A Funny, a Freebie and a Freaky Science Experiment!

Our Transitional First teacher shared a funny story that made my day yesterday! One of her students told her "You're the nicest teacher in the world!" She thanked the child and was about to move on when she heard one of my darlings from last year mutter "No she's not, Mrs. Knopf is!" lol! She and I had a good chuckle about it after work and I was glad that she took it light heartedly and that I inspired such loyalty in my former kinder!

We are doing a Science Experiment about why the ocean is salty. We mixed salt and water (about 1:2 ratio), stirred until the salt dissolved, then poured the mixture into a plate and put it in the windowsill. I was expecting the water to evaporate and leave the salt behind, and it did. What I wasn't expecting was what happened to the salt:

Okay, I may be showing my own ignorance here, but I was not expecting the salt to form cubes! I pulled one out of the dish and let my firsties touch it and examine it with a magnifying glass. It was so neat! My firsties commented that they looked like ice cubes, but they weren't cold! They also marveled that some of the cubes were adhering to other cubes to form bigger clumps, but we could still see the individual cube shapes. Definitely a great first science experiment of the year!

We also played Sink the Boat at the end of the day. I broke them up into teams of 3 and they had to decide which size boat to use and try to fill it with as many fish manipulatives as possible before it sank. Out of 5 teams, 4 chose the largest boat, but even so the numbers varied from 7 all the way to 14 fish depending on how they positioned them in the boat and which fish they chose. If all goes as it should tomorrow, we will play again, this time using the medium sized boats. It will be interesting to see if they can use the strategies they learned today to help them win tomorrow.

Finally, a freebie! I am already looking forward to my apple unit later this month! We make homemade apple sauce in the classroom and it smells delicious all day, and then tastes even better when we eat it in the afternoon! We also taste different kinds of apples and then graph which ones we liked the best. Now, I hate to admit this, but I do not have very pretty handwriting. I remember getting those triangle shaped grips placed on my pencils in 1st grade and stubbornly removing it every time. I have the weirdest pencil grip, and my letters have a decided slant across the paper. Thus, if I want to make something to hang in the hallway, I usually type it or cut out the letters lol. This year I decided to make a graph set for "Our Favorite Apples" that I can laminate and use year after year. I always make my graphs on big sheets of butcher paper, so it will be easy to remove these cards when I dispose of the graph. I also made cards for the students that include a spot for their name - it's amazing how many times I count the pieces on a graph and realize that someone has forgotten to put their card up but no one will admit it's them lol. This way I can see at a glance who has put their piece on the graph and they can also point out their apple to others. Hope you enjoy it!

My Favorite Apple Graph