if different magnet shapes are stronger or weaker than others. We worked together to design an experiment to answer our magnet question! During the experiment, students collected data and created a bar graph to show their discoveries.
Updated January 17, 2018
Today, our young scientists began their study of weather. We investigated a variety of interesting weather photos and began to ask questions about weather. Over the next several weeks, students will investigate weather and weather tools in a variety of hands-on experiments. We will also be collecting weather data daily to determine patterns of weather here in Lake Forest.
Updated February 5, 2018
Kindergarten scientists enjoyed exploring how thermometers work!