small change for a BIG CHANGE

One of the most wonderful things about teaching Kindergarten is seeing the tremendous growth in each child! Children who may not have known all of their letters when they came to Kindergarten are now writing and beginning to read! It truly is amazing. My crew has been working very hard on learning all about Water and are truly committed to raising some money to buy Water Filtration Kits ...
We have begun drafting posters to make to hang around the school to get the word out about our Community Service Project! On Monday, we talked about the poster making process, we talked about what we were raising money for and what kinds of backgrounds and pictures should go on our fundraising posters. The children made some GREAT designs ... We also talked about slogans that could go onto our posters once we created the background.
Today we looked at some fundraising posters and water conservation posters on Google so that the children could see the many styles of letters and colors used on posters. We spent about 45 minutes practicing writing out Slogans with NO backgrounds to see how we can fit words onto a page! For FIRST DRAFTS ... they are remarkable!!!!!!

Trying BUBBLE letters!

Making BIG, BOLD letters ....

 

Using BRIGHT colors so the words POP off the page!

Using just PENCIL to make BUBBLE letters

Adding a small sketch of the world to see how it will work with the slogan

 

We also made "mini" posters and tagged our WATER BOTTLES to collect

small change to make a BIG CHANGE because EVERY drop in the BUCKET COUNTS!

If you'd like to help us collect small change to purchase Water Filtration Kits through Bucker Int'l

please contact me at leckroat@manaraacademy.org

THANKS!

 

Miniature Water Cycle

On Thursday, January 22, as a class, we made a Terrarium to see the water cycle in action! In a large glass jar we put sand, soil, an ivy and some water ... we put the lid on and waited to see the Water Cycle in ACTION!

 

We placed the jar near the BIG window in our classroom and just let it do it's thing for a few days. Today, Tuesday, January 27, we took a look at the jar and opened it up to see what was going on!

There is LOTS of condensation on the inside of the jar. The children said that it looks FOGGY!

When we took off the lid, we see the condensation that is trapped on the inside of the lid. The water in the terrarium tries to evaporate but gets trapped by the lid and then falls back down onto the plant mimicking the Water Cycle.

A peek inside the jar ... DAY 6

So far the plant looks healthy and happy!

 

 

 

small change to make a BIG CHANGE

because ... EVERY DROP COUNTS!

A Visit From Steve From BUCKNER, International
Last Wednesday, we had a visit from Mr. Steve from Buckner International. Buckner has been around for many years and helps deliver SHOES to many children ALL over the world! They also are an integral part in helping get Water Filtration Kits to underdeveloped countries and also to places in the United States that need access to clean water!

To get clean water all you need is a 5 gallon buck, and a filter kit

They also teach people in underdeveloped countries how to use the drill bit

to make a hole in the bucket without a drill -- it takes a little longer and

a little more elbow grease ... but it can be done!

 

 This TINY filter costs $52.00

It can filter 360 gallons in a day -- after 360 gallons the filter needs to be cleaned

This one filter can clean up to 1 MILLION gallons of water

Which can last up to 10 YEARS!!!!!!

Let's make some dirty water to see how the filter works

DIRT & WATER

Screw on the filter

CLEAN WATER BEGINS TO FLOW!!!!!

 

 Mr. Steve took a drink of the CLEAN WATER!!!!!

 

To clean the filter, use the syringe (that is included in the kit)

and run clean water backwards through the filter until CLEAN water

begins to flow ... now the filter can do it's job again!

Amazing that this filter only costs .01 cent a day

and will clean water for 10 years!

 

WHAT CAN WE DO???

Mrs. Eckroat's Crew is collecting SMALL CHANGE to make a BIG CHANGE,

because EVERY DROP COUNTS!!!

We want to BLAST WATER EVERYWHERE!!!

Please help us collect small change to help buy Water Filtration Kits from Buckner

to donate ALL OVER THE WORLD!!!!

 

The children will be bringing home small water bottles to collect small change ... please return the

water bottles when they are full or by

Friday, February 13 ...

We will also be donating all dress down money collected for the next 3 weeks!

 

If you'd like to help us with our fundraising effort, please contact Mrs. Eckroat

at leckroat@manaraacademy.org

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

Final Filtration

The children learned a lot about the filtration process and realize now how hard it is to have clean water and how important it is to have clean water. We are learning that many children in Texas and across the United States and in many other countries do not have access to clean water.

Here is a glimpse of our FINAL FILTRATIONS ....

 

 

 

 

Great Lakes / Water Cycle

The children enjoyed their introduction to making and Acrostic Poem using the first letters from each of the great lakes to spell H O M E S .... here's their work ....

 

We watched an NBC Education Series Video on the Water Cycle ...

it reviewed that all the water we have in the world right now ... is ALL the water we will ever have!

The kids are still amazed that the water on this planet is MILLIONS of years old!

The Water Cycle is a very simple process -- but also VERY COMPLEX that

many Scientists study it full time!

Here are a few first drafts of The Water Cycle

NBC EDUCATION SERIES

Concentrating on getting it just right!

Rain comes down, lands on the Earth and is evaporated back up into the clouds ...

The Water Cycle is happening every day, all around us!

 

What If You Were In a Raindrop?--UPDATED

On Thursday, our Water Expedition took us up North to learn about the Great Lakes ... the children learned that if you take the first letter from each Great Lake, it spells HOMES ... I did a mini lesson with them about acrostic poems. Have them show you how to make one using their first or last name. They also learned how the Great Lakes were formed .... ask them to tell you!

The Great Lakes
H uron

O ntario

M ichigan

E rie

S uperior

As an introduction to the Water Cycle and reviewing Water Filtration, we watched The Magic School Bus episode - Wet All Over. Miss Frizzle takes her class on a journey ... the children are put inside droplets of water and evaporate into the clouds ... the clouds move and the children inside their raindrops come down in the ocean, a puddle in London, and then finally in the water filtration system near their school. After watching the movie, the children wanted to emulate the movie and become raindrops ... they had many cool ideas!!!  I was planning on making waxed paper and corn syrup raindrops with them ... but brainstorming we came up with a really FUN idea!!!  On Friday morning the children completed the writing prompt "If I was in a raindrop" in their writing journals. I then took pictures of every student in a pose showing how they would look inside a raindrop. We made the corn syrup raindrops and I put their pictures inside .... I made copies of the pages from their writing journals, added a storm cloud and a lake -- this was a really fun project! I'm really proud of the kids coming up with the idea to somehow get themselves inside a raindrop!

Ask the children about the about the Water Cycle and see if they can share their knowledge with you!

 

 The raindrops are falling into Lake MANARA!

 

UPDATED .... we've added the Explorer River, Wind, Sun, and we are NOW EVAPORATING, up into smaller wispy clouds!

 

To complete the Water Cycle the children said that they needed to EVAPORATE .... so they cut up their picture into small pieces ... showing the water vaporizing and changing to a gas. I cut vapor-like pieces out of wax paper and the children placed their cut up pictures into the Evaporating Water.

We added the wind and sun that play a role in the evaporation of water.

And some puffy, white clouds for the water to once again, begin to Condense ...

 

The children had a great time making this depiction of the Water Cycle!

Yes ... that is the children -- EVAPORATING!!!!

 

The raindrops landed in Lake Manara, flowed into the Explorer River and began to evaporate!

 

The water cycle ...

THE WATER CYCLE!!!!!!!

The KICKOFF continued .....

I believe this portion of our MUDDY KICKOFF shows the kids putting in the SAND and ROCKS! As I get more comfortable with the camera and the kids get used to having it around for projects, I will move it around so more kids get AIR time!!!! 

Here's another peek into the classroom .... hope you're able to see all the videos now ... I had to play with the settings and I think I fixed it ..... let me know if you still have trouble viewing it ...

The children have been learning how important our OCEANS are and tomorrow we will be discussing LAKES ....

We are also working on labeling, graphing, and captioning -- they are learning the parts of non-fiction texts and are doing a wonderful job making these informational pages! 

I will keep adding snip-its of the MUDDY KICKOFF ... we finished filming today ... and the kids are having LOTS of fun with the camera!  It is wonderful that we can take you along on trips or let you see what's going on in our room!!!!!  ENJOY!

 

Here's the last installment from the Kickoff ....

 

You will have to wait until the NEXT post to see water coming through our filters .... in my excitement ... I did not HIT the record button!!!! 

So we did some more filming today -- Tuesday and got some close up shots!!!!   And the Oscar for Best Film Making Goes To .... (not Mrs. Eckroat!)  lol!!!  I'll keep my day job!  Which is absolutely WONDERFUL!

 

 

The KIDDOS conquer the KICKOFF!

 

 

Today we conquered the GREAT MUDDY KICKOFF!!!

The first thing the children did this morning was complete a first draft (some completed a second draft) of our water filtration bottles.

It's tough to draw a  plastic bottle!!!

I challenged the children to use the whole paper!

The children learned that these are Non-Fiction drawings.

Having some breakfast and working on our drawings.

 

Filling the bottles with the 2nd layer -- SAND!

Aamna getting a big scoop of sand!

Learning to take turns ....

 

Here are the first two videos ... ENJOY

 

I am still learning how the camera works ... I look forward to using it more on this Water Expedition!

I will post a couple more videos tomorrow so you can see the end of the experiment!

 

The water that came out of our filtration systems

We are letting the water sit overnight, the children will

see that the sand will settle to the bottom -- we will put it through the

filtration systems again tomorrow to see if cleaner water will emerge next time!

One of the water filtration systems

 

GRASS & LEAVES

ROCKS

SAND

PEBBLES

COTTON

 

THE GREAT MUDDY KICKOFF!!!!!

 

 

THE GREAT MUDDY KICKOFF!

Parents and Students -- I figured out what was going on with the camera and will be updating the web-site with pictures and activities from the last month ... BUT ... I wanted to see if I can share the video I just took today with my new SONY GO ACTION camera!  I'm excited to try this in the classroom to share with you the experiments and some LIVE ACTION from our field expeditions this spring ....
We just began our Water Unit and will be completing a water filtration experiment tomorrow -- Monday, January 12.  Here is an explanation of what we will be doing .... ENJOY!

 

I will be taping the experiment tomorrow and will upload the files tomorrow evening!  I will also be adding more pics to the web-site now that I figured out what was going on .... I was missing some program or something (my husband had to figure it out!)