Mariko shared her Very Hungry Caterpillar design that her mom turned into a dress for her.
Oliver was our line leader and calendar adjustor today. He quickly got it updated and all set. Thanks, Oliver! Good work! We grabbed our Moose booklets and read them together while we sat in the calendar circle. The word "science" would sound like sky-enk, except we know that ci and ce sound like "s"! It is also funny that we say 1 cat - 2 cats, and 1 dog - 2 dogs, but 1 moose - 2 moose! We don't say mooses!
We say 1 goose - 2 geese, but we don't say 2 meeses! These options sounded so funny that we agreed to stick with 1 moose - 2 moose, just as we say 1 deer - 2 deer.
And guess what we saw when Oliver led us to recess? TWO DEER! The doe and her fawn walked through the back parking lot and found it was a dead end, so they walked back out again. We didn't see any moose, though.
Thanks for the picture, Mrs, Rail!
We labeled the moose photo on the back of our booklets. That's called labelling a diagram, and we used that skill for our science observations today. This was our exploration day for our Science Fair project. It began with a question about why oranges sting us if we have a cut on our lips or in our mouth. We traded several stories about this, and talked about the acid in the oranges that causes the sting. That answer was okay, but we didn't really feel that we understood how orange juice can do that. Apples are juicy, but they don't sting. Bananas are not juicy, but they are a fruit, and they don't sting. So we are going to learn a bit about acids in food!
Today we began by sharing what we know about cabbage. We've seen two different colors of it: green and purple. Various students offered that cabbage is yummy, crunchy, healthy, and grows on a stalk. One of us disagreed and doesn't like the taste at all! Then we observed a head of purple cabbage. "Head" is a funny name for it, but we think it fits the roundness, and we think the rumpled parts look like a brain! The center is called the heart of the cabbage, but it doesn't beat like our hearts. The center part of the leaves is called the rib, but it doesn't have any lungs to protect. English is so funny!
We passed around leaves from the purple cabbage and each of us felt one. Feeling a cabbage leaf is like feeling a leaf made of rubber! We noticed that the two sides of the leaf are a deep purple color, but the middle layer is white. It's like a flat, rubbery, purple Oreo cookie! We passed the pieces back, and each of us got our own piece to nibble at. Some of us ate the whole piece because we like cabbage! One of us observed that you can taste it for a while.
I asked if the purple color would wash off. All of us thought that if I put the cabbage into water, it would make the water purple. I dropped some pieces of leaf into a clear glass. It floated, but it didn't turn the water a color. What if I chopped it up some more? I grated some into the water, and that did it! The water was a pretty purple!
I asked the kids to tear a section of leaf into pieces and moosh the pieces in a paper cup. We wondered if the purple would rub off of a leaf. As we rolled the bits of leaf in our fingers, a faint purple color showed on our fingertips. So if a little rubbing worked a little bit, a hard smooshing should work really well,,,, Some of us enthusiastically rolled and rubbed the leaf bits across their palms. It worked! Some people showed more purple than other people.
Now that we had cups with some very well shredded cabbbage at the bottoms, we added enough lemon juice to cover the leaves. We know that lemon juice would sting our cuts. What it did to the cabbage delighted us! As we poked the cabbage, we realized that our purple hands were turning pink!!! We were astonished! When we put more of the lemon juice on our hands, it washed the purple off entirely!
We even tried to paint with the pink water. Oddly, the pink did not show up on paper, except where some extra got spilled, or where a chunk of leaf got painted on, yet the paper towel used to clean up the spill was a very pretty pink!
This was a lot of information, so we wrote it down with pictures and labels. We made diagrams of our event! This will help us remember the steps we've already taken. We will learn more about cabbage and acids and bases next week. We like chemistry! Especially when it is colorful!
Then, to top it off, Oliver led us to PE! We took our excitement over pink and purple and turned it into a large muscle workout, Mrs. Fox had a new game for us, and it was thrilling! It was called Builders and Bulldozers. A number of cones were scattered around and across the gym area. Half were sitting upright, and half were turned over. Half of us were designated as builders, and half of us were designated as bulldozers. Now in real life, bulldozers and builders work together. It seemed that it was much more fun to work at opposite goals in this game! The builders tried to turn the cones upright, even as the bulldozers tried to knock the cones over. We laughed and shouted and ran and bent and turned and were totally active. It was great! It was fun! We were breathless and happy when it was time to stop and have our second snack. Whew! Thanks, Mrs. Fox!
Today:
Oliver liked doing the calendar.
Kais had fun playing the new game in PE.
Weston liked the cabbage experiment because his hand turned all purple.
Tal liked the exercising in PE.
Mariko enjoyed writing about swimming in her journal.
Jackson liked painting with the pink cabbage water and now it is just gray.
Audrey had fun doing the warm-up stretches in PE.
Aria liked writing the cabbage diagram.
Rutger had fun being a bulldozer because he got to knock cones down and they got to build them back.
Hans liked the builder game because he was putting cones up.
Eli will like searching for his gold coins.
Happily,
Miss Suzanne Yorks
