301/365 - Who knew?

One of the things that I need to be better at teaching is science. Up to this point, the first grade science core has consisted of plants and the water cycle. The core is changing, however. Marci B, a teacher on our team, has motivated me to do more science in my classroom. She has so many great ideas! I've coined the phrase "Fascinating Fridays" with my class. Each Friday we've been doing some fun experiments. We also fill out a scientific process paper for each experiment we do. My class is LOVING this!

Last week we did 3 different experiments. We soaked different candies in water overnight to see what would happen. We began with gummy bears. We put them in a cup of water overnight. Most of the students predicted the gummy bears would dissolve. I didn't take any pictures of that but we did gummy worms the next day and they had the same effect.

The gummy worm on the left is straight out of the package. The one on the right soaked in water for about 18 hours. The kids were amazed it grew so much. I was a little amazed too. I couldn't bring myself to taste it but the kids did and said they didn't have much flavor.

The next day we tried cinnamon bears. Of course the students thought they would get bigger like the gummy candies did. Nope. They did something completely different.

After soaking about 18 hours, the cinnamon bears turned almost white. The water turned red.

I tried to cut into one but it just kind of went powdery. I tasted it and it was pretty gross. It almost tasted like plastic.

We also mixed oil and water in bottles this week. The kids are loving shaking the bottles throughout the day and watching them settle. This Friday, we're going to do the carnation flower experiment by putting the flowers into vases with different colored waters. It's also fun to split the stem and put one side in one color and the other side in another color. I'll have to take a few pictures of that. It's always fun.