Zimmer Kindergarten

One of the most fascinating things we learned about insects was that they wear their skeleton on the outside of their body! It is called an exoskeleton. I asked the children where is our skeleton? They replied rather enthusiastically, “On the inside of our body!”

To help us learn a little bit more about our bones, Dr. Marcus, an orthopedic doctor, treated the kindergarten class to a special visit. He asked us, “Who knows what bones do?” Peretz responded, “They help us to be straight – without them we’d be all wobbly!” “That’s right!” said Dr. Marcus. Then he told us he would like to talk about his favorite bones as he held up an x-ray. “What does this look like?” he asked. “Bones!” yelled the children. “Yes, this is an x-ray of a hand.”

Dr. Marcus asked the children to think about the difference between our hand and a dog’s paw. “What is one thing you can do with your hands, that your dog’s paws can’t do?” he asked. “I drink with my hands, people can grab things and dogs can’t.” “Yes”, said Dr. Marcus, “What allows us to do this?” “Fingers!” said the class. To illustrate to the children that our thumbs help us grab things, Dr. Marcus taped the children’s thumbs to their hands and had them try to write their name. We could sure tell how much we need our thumbs after that exercise!

Our favorite part of the visit was when Dr. Marcus asked us “What do you do when a bone breaks?” “You get a cast!” replied the children. Then, Dr. Marcus gave each child a paper towel roll and we each got to put a cast on it, just as if it was a broken bone! And, of course, we all got to sign each other’s cast! Thank you Dr. Marcus for a fun and informative morning.

Our exploration of spring took us on a special field trip to do a pond study. While the children have been intrigued to observe and document the growth and change of our tadpole, and the transformation of our caterpillars in our classroom it was exciting to see and experience pond life up close! Upon our arrival, we were lucky enough (and quiet enough) to observe some turtles sunning themselves by the side of the big pond. Then we hiked up to the spring and learned that springs are the beginnings of all the ponds and rivers. While we were walking toward the spring, we noticed that the ground had gotten very wet. “Why?” I asked the children. “Because all the water is under the ground, under our feet!”

The children especially enjoyed feeding all the fish. It was very exciting when Joshua spotted frog eggs! “They look just like they did in the book!” We had never seen frog eggs, so it was fascinating to realize that was how our tadpole actually began. Now we had seen the complete lifecycle of a frog.

The cattails were also quite popular with the children! Here, the children agreed, they did not look just like they did in the books! They were much more “fuzzy!” Each child was so excited to get piece of the fuzz. Speaking of fuzz, we ended our stay by visiting the two goats on the property. They were quite friendly, and they sure enjoyed the attention and the matzah the children gave them.