A Moon made out of Oreo's!

In the middle of our inquiry unit, I asked the children what kind of changes they wanted to learn about next. Once a kid in our class wondered about space and how the moon changes, it was game over with any other ideas because of the enthusiasm involved!

So, we WONDERED about how the moon changes. 

The children's prior knowledge about this line of inquiry was interesting! 

Next, we took ACTION and EXPLORED online about how the moon changes. 

"I'M CONFUSED!" To further investigate and DISCOVER into this phenomenon, we had to borrow globes and flashlights from the Science department of my husband's high school (where he also teaches Science!) We also had to add Oreo's into the mix!

The children's understanding of the changes that the moon experiences sky rocketed with the Oreo demonstration. They were able to conduct the Oreo experiment with a partner and talk (REFLECT) about the changes to others. Now, when you ask them about how the moon changes, they'll be able to shed light on this topic.

What can you do with milk & vinegar?

The children came to school with many wondering questions when they saw the front table with milk, vinegar, measuring tools and a bowl on it.

The children followed the very precise procedure in our Science experiment. 

Action/Explore:  Boil a cup of milk. Measure 4 teaspoons of vinegar into mug.

 

Pour milk into mug and stir ingredients together.

 

Use a strainer to drain excess liquid out.

 

Scoop the solid out.

After all of the liquid was drained from the solid, the kids formed the 'dough-like' substance into a shape of their choice by using a cookie cutter. They made tree ornaments.

When we completed the experiment, we talked about what we made. The children at this point, didn't know that they made plastic. Further exploration online was required to fill in the gaps. They also made the connection to our symmetry unit...the ornaments are 'equal shmequal!' 

Discover/Explore/Reflect:  So many changes happened during our experiment! We made plastic like in the olden days!!

Diorama Galore!

"Shoe boxes...calling all shoe boxes!"

The children have been inquiring into how/which animals change colour and/or shape for the past week. It all started with a reader that a group read about how octopus can change shape and colour. This sparked the students' curiosity into further action and exploration. 

We discovered that four animals either change shape or colour in our investigation. Below are our findings!

To share their new learning, the children were in for a real treat when they brought in their old shoe boxes. Talk about recycling! The kids changed their shoe box into their chosen animal's habitat.  Some of the animals were hard to find as they changed and were camouflaged within their surroundings. 

Symme-TREE...TREE...TREE!

To start our exploration on symme-tree (see what we did there!?), the children read the book called, Equal Shmequal, by Virginia Kroll. This really helped the kids to understand how symmetrical objects have equal-shmequal sides.

To further investigate this phenomenon, the students created symmetrical butterflies by first painting only half of the insect. Then, they folded the sides together to complete the beautiful butterfly. Wow! The butterfly patterns are exactly the same on both sets of wings!

To challenge the children even further, I had the children draw the other side of their face! Once the kids received their picture very excitedly, I told them that they had to cut their face in half! Afterwards, they carefully drew the other side of their face, making sure to include an eye, an ear and the other half of their nose and lips. They turned out very well!

Lastly, we conducted a Science experiment where we turned milk and vinegar into plastic. Once the ingredients were mixed, the children molded the dough-like material into symmetrical, or equal-shmequal, ornaments made out of cookie cutters. 

Our room was radiating symme-tree-tree-tree objects!