A Little Thermometer Science and the Winner of my (tiny) Giveaway

Hello all!
Gosh..... the time is just flying by! We have SOOOO much going on in our school in January and I am trying to figure out how to get everything into the day AND teach!

I know that we are lucky in our school's kindergarten curriculum to be able to have time to do science and/or social studies every day for a 30 minute block. I know that for many of you this is not possible because of district stipulations. Because we have this nice block of time, we can do larger units.

One unit that we always start off with in January is our Winter unit. (This is the unit that Kaci tried out.) We discuss how the top of the Earth is the Northern hemisphere and the bottom of the Earth is the Southern hemisphere. We discuss how when the Northern hemisphere is having winter, the southern hemisphere is having summer. We discuss what animals do in the winter to survive. We talk about hibernation, migration, and adaptation. We talk about what people do in the winter and we read "The Jacket I Wear in the Snow." The kids also do a quick and easy thermometer activity. We first discuss how a thermometer works. When the liquid in the thermometer gets warm, it expands;  causing the liquid to rise because it has nowhere else to go! My little kindergarten minds understood this - hurray! So they first put the thermometer  into a cup of ice and watched the liquid go down. Then they poured the ice out of the cup into a large bowl in the center of the table and I gave each of them a glass with warm water. Because our thermometers had both Celsius and Fahrenheit markings on it, the kids saw the liquid rise to 100 degrees (Celsius) and they thought that was WAY cool! Of course, we made a hypothesis about what would happen before the experiment and then compared our results when finished. After the experiment, they recorded their results. Of course, their recording wasn't exactly accurate, but at least they understood the concept!

Here are a few pictures of the pages that they did in their winter book.

When this unit is finished, it is always fun to celebrate with hot chocolate; although this year, we just plain ran out of time, so we didn't get to this fun activity. (Sad face)

Click HERE for the link to my Winter unit!

I tried a giveaway last week and did it with a Google doc. Thank you so much for those of you entered into the drawing! That made my heart sing when you filled out the document to win My Healthy Me unit! Kaci also offered her new Valentine unit and that is cool, too! I used random generator to determine the winner........So ........... the winner of my first (tiny) giveaway is Rachel M.  Hurray!!!! Congratulations, Rachel!

Until next time!

Peace and blessings, Cindy