A Fun Day of Science...

ICE!!  The Touch and Feel was filled with ice this morning....and the kids LOVED it!  They melted it in their hands, splashed in the water as it melted, and even took a tiny taste!  Our hands were all cold and red for Hello Neighbor, but it was so much fun!

We had to make some changes in the schedule today in order to give our science experiment time to work!  Yesterday we filled balloons with water and put them in the freezer.  They were all frozen this morning.  After we spent some time talking about how the water had changed, we got to work.  Using the ice balls, we made two snowmen.  One had green eyes and one had blue eyes.  We drew pictures of both snowmen on our chart so we wouldn't forget what they looked like.  The question of our experiment was which snowman would melt faster if we left one in our classroom and took the other outside.  Now....it would have been nicer if the weather had been a little more "winter-like" today, but with a little adult help (and a portable heater), Ms. Tiffany and I knew the experiment would work out just fine!! All the kids made predictions about what they thought would happen.....and we gently placed the snowmen in their spot.....and headed out the playground.

I wasn't sure that the kids would get any actual playing done on the playground because they couldn't stop watching the outside snowman.  They were so excited!  It never left their sight for too long!  Believe me, whatever was going to happen....they didn't want to miss it!

When we headed inside from the playground, we brought in the outside snowman.  It had definitely melted some which made them very happy.  We compared it with the inside snowman....which was almost all melted away.....and filled in the rest of our science chart!  We talked about the results of our experiment and why we thought that it turned out that way!  It was great to see them so engaged in a science lesson.  They learned new vocabulary: results, prediction, experiment.....and they learned that sometimes predictions are wrong, but it doesn't mean you "lose", because predictions are really just guesses.  No one knows what will happen until you see the results!

We had something else special planned today.....our book of the day,The Snowman by Raymond Briggs, has been made into a movie.  The tricky part is that the movie has NO WORDS!  We told the kiddos to put on their thinking caps and get ready because they would have to tell us the story once the movie was over.  No reading today!  You wouldn't believe how a movie with NO WORDS can captivate a room full of kids.  They were silent.....laughing at the parts that were funny......asking questions of each other.....making predictions.....and thinking the whole time!  When we finally got the actual book out.....the room exploded with talking!  They all had something to add to the story....something that they wanted to say! Even though Raymond Briggs was the author of the real story.....I'm certain our kids could "write" it too!