Soapy Snow & Sweet Scents

Our classroom smells so nice today! Since we are learning all about the polar regions, I've been thinking about snow lately. But for once, here we are in February with no real snow to speak of. I certainly don't mind the winter we've had so far (don't think I'm complaining!), but I do wish we had more snow so the kids and I could be doing some hands-on activities with it. Since we don't have real snow, I decided to use some fun stand-ins. We started the morning by doing our handwriting in "snow" (shaving cream). The students loved it and it smelled great! I was busy watching helping the students with their sight words and cleaning up and forgot to take pictures (oops).

This afternoon we tried out a neat experiment I saw online - Ivory bar soap in the microwave (you can find something similar here). The students were warned not to try it at home without parent supervision, so I think a few of them may be asking for your help. The soap expands to a beautiful foam (and cleans the microwave simultaneously). This was a great lesson on changing matter/expansion and the five senses, great smells and interesting texture to touch.

 Our final "snow" experience involved ice cold water, shredded toilet paper, and more soap. I grated the soap into a bin for the students and then they shredded the toilet paper into it. I think they would have been pretty happy if we had just stopped there but when we added the cold water the fun went to an entirely new level. They made "snowballs"  and "icebergs" with our goo mixture and mostly just enjoyed squeezing it through their fingers. I got some pretty weird looks when I walked down the hallway with a cheese grater and a roll of toilet paper this afternoon, but it was totally worth it!

Remember, tomorrow is Valentine's Day so the students can wear red or pink to celebrate (see Friday's newsletter for the details). I'm sure there will be more to post about after our celebration tomorrow!

Parties & Painting

This week has been full of exciting events in our classroom! On Tuesday we celebrated the 100th Day of School. We did all kinds of fun things related to 100 and our room was decorated with balloons and streamers for the special day. I got so caught up in all of the excitement I completely forgot to take pictures until the end of the day! We made ourselves a special 100 piece trail mix to snack on and share.

We also started our Polar Regions unit this week. The students are really excited about the things we'll be learning and so am I. We didn't have time to do half of the activities I had planned for the week, but that's OK because we're going to stick with this unit for awhile. This afternoon we had some Arctic inspiration and tried painting with frozen paint, a little messy, but a lot of fun! It also gave us the opportunity to talk about liquids, solids, and color mixing.

Have a great weekend!