The After Christmas Tree Project

 Last week in class, the Kiddoes and I read the story, "The After Christmas Tree" written by Linda Tyler. The story talks about how one family overcame the sadness they felt when the holiday season was finished. Instead of being upset, they decided to hold a winter party for their friends. Friends were asked to gather pinecones. They then rolled them in peanut butter and seeds and made popcorn and berry chains. Once finished, they "decorated" the tree outside and watched the animals come and enjoy the tree. It was the tree's second season of giving. When the story was finished, one of the Kiddoes commented what a cool idea the 'After Christmas Tree' was. We quickly decided this was something we would like to do. I questioned the Kiddoes about what we would need in order to accomplish this!

One of my goals before the end of the year is for the Kiddoes to realize if they have a question, it is within their power to find an answer. I introduced them to a K/W/L (what I Know, what I Want to know, and what I Learned) chart this week. We spent some time discussing the difference between what we know to be 100% true fact compared to what we think we know about animals and birds in Esterhazy! We quickly realized we didn't know very much. We came up with some pretty interesting questions to explore during our research. We want to make sure when we create our tree, we know what animals/birds may visit and what they eat so we do not harm anything.

Interesting to note.... After discussing animals we have seen in Esterhazy, we started to talk about whether we have seen them recently. This led us to our third question!!

Once finished charting, we discussed how we could find the answers to our questions. These were the suggestions by the Kiddoes. 

    

Today we started our research by using the computer to learn what animals we may find around Esterhazy. We discussed the terms 'search engine', and 'search box', the symbols for text/image/video, and also that the internet may not always have 'true' information, so we need to make sure to double check anything we learn. It was a really interesting discussion!

The next few weeks will be an exciting time in Kindergarten as we undertake our first research

project. Stay tuned!