melting ice

The idea for this game/science experiment came from Laura at My Montessori Journey.
It was the perfect activity for a hot, September afternoon!

Since we don't have a color printer, we couldn't print out the original direction sheet from hummingbirded.
Instead, Christy (my fabulous co-teacher) typed up the directions, and I drew the quirky little pictures on the side. :)

The children split up into groups of two.
I gave each group
a dice,
a dish of water,
and two ice cubes.
Everyone shared the shaker of salt.

Not only was this activity a fun counting game AND an ice melting experiment, it was an exercise in cooperation... and it was a riot!
(In a good way!)

If a child rolled a 1,
he held the ice cube in his hands
for 10 seconds...

If a child rolled a 2,
he had to drop the ice cube
down his shirt...
(miraculously, I never rolled a 2)

If the child rolled a 3,
he blew on his ice cube
for 10 seconds...

If the child rolled a 4,
he dropped his ice cube on the table...

If the child rolled a 5,
he sprinkled 10 shakes of salt
on his ice cube...

if the child rolled a 6,
he counted to 10
as his ice cube floated in water.

If you're wondering how to get your
ice cube to melt the fastest,
try to roll a lot of 2's.

7 out of 7 kindergartners agree,
dropping an ice cube down your shirt
is the most efficient (and fun) way to get it to melt!

ah, monday!

Today started with this
awesome
new pencil sharpener.

The children kept all their pencils
sharpened to maximum pointy-ness
AND
strengthened their fine motor control.

Oh yeah, did I mention
the pencil sharpener suctions to the table?
How cool is that?!

Today ended with this hobo spider
creepy crawling
across my living room floor.

I'm usually not too freaked out by spiders,
but the this guy gave me serious
heebie jeebies.

I hope there aren't any more lurking around the house
like in my bed...

YIKES!

t.l.f.

(true love forever)

Happy anniversary, Hubs!!!
1 down,
a lifetime to go!

busy hands

building a tower
with the broad stair
~I love those legs
lounging in the background!~

"tap, tap, tap!"
hammering barnyard animals
onto cork board with tacks

using an eyedropper
to fill a whale ice cube tray
with orange water

carefully carrying scissors
and special snipping paper
across the classroom

the snip cutting begins!
~I wish I could show you the
concentration
on this little person's face!~

twisting a nut
onto a bolt

sorting teeny tiny treasures
from two drawers of the alphabet box
~/a/ and /f/~

apple tasting

The first two apples we tasted
were picked from the playground....

The children made observations about their
color, size, taste, and texture.

I recorded their observations,
and then they voted for their favorite of the two.
~We decided that there was no
right or wrong answer;
it was just a matter of
personal taste.~

The next two apples we tried
were from the grocery store.
~We looked at their stickers,
and discovered that
one was grown in Washington
and one was grown in New Zealand!
(both a LONG way from our playground!)~

red delicious & granny smith

our results
~The children had a tough time choosing a favorite!~

The last apples we tried were of
mysterious origins...
one was from a playground tree
and one was from the store.

We used our apple tasting skills to determine
which was which.

the results...
~The sweetness of the pink lady apple
was pretty much a dead giveaway :) ~

*I did this apple tasting experiment with the kindergarten students this afternoon. These 5 and 6-year-old students are part of the regular mixed-age classrooms, but everyday they meet to do something special together for 20 or 30 minutes. If you're interested, I'll try to share some of these games and projects that we do. This one went over huge - anything with food usually does! Even the pickiest of picky eaters got in on the action! :)