I just love the last half of the school year! We do so much fun learning! The kids really "get" it. They have procedures down (most of the time) and we can really just dive in to the content and explore what we are learning about. I also love, love, love our themed learning!
February is Dental Health Month. Soooo many science experiments can be done with this theme! Science experiments are awesome! I was talking to a little boy from my class who is in 3rd grade now just the other day. He told me that the thing he loved the most and what he remembered the best was all of our science experiments! Hurray!
We hypothesized what would happen to our teeth in different liquids. We used Kool-Aid, Coca-Cola, and water.
Yuck! The Kool-Aid left a sticky, sugary residue and stained the "tooth" red!
The Coke stained the "tooth" brown.
Well, look at that. The water didn't change our teeth at all. It left it nice, white, and clean! We talked about how we can sometimes have sugary drinks, but if that was all we drank or if we didn't brush afterwards, then our teeth might get discolored with residue, just like the eggs did. Moderation, kiddos!
The next experiment was a new one that I hadn't done before. I put a non-hard boiled egg in vinegar to see what acids do to our teeth. It took a little longer than expected, so give yourself a day for this experiment to work. I put the egg in when we got to school in the morning, but by the afternoon, it was just a little soft, but nothing had really changed. By the next afternoon, the shell had disintegrated. That's what I wanted to have happen, but the pictures below show even more coolness than I imagined! The yolk stayed in it's egg sac. It was so neat to see. This would make a great lesson on reproduction for older grades. We stuck with the tooth decay. ;)
Of course, we had to do writing about teeth. We read
What If You Had Animal Teeth by Sandra Markle. Awesome book!
The kids love it. It has interesting facts and is so engaging. After reading, they chose what kind of animal teeth they would want. We are working on opinion writing, so this went along perfectly. They had to give me their reasons why they wanted those teeth and they weren't allowed to say"because they are cool! " Haha! I'm mean and make them think and give details. Then they got to decorate themselves with the animal teeth they had chosen. Fun, fun!
We are also learning about living and non-living things this month. What better way to do this, than by having real, live things to explore. Here they had to tell me if an Earthworm or Gummy Worm was living and why. It also gets them out of their comfort zone and really exploring and explaining how they know.
Of course, it is also Valentine's Day. We play lots of Minute to Win It games, while throwing in some learning, of course.
We are also fancy at or parties. We eat "adult" food and have chocolate fondue. Yum, yum.
Ahhhh, nothing is more fun than 1st grade. I am definitely in the right spot. :)
Be fun and fabulous!
~Mrs. Sweeney
