Willow Brook Elementary School Discovery Center
from 1995 - 2009. The ~400-pupil, K - 4 school is on a year-round schedule, we begin in the middle of July. It has been found that the students retain more of what they learned on that schedule. I always begin the year with Oceanography and Geology, two of my favorite subjects. I rotate the Oceanography subjects on the large (20 ft.) bulletin board every 4 years. This year I put up the Alaska board. It has a shallow water section with puffins, green sea anemones, a sea otter, halibut, clams, and seastars. The deep water section includes salmon, an orca, deep water anemones, and a crab. The other marine habitats that I rotate through include: Coral Reef, Everglades and mangrove swamp, Rocky Shore and Harbor. I covered 12 subjects throughout the school year: Oceanography and Geology; Matter and Energy; Sound, Heat and Light; Electricity and Magnetism; Simple Machines; Astronomy and Meteorology; Plants and Animals; and the Human Body. I covered the subjects for 4 weeks before taking down and setting up the next units. Unfortunately, I lost the room in 2009 when it was converted to a classroom.
Kindergarteners like to Catch A Shape, fishing for shapes, letters or numbers with a magnet attached to a line on a dowel. Not only do they learn about the attraction of a paperclip to the magnet, the activity reinforces reading and letter recognition. This boy was excited to catch a Pink Pumpkin. I asked him what letter those words start with and he answered excitedly, "P!"
In the Heat unit we learn about how different kinds of fabrics have different insulating properties. In this experiment the students put their hand into a plastic bag containing a piece of wool (as in this photo), Poly-cotton T-shirt material, cotton, poly-fleece, or nylon. When I put a container of ice on top of the material the children can feel how quickly some fabrics allow the cold to come through. We then discuss why people wear certain kinds of fabrics in summer and others in winter.