Young children are naturally curious about their environment and work to make sense of the world around them. Our kindergarten program is designed to engage students in a way that builds upon this curiosity and supports a positive attitude towards learning with others. Kindergarten students begin science at Kamehameha by exploring being a scientist. Scientists ask questions and investigate, engineers look for problems, design and test solutions. Our keiki practice skills to become independent investigators. They also practice cooperating and sharing work with a partner. Some of our projects even have teams of 4 scientists who work together so we can all learn more from each other. We begin with ka La. Our Sun provides our planet with light and heat for our life and the living things around us. We look for ways to live with our star and we study it to see how it changes our world— both to help us and to challenge us. The Sun affects our weather and our weather affects us. We explore living things on our planet using our primary garden to investigate plants and animals in a habitat as a living lab. We investigate other habitats where plants and animals live together on the land in our school garden and stretch out to investigate the sea with our native honu. What do these living things need to survive? How do people impact them and how can people help?
What did our ancestors know about these things and how were they scientists in their own
times? ‘Olelo no‘eau tell us about what they found in the world around them and their ideas about what they observed. We can tell our stories too! Our science journals are a record of our thinking and discoveries.
