Curriculum

Children will plan and conduct investigations to understand that vibrating materials can make sound, and that sound can make materials vibrate. They will explore how different objects create sounds through vibrations, such as a tuning fork or plucking a stretched string. Additionally, children will observe how sound can cause materials to vibrate, like holding a piece of paper near a speaker making sound or holding an object near a vibrating tuning fork.

Children will demonstrate knowledge related to living things and their environments. They will notice the similarities and differences among various living things, such as plants and animals. For example, children will be able to identify that both birds and butterflies can fly, but birds have feathers and butterflies have wings with patterns.

Children will use and share their observations of local weather conditions to describe patterns over time. They will learn to observe and talk about different types of weather, such as sunny, cloudy, rainy, and warm days. For example, children will count the number of sunny days, windy days, and rainy days in a month.

Children will explore and learn about the basic life cycles of animals. They will observe how animals grow and change throughout their lives, such as understanding that animals can hatch from eggs and grow into adults. For example, they will learn that baby chicks hatch from eggs and grow into chickens. Additionally, they will explore basic life cycles in the plant kingdom, such as how plants grow from seeds.

Children will construct an argument supported by evidence for how plants and animals (including humans) can change the environment to meet their needs. They will learn about examples such as a squirrel digging in the ground to hide its food, or tree roots breaking concrete.

Children will recognize common animal sounds and explore, interact with, and identify a growing number and variety of plants and animals. They will also begin to explore how plants and animals grow and change, such as understanding that baby chicks grow into chickens and puppies grow into dogs.

Children will use a model to represent the relationship between the needs of different plants and animals (including humans) and the places they live. They will learn that different plants and animals need specific things to survive and how these needs are met by their habitats. For example, children will understand that deer eat buds and leaves, so they usually live in forests, and that grasses need sunlight, so they often grow in meadows.

Children will be able to identify and name the body parts of animals and describe how animals use these body parts. They will learn to identify and name body parts of animals such as eyes, ears, nose, mouth, legs, tail, wings, and claws. For example, they will understand that birds use their wings to fly and lions use their teeth to eat meat

Children will classify and arrange objects of nature, particularly focusing on leaves. They will discover the structure and function of the layers of a leaf. Children will distinguish between different types of leaves and label the parts of a leaf. For example, they will learn to identify the stem, veins, and edge of a leaf and understand how each part helps the leaf function.

Children will be able to define the terms "herbivore," "carnivore," and "omnivore," and identify different animals that fall into each category. They will learn that herbivores are animals that eat plants, carnivores are animals that eat meat, and omnivores are animals that eat both plants and meat. For example, children will recognize animals like cows, rabbits, and deer as herbivores, lions and tigers as carnivores, and bears and humans as omnivores. They will also begin to understand the differences between these three types of animals by exploring examples of each.