New friends join kindergarten

Kindergartners in Maria Donovan and Haneen Hamed’s class liked learning about creatures on the land and in the sea, and the habitats they call home. But now the students LOVE it since they’ve gotten several creatures of their very own.
 
Kindergartners are just discovering the world around them and the elementary science curriculum focuses on the living things found across the globe. The students first learned the necessities of survival for plants and animals. Then they studied various animals and the environments and locations on Earth where they can be found. These included polar bears in the Arctic, elephants on the grasslands, and deer in the forest.
 
During this unit, students also learned about the job responsibilities of an aquarium curator and became ones themselves when the class received three zebrafish. The students designed the underwater habitat for the fish by adding gravel to the tank, deciding the arrangement of plants and other tank materials, and determined the best tank placement within the classroom to ensure the proper amount of indirect sunlight.
 
To name the zebrafish, the kindergartners wrote suggestions and three were randomly chosen: Joy, Dory, and Shimmer.
 
In the spring, the students may have an opportunity to see firsthand how caterpillars turn into butterflies and also learn about the various stages of the butterfly life cycle. The kindergartners in the fall took an up-close look at worms, both the gummy kind and real kind.