Lewis Farms Field Trip

           In October, we went on a field trip to Lewis Farms!  We had so much fun!  Prior to the field trip, we learned all about farm animals and their habitats.  Working on a farm is hard work and we were about to experience it for ourselves!  We started the day off by loading the bus!  We LOVE riding the bus and being able to talk with our partners about how excited we were!  It felt like forever but we finally made it there!  With excitement that we could hardly contain, we unloaded the bus and started our day!

           With our eyes popping out of our heads, we began at the millet maze and had fun getting lost, finding our way, getting lost again, thinking we knew where we were going, getting lost again, and finally making it out!  Some of us thought we would be stuck in that maze FOREVER!  Across the way, we enjoyed playing in the hay bale maze, as well!  Jumping from hay bale to hay bale was our absolute favorite and we were exhausted after this rotation.  

          The next rotation brought us up to the barn!  Living on the farm was easy peasy until now!  Boy are horses alot of work!  We learned all about how to take care of horses... how to feed, bath, and clean a horse's frog!  Can you believe that a horse has a FROG? Horses eat ALOT of hay throughout the day! They also drink TONS of water! 

           Did you know ALOT of animals live on a farm and they all have different roles? We visited and learned about pigs, chickens, and cows.  Some of us thought it would be fun to take baths in mud just like pigs do! OINK OINK! We learned that pigs do not sweat so they have to wallow in the mud to cool off!  The farm pigs will eventually be dinner or breakfast and some of us thought that was sad! The chickens were cool too!  We LOVED balk, balk, balking like the hens!  Their job on the farm is to lay eggs and provide food for the farmer and his family.  The last, and what some thought to be the cutest, were the  calves!  Man were they hungry! The whole time we learned about them, they drank and drank and drank milk!  This must be why they are milk cows!  The cows role on the farm is to provide milk for the farmer and his family.  

          We then made our way over to the blacksmith station!  This was such a cool station!  The blacksmith taught us how to mold the metal that goes on the bottom of the horses' hooves.  "OUCH HOW PAINFUL!"... we all thought... but we quickly learned that if it is done right it does not hurt the horse at all! 

           OH we about forgot... What is the role of Skunk on the farm? Answer: To herd the sheep!  The farm had a dog named "Skunk" and his role on the farm was to herd the sheep for the farmer!   The sheep provide tons of wool for the farmer to make clothes for his family.  

           If we were not tired by now, we were about to become EXHAUSTED!  After learning all about the farm animals, we jumped on the tractor and took a hay ride up to the pumpkin patch.  On our way there, the driver taught us about crops that grow on a farm and how much work it is to properly grow them!  We LOVED picking out a special pumpkin that we were able to take home!  

          At the very end of the field trip, we enjoyed a picnic lunch and celebrated Sariyah's birthday with cupcakes!  When we were done enjoying our birthday treats, we loaded back on the bus and headed back to school!  BOY OH BOY, we were TIRED!! We LOVED Lewis Farms and learned so much!  

Stay tuned for next time with The Circus Crew Bloggers :) 

Science Anyone?

         Since the first day of school, we have been working hard on LOTS of science concepts! We LOVE science time and all the fun activities that we get to explore.  In September, Mrs. Conner introduced us to our SUPER SCIENCE Journals!  We LOVE them so much!  We learned all about what scientist do, wear, and tools they use! We started out by drawing a picture of what we think scientists look like and what tools we think they used.  We drew everything from white lab coats, wild crazy scientist hair, colorful potions to zebras, candy, and trampolines!  We have also learned all about our 5 senses, the weather, and animal habitats.  We then had fun making ourselves look like scientist!  Mrs. Conner let us put on goggles and take pictures!  After they were printed off, we added crazy scientist hair with cotton balls and truly saw and believed ourselves to be scientists!

          We know all about our 5 senses and how to use them in order to explore and describe things in the world.   We have loved studying about motion!  Mrs. Conner has taught us that objects and animals can move in all different ways.  Objects can move back and forth, round and round, zigzag, straight, backwards and forwards.  Objects can also slide, roll, and flip.  Mrs. Tallent read us a book about force and motion and how we have to apply a push or a pull for an object to move.  One of our favorite parts of science time is at the very beginning when we get to sing about the five senses and dance to the "push or a pull" song!  We love to be silly at song time!

         Our motion centers have been the BEST!  We love exploring different objects and seeing if they roll, building ramps to see which car will move the fastest, experimenting with ping pong balls and shaving cream,  launching bugs onto a target, and trying to move a ball into a hole without using our hands.  We also LOVE going to the computers and iPads because we get to play PBS Kids games about how objects fly, how animals move, and how putting weights in a truck will make it move faster or slower!

5 Senses Labs:

Shake it! What do you hear?

Feel it! What do you feel?

Motion Labs:

          We partner talk on the carpet all the time!  Mrs. Conner LOVES to hear us talk to each other!  What we learned from our motion centers:

"The more blocks under the ramp, the faster the car goes!"  Khymwar

"When you take blocks away and there is only some and you still roll the car, it goes slower!"               Zykierra

"When you blow the ball it will move!!!" DaRylle

"You have to blow hard to get the ball all the way in the hole!"  Ameiliya

"If an object is round and like a circle, it will roll.  It cannot have sides."  Tayler

"This cube does not roll.  It has sides so it slides."  Nathan

"The marble moves fast when there is no shaving cream in the pan!"  Christian

"The shaving cream makes the ping pong ball stop because it is THICK and hard for it to move through!"  Alex

"This is HARD! You have to push down on the launcher really, really, really hard when you want the bug to go far!  My thumb hurts!"  Matthew

"When I put alot of blocks in the truck, the truck moves slower... so I took some out to move faster!"  Sariyah

"When you make a steep hill you have to peddle harder for the bike to go up.  It flies down the other side though!"  Tylik

          We have learned so much about science and cannot wait to learn LOTS more!  We have learned to think of a question, create a hypothesis, explore/experiment, collect data, and come to a conclusion.  Mrs. Conner says this is what every good scientist does!  Stay tuned for more science fun and experimenting!