This week we wrapped up our farm unit with a more in depth study of cows--those wonderful creatures who make sure we have milk, butter, cheese, yogurt, and tons of other yummy dairy products!
We learned lots of really cool information about cows this week, but we also had a little fun with some of Doreen Cronin's cows in Click Clack Moo Cows That Type.
We read several of Doreen Cronin's books about Farmer Brown and his silly animals, and the kids LOVED them!! These books are fun and light hearted. It is easy for children to spot similarities and differences within the books, and there is humor blatant enough for your Kindergarten kiddo and subtle enough to put a smile on your grown up face. I would highly recommend looking for some of these great titles (really all of her books are fun reads) the next time you are at the library or book store:
Click, Clack Moo Cows That Type
Giggle, Giggle, Quack
Thump, Quack, Moo
Dooby, Dooby, Moo
Click, Clack, Peep
Click, Clack, Surprise
(This one is brand new, and not on my self yet. If you find it, let me know what you think.)
We loved the silly antics of the characters in Doreen Cronin's books, but most of our time this week was devoted to exploring some "teaching" texts about cows. We learned lots of interesting facts and created teaching books of our own! Your kiddos did a GREAT job putting their ideas down on paper, and almost everyone created a book with a great cover, title, and at least three pages of information!! I think that's pretty impressive for 7 weeks into Kindergarten!
After hearing all this great information about cows and how they give milk, I thought that it was only appropriate that we gain a little practical knowledge about milking. So, I made us a cow, we named her Stara, and then we milked her!
After milking, I posed the following:
We now have milk, a liquid. How do you think we can turn this liquid into a solid?
We now have milk, a liquid. How do you think we can turn this liquid into a solid?
After learning more about the states of matter this week, almost everyone felt like the only logical solution was to freeze it. When I told them no freezing was involved, they thought it was impossible. When I told them we were going to shake our way to a solid, they thought I was absolutely crazy!! But we shook it high, we shook it low, we shook it shook it to and fro. We shook it here, we shook it there, we shook it shook it everywhere. We shook it up, we shook it down, we shook it shook it all around.
We shook it over. We shook it under. We shook it 'til we made some butter!
And we found out that a little homemade butter with Ritz crackers was the perfect post cow-milking snack!
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