Category: Hoot Owls

The Hoot Owls recently welcomed guest expert Thea Shukaliak-Neufeld to their classroom as part of their Meals project. Thea is an occupational therapist who works with children who find regular things more challenging. One thing she does is to help children who have trouble eating food. During her visit, she taught the Hoot Owls to be food scientists! She shared that everyone should always try a mouse bite of any food to figure out if the food is sweet, sour, salty or bitter. She also shared that sometimes it takes one bite to like something, sometimes ten, sometimes over 100, so keep trying!

The Hoot Owls had many questions for Thea about food and meals. To answer a question about junk food, she shared that no food is bad; some foods are only made out of one ingredient and we need a variety of food to keep our bodies healthy. She taught the Hoot Owls about rainbow foods, and that it’s important for everyone to eat lots of different colored foods, as they have different vitamins and minerals to help our bodies grow strong and healthy.

The Hoot owls then worked together to make a food rainbow First they painted the rainbow, and then added foods that come in each of the colors. Check out their rainbow below!

A big thank you to Thea Shukaliak-Neufeld for sharing her knowledge about food and teaching the Hoot Owls to be food scientists!

#SaklanProjectWork #SaklanGuestExperts

The Hoot Owls were so brave and curious when Owen, a guest expert from the East Bay Vivarium, came to Saklan to share his reptiles with them! During the visit, the students learned about snakes, turtles, tortoises, lizards, geckos, skinks, bearded dragons, legless lizards and a huge monitor lizard that Owen insisted was a “puppy” because it was cuddly.

Owen even surprised the class with some animals that were not reptiles, like a frog, a toad, a scorpion and a tarantula! Some Hoot Owls were extra brave and volunteered to hold a few of these animals.

A huge thank you to Owen and the East Bay Vivarium for sharing their animals and knowledge with the Hoot Owls!

The Hoot Owls were excited to learn about the holiday Ramadan from guest expert Nora, a Hoot Owl parent! The class learned that Ramadan starts when there is a crescent moon in the sky. They also learned that during Ramadan grown ups fast when it’s light out and people exchange presents. Nora read the students Ramadan (Celebrate the World) by Hannah Eliot. The class also read The Gift of Ramadan by Rabiah York Lumbard.

Thank you so much for sharing your traditions with the Hoot Owls, Nora!

If you joined us for CLAS this morning, then you are well aware that the Hoot Owls have been learning about our solar system. This morning they sang a song about the planets, and then shared their favorite planet and why. Mercury, Venus, Earth and Pluto (because it is a dwarf planet!) all made the list.

Leading up to their presentation, the Hoot owls learned about the gas giants of our solar system. They discovered that Jupiter, the fifth planet from the sun, is the largest planet in our solar system with a huge red spot on it. Scientists think that this is a huge storm that has been raging for hundreds of years! The Pre-K kiddos strengthened their fine motor skills by using an eyedropper to add watercolor to shaving cream, and then made prints of it to hang on the wall.

The Hoot Owls also learned that Saturn, the sixth planet from the sun, doesn’t look round because it is spinning so fast. They were fascinated to learn that Saturn’s rings are made of ice and dust! 

Uranus, the seventh planet from the sun, is the coldest planet in our solar system. To remember this the students painted Uranus using bluish green ice cubes! Neptune, the eighth planet from the sun, is the windiest. The Hoot Owls painted Neptune with Q-tips so they could swirl and twirl the wind.

Many Hoot Owls have been excited about space all year long, and so they were very excited to begin to learn about our solar system in class. They started with the center of our solar system, the Sun. The Hoot Owls all worked together to create their favorite star, then put it up in their classroom to help learn about the order of the planets moving away from the Sun.

Next the Hoot Owls started to learn about the rocky planets. They used different painting techniques for each planet to highlight their differences. Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun so they started there. The students learned that Mercury is full of craters caused by meteorites, and then painted Mercury with sponges to give it a bumpy look. Hoot Owls also practiced writing, “Mercury.”

Next, they learned about Venus, and discovered that it is very hot and has thousands of volcanoes and poisonous gases and storms. Hoot Owls practiced writing “Venus” before drawing volcanoes, storms and gases with oil pastels. The Hoot Owls’ drawings showed through the watercolor paints that they added at the end. They also reviewed the terms solid, liquid and gas.

Earth was next! The Hoot Owls created clouds with shaving cream, and used eyedroppers to add blue and green paint that represented the oceans and the land. They used paper to make prints of the shaving cream. The class talked about the seven continents and located them on the globe. They also read the book Earth! My First 4.54 Billion Years  by Stacy McAnulty.

The last of the rocky planets was Mars. The Hoot Owls painted the ice caps on Mars. The students learned that Mars is red due to iron covering its dusty surface. They also learned about Olympus Mons, the largest volcano in our solar system. The Hoot Owls used a Q-tip to “draw” or remove the paint to create the volcano.

Up next, the Hoot Owls are excited to learn about the gas planets!