Mrs. Cronk from the ODC returns!

Today Mrs. Cronk from the Outdoor Discovery Center returned to visit!   This time, she prepared a lesson for us about Winter Weather!   She began as she usually does, with a story called, "It's Winter" by Linda Glaser.

Next, Mrs. Cronk showed us two types of thermometers.  The first one was a vertical one with both Celsius and Fahrenheit displayed.   Mrs. Cronk told us that the 'red stuff' inside will contract and go up when it gets warm and when it cools off, it goes down.  She showed us how to read the thermometer, because the numbers go up by 20's, so with her help, the kids figured out the big line between numbers was the 10 in between, and the little lines were counting by 2's.   The second type of thermometer was a dial type.

We then talked about good 'winter words' and each child had a chance to give a word, which she wrote down on a poster.   Mrs. Cronk brought along a taxidermy squirrel to show us because she wanted us to notice the feet.  We would soon be going outside to look for animal tracks and she wanted us to notice the difference between squirrel tracks and rabbit tracks.

Next, we went outside!  Mrs. Cronk had two thermometers set out in different places, so we stopped to look at the temperatures in different areas.  We noticed that one thermometer had a little bit colder reading than the other one.  We also saw some rabbit tracks and some squirrel tracks!  We quietly listened for winter sounds and heard snow hitting our hoods, wind, and even a dog barking in the distance!

When we returned to our classroom, we added a few more winter words to our list as well as recording the outside temperature compared to our indoor temperature.  

We always enjoy having Mrs. Cronk visit us to teach us about animals and nature!   We look forward to her return one more time in April!   Thanks Mrs. Cronk!