(guitar strums) ♪ Good morning to a brand new day ♪ ♪ Time to learn and games to play ♪ ♪ Learning things is so much fun ♪ ♪ Learning is good for everyone ♪ (upbeat music) - Hello little learners, welcome back to our learning space.

My name is Miss Lara, can you tell me your name?

I'm so excited that you made it back today.

Today's Friday and we're gonna end our week by singing our song and doing some fun activities.

Okay, let's sing our good morning song with the help of my friend, Gerald.

Do you remember?

He's in the book "Giraffes Can't Dance."

I hope that you check it out.

Hey Gerald, you ready to sing?

Here we go, ah, let's see.

♪ Good morning, good morning ♪ ♪ It's a sunshine kind of day ♪ ♪ Come join Miss Lara ♪ ♪ For some learning and some play ♪ ♪ Will we sing a song ♪ ♪ 'Course we will ♪ ♪ Make our brain strong ♪ ♪ Like super strong ♪ ♪ So come along ♪ ♪ Yes come on friends ♪ ♪ For some learning and some play ♪ Hey Gerald, are you excited to see what we have going on today?

All right, let me put you down and we'll go through our schedule of the day.

So first we're gonna sing our feeling song to the tune of, ♪ The wheels on the bus go round and round ♪ and then we're gonna do our weekly investigation.

And actually, today's the last day we're gonna be studying the enormous turnip.

We're gonna end with a fun science activity that you can try at home.

And then, we'll sing our goodbye song or I'll give you a goodbye smooch depending on time.

Are you ready to get started?

Okay, let's sing our feeling song, ready?

♪ The feelings in my body change all the time ♪ ♪ All the time ♪ ♪ All the time ♪ ♪ The feelings in my body change all the time ♪ ♪ How am I feeling now?

♪ Now I want you to imagine that you have gone home and you've had a really rough day outside.

Your mom, grandma, grandpa, aunt, and uncle dragged you to two stores and they were all grownup stores, and you don't like to shop.

But when you get home, you find this waiting for you on your bed.

A present!

It was unexpected.

So how do you think you feel?

Hm, I would feel surprised.

Yes, I think you might feel surprised too if you get a present.

So let's finish our song by feeling surprised.

♪ Today I'm feeling very surprised ♪ ♪ Very surprised ♪ ♪ Very surprised ♪ ♪ Today I'm feeling very surprised ♪ ♪ I want to jump up and down ♪ Okay, so remember, our feelings change all the time, boys and girls.

Make sure you check in on how you're feeling, not just once when we sing a song, but throughout the day.

And check in on those around you, too.

Right now, I have a great video for you, and I'm gonna do a letter that's gonna introduce our video.

Ready?

For this letter, we need lots of big lines.

One big line down, one big line slides across, another big line up like this, and then down again.

What letter have I made?

M, M for mindful.

It's time for Mrs. McCarthy's Mindful Minute.

Let's watch together.

- Hi boys and girls.

Welcome to Mrs. McCarthy's Minute.

Today you're gonna be making a breath catcher to use for mindful breathing.

These are the items that you're gonna need.

You're gonna need some tape, a toilet paper roll, some ribbon, I used my old Christmas ribbon, markers or crayons, doesn't matter, and a pair of safety scissors.

Let's get started.

First thing you're gonna do is you're gonna get your toilet paper roll and you're gonna decorate it.

You can decorate it any way you want.

You can use your markers and color pictures on it, you can get stickers, you can use crayons, if you happen to have some paint, you can do paint, you could even take some construction paper and glue pieces of construction paper on it.

You can decorate it any way you'd like.

What I did is I just took my markers and I made circles all around it.

I used red, orange, green, yellow.

Then, when you're done doing that, you're going to cut some ribbon.

I stuck with green, because green is a spring color, and we're entering springtime right now.

You're gonna need four pieces.

I already have three.

One, two, three.

Now I just need to tape my fourth.

You're going to get a piece of tape and tape one end to the bottom of your breath catcher.

Just like that.

Isn't that pretty?

When you're all done, you can use it to practice your mindful breathing.

Remember boys and girls, when we practice our mindful breathing, we breathe in through our nose and we breathe out through our lips.

Remember, we practice it when we're feeling good.

That way we can use it when we're not feeling so good, because then it helps us to feel better.

Let's practice right now.

Let's take three deep breaths.

Here we go.

(nasal inhale sound) (blowing out sound) (nasal inhale sound) (blowing out sound) (nasal inhale sound) (blowing out sound) That was very good, boys and girls.

Remember, you can use this to practice your mindful breathing just like we did with our rainbow breaths.

Boys and girls, you did such a good job today.

I hope you get to make one of these breath catchers.

I'll see you next time.

Bye bye.

- I love doing mindful activities with Miss McCarthy.

Now another way that we can stay engaged and be mindful is to remember to think about how we're feeling throughout the day, like I mentioned.

Right, switching gears.

Now it's time to think like a scientist.

Do you remember what a scientist does?

That's right, they observe the world around them using their five senses.

How they see, touch, smell, hear, all kinds of things.

So, here's how we're gonna think like a scientist.

First, we're going to ask a question.

Our question today is gonna involve a turnip.

Now that's a sentence I didn't think I was gonna be saying today, but it's true.

Then, we're gonna make a hypothesis, and you know us grownups, we like to make fancy words.

The hypothesis just means, take a guess.

And you take a guess all the time throughout the day.

Pay attention and you'll see.

Next is experiment.

This is my favorite part.

That's where you actually dig in and try something and see if answers your question.

You're gonna record your observations.

Now you can record your observations by having a science journal next to you, or you can just remember them, too.

And step five is answer the question.

So what is our question today?

For today's science, or STEM, activity you're going to need the following materials.

One heavy object and any materials of your choice.

Our question is, we're gonna take this turnip here.

How can we take this turnip and put it on this plate without using our hands?

Hm, how are we gonna do that?

Now parents at home, you of course might not have a turnip handy, I didn't, but you can actually use an apple or a rock or anything heavy, and as you can see, it's simple materials.

Just a plate, I put it on a stand, that's a bowl, and this will keep your children engaged for a very long time, because it's open-ended and invites them to create and to try.

All right, well I wanted to show you really quickly what a turnip looks like.

So we've been talking about an enormous turnip that five people couldn't get out.

Now normally a turnip would have these green sprouts coming off of it.

These were hacked off.

But do you notice how it's purple on top and then comes down in a point right at the bottom?

I just wanted to point that out.

Now let's see, our question is, how are we gonna get this turnip on the plate?

Now I have a few materials here that might help us.

So I thought we might use these sticks.

These are skewers, can use maybe this paper towel roll, some tape, I have pieces of fabric.

See, these things, for hanging clothes, pipe cleaners, I even have some cardboard.

Hm, I can't use my hands.

Maybe I can make, ooh something with these sticks.

Now boys and girls, you might not have these exact materials at home.

You can bring out anything you think might help you with this activity.

At first I thought, well I can just pick it up with two sticks, but, doesn't seem to quite work.

So then I thought, hm, how might I make this stronger?

I wonder, if I used my tape, if I can make it strong at the bottom and create like a little handle so I can pick it up.

Now I know what you're thinking.

Miss Lara, why didn't you just bring a spoon?

You can try a spoon.

See if that would work, too.

Depends on the weight of the object, right?

So we're gonna try this out and see if this works.

Now science is all about experimenting, boys and girls.

I may not be able to finish this challenge in the time we have together, but I'd really love you to try it.

It's all about the process and the learning, so I'm just taking some tape and wrapping it up here.

I can hear some of you at home, going, "Ooh, maybe use the pieces of fabric, Miss Lara, or, the cardboard to make a wrap."

We can try that too.

Okay, let's see.

What if I use this stick and kind of roll the turnip on there?

Okay, I can't touch the turnip, I can't use my hands to touch the turnip, oh, it's very heavy, I can feel my hands shaking.

Will I get it on the plate?

(plate crashes) Ugh, fail.

It was too heavy.

Let's see, what if I reinforce it with some cardboard?

Do you think that might work?

Reinforce is a fancy word that means make it stronger.

Oh, this is difficult.

Scientists fail all the time, and it's their failure that guides them to their next discovery.

So I'm gonna put some tape on here.

All right, let's see, I'm really gonna try now.

See if I can make it work, I'm gonna roll my turnip on here.

Come on, turnip.

Hopefully it doesn't roll off the table.

Okay, now I'm gonna put it on my sticks, and let's see if I can get it on there, okay, it's working.

I haven't touched it.

Ooh, turnip, roll down.

(plate crashes) I can't seem to get it on.

I think the problem is my plate keeps falling over because it's so heavy.

So maybe my next job is to reinforce the plate.

I might do that with a little piece of tape.

So see, I discovered that I need a different mechanism to hold this in place.

Now like I said, boys and girls, I may not be able to finish in the time we have together, but I'd really love to see your tries.

If you'd like to, send a letter here to the station or a picture, and I'll show the address in just a minute.

And I love receiving letters or pictures from you.

I might even put them on air.

Okay, we're gonna try again.

Last try, see if the tape helped.

And I'm gonna refine my method and slowly roll it on.

Ooh, I got it on!

Huh, I love being a scientist.

All right, now I can touch it and put it on.

So I hope that you give this a try and that hopefully it was a little easier for you.

And remember, you can challenge yourself to do lots of things with science.

Doesn't need to involve turnips.

All right, looks like our time is done for this week.

I hope you enjoyed learning about the enormous turnip.

All right, my friends, remember to read, to play, and to use your imagination every day.

Goodbye!

(guitar strums) ♪ Good morning to a brand new day ♪ ♪ Time to learn and games to play ♪ ♪ Learning things is so much fun ♪ ♪ Learning is good for everyone ♪ (guitar strums)