We saw many liquids from layers from dense to least dense: honey, corn syrup, maple syrup, milk, dish soap, water, oil, and rubbing alcohol (from bottom to top). And then we saw objects float in the middle of these liquids: a metal bolt in the honey, a die in the corn syrup, popcorn kernels in the milk, a tomato in the water, a soda cap in the oil, and a ping pong ball in the rubbing alcohol. Did you know that we are only 32 days away from being big second graders? Crazy right! Today we finished a wonderful read aloud book called The Year of Billy Miller written by one of our favorite authors Kevin Henkes. He usually writes picture books like Chrysanthemum and Lily's Purple Plastic Purse. It was fun to see his style and the patterns in his writing in chapter book form. Anyways, this book was all about a boy in second grade. We spent some time writing about what we are most excited about and nervous about for next year.
Also...it snowed today. Send back SNOW PANTS, HATS, AND MITTENS please. It's cold outside.
Sometimes spring feels elusive. One day the flowers are blooming and the next they are covered in snow. Today we finished up some spring art work with our favorite birds and flowers. Can you find the signs of spring hidden in these pictures? There are many!
Today we were tricked! We tasted some different liquids, one yellow, one red, and one green. Our tastebuds told us that they all tasted different. The yellow one tasted like apple juice. The red one tasted like cranberry juice, and the green one tasted like lime. Here's how we were tricked. THEY WERE ALL APPLE JUICE! Turns out the color of the juice tricked out brain into thinking we could taste different flavors. Our brain knows what certain fruits and fruit juices taste like and sets up our tongue with certain expectations. Then we did some tasting without the smell. Just for fun! Here's what we took away from this. Go into every experience with a clean slate. Sometimes your preconceived notions can make things tricky. Let's all be flexible with our friends and ourselves.
Today we played a guessing game. We each wrote down a two or three digit number and then gave our partner clues to help them figure it out. Then we compared our numbers with greater than and less than statements. For example: the value of the digit in the hundreds place is 9-5, the value of the digit in the tens place is 4+4, the value of the digit in the ones place is two more than 6. My number is 488! Kind of tricky, but lots of fun. Definitely a game to try at home. Check out how we played below with Taj and Hayleigh. Sorry about the background noise. We are all busy learning and playing with partners!
Taj and Hayleigh compare their numbers with greater than and less than statements.
Did you know some people make a living watching movies, eating at restaurants, and traveling to cool places? Well...it's not THAT easy. They have to be really great writers too! This week we had so much fun debating the best movies, toys, video games, sports, restaurants, and more. We learned to give lots of reasons to back up our opinions and we even got to talk back a little bit. Before you get too worried it wasn't the bad kind of talking back. Instead, we addressed our readers opinions to make our own writing stronger. You might think Ice Age is the best, but really Inside Out is better and let me tell you why... Check out our persuasive writing!
Then, we heard from the Scientist, Rocco. He shared an experiment that we are all eager to try at home. What happens when you put Mentos in Diet Coke and Dr. Pepper? Will the reaction be the same? Will there be a physical or chemical reaction? Will the liquid overflow? Will the bottle explode? We discovered the Mentors react with the soda to create a GEYSER! The Aspartame sweetness in diet soda creates an even more explosive geyser than the corn syrup in regular soda.
Finally, we heard some long overdue presentations from some of our classmates. We've all been working hard creating presentations in Google Drive and five of our friends did some research on their own. Check out what they learned below. Our favorite scientist returned today and got us all asking those important science questions. Today we discovered the magic properties of a polymer. Before the experiment we learned the word polymer and thought it was just a regular old powder like salt or sugar. After the experiment, however, our minds were blown! Take a look! Problem: What happens to the powder inside a diaper when water is added to it? Materials: water, diaper, 1/4 tsp. polymer, zip-lock bag, measuring cup, timer Procedure: Get a zip-lock bag. Add 1/4 cup of water. Then add 1/4 teaspoon of polymer. Zip the bag shut. Squeeze the bag for about two minutes. Conclusion: Here's what happened: The powder and the water turned into a jelly solid. We watched a physical reaction take place. We've witnessed chemical reactions before where two chemicals come together to create a new chemical, like baking soda and vinegar. In today's experiment, the polymer simply soaked up the water and turned into a jelly like substance. No new chemicals were created so we just witnessed a physical change. Next Steps: Turns out we were able to undo the physical reaction we witnessed with a little bit of salt. If you eat a lot of salt, chances are you're mouth is going to be dry and you will want a glass of water. When you add salt to the polymer water mixture the salt starts to suck up the water and release it from the polymer. Super cool. The title of this experiment comes from DIAPERS. Gross? Not really. Polymer powder is found in diapers and that what magically soaks up all the liquid. We used cut up diapers and whacked the polymer powder out of them to observe how this really worked in a diaper. Only a 1/4 tsp. of polymer per diaper will do the job! Did you know a polymer can hold up to 100 times it's weight in liquid?
Try putting a diaper in a pool! When we practice handwriting we practice HANDWRITING WITHOUT TEARS. Writing is such a challenging task. First you have to think of an idea, then decide how to present it in sentences, but don't forget to organize your thoughts on the page, oh, and also remember how to stretch out those words so you spell them right, and while you're at it try for nice handwriting too! That's a lot to remember. We are capital letter experts so now we're working out way through those pesky lower case letters and numbers. Today we practice i and l and reviewed many others. Check out this handy guide if you want to know how we form our letters in first grade.
The date for our Invention Convention has been set for Thursday, April 28th! It's going to be a blast. This is definitely not an event to be missed.
We've been thinking about inventions/inventors at school and hopefully it will jump start the creative juices for your inventions at home. A great invention solves a problem. For example, if you get sunburned, baseball caps and sunscreen will solve that for you. If you can't wake up in the morning, coffee will solve that for you. If you are cold, a sweater or jacket will solve that for you. If you keep forgetting something, a post-it note will solve that for you! We got some ideas by thinking about our favorite inventions and doing some good research.
If you're needing some inspiration, check out what some of my students last year came up with...
First Grade Inventions Welcome back! We're flying through first grade with only two months left. How that happened, I'm not quite sure. Anyways, to jump start using our brains again, ponder this for a little while. Remember this cool color experiment where we made water walk? The paper towels absorbed the water and color, filled the empty cups, gravity equalized the water levels, and mixed primary colors to form orange and green and make a beautiful rainbow. Look what happened over break. One of our original hypotheses was that some of the water would evaporate. Well, after about two weeks of time and a sunny spot in the window it looks like all of the water evaporated. But the color stuck around and we still have a pretty cool rainbow!
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May 2023
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