Wrapping Up Color and A Look At Some Small Group Interests During Play

Mrs. Garrabrant's class come over to do a color experiment with us!  We filled two bowls on each table with baking Soda and two containers were filled with vinegar. We added food coloring to the vinegar so that each table had two primary colors. Our friends looked at the materials and then whispered to their friends what they wondered. Then they whispered what they predicted would happen to their friends. 

The kids carefully dipped their cups into the vinegar, then waited for the signal to pour it into the baking  soda. I LOVED the looks on the kids faces and the collective gasp when they saw the reaction caused by mixing the vinegar and baking soda.  They had never seen anything like it!

We had them share with each other what they noticed after the two bowls overflowed. They noticed that the primary colors mixed to create a new color!

After our friends left, the kids documented what they noticed happened. A large number number of kids decided to try to create a web map to document the experiment!  It was interesting to see the different ways they recorded what they noticed!

During our exploration time, the kids finished up the last four color panels. They are now hanging up in our room. Our next step is to label them. 

I think the brown one is my favorite!  I love all of the different shades!

Mrs. Adams, who works in our office, asked us if we could make a colorful tree for the office like the ones they created as teams in our room last week. The kids were happy to do it!  

More finger muscles were made stronger by working on this project!

A group of friends had found a Lego alphabet chart. They are working on a challenge to create the whole alphabet with Legos. When they finish a letter, we take a picture of it. When we have them all, I will have some kids that are still working on letter identification identify them, put them in the right order and display them. 

We have a new friend in our room! It's a beta fish!  Right now the kids are observing and writing books about him or drawing pictures for him to hang up by his bowl at the writing station. They are also thinking of names for him and writing them on a post-it to put on a chart for name ideas. I will keep up the chart into next week. 

There has been a lot of engineering at the K'nex area!  They are planning and creating some amazing objects and presenting them to the class to show everyone what their creations can do or how they work. 

The girls have taken over the block area to make castles for fairies and butterflies!  I asked them if they would like to explore castles to help with their building!  They decided they would like some pictures and books to look at to give them ideas. I will have to work on finding some!

One group has opened up a doctor's office. They are using the clip boards to write down what is wrong with their patients, what they need to do to get better and what medicines they need.

The kids have also been asking questions about leaves which has also led into questions about the trees. They are bringing lots of leaves into our room to explore! We have started exploring this but I will save that for the next post!