More/Less. We work on the concept of quantity all day every day. In the past two weeks, I asked questions like: What color of cubes are there more of in the jar?. While this is a basic concept that children learn mostly independently without much help, the challenge for them was to explain the reason for their final answer. The objects were switched as soon as all students could find their answers individually. Sometimes it took a day, others almost the whole week. We worked with foam cubes, unifix cubes, pompons, buttons, and paper clips. At first, some had trouble explaining their ideas, but after hearing others, they’d realize how easy it was to explain their approach to the class. For example, students explained that they knew there were more purple cubes because they had made a pile and the purple pile was bigger. Others counted the cubes, others lined them up and others made towers. Other objects could not be arranged in towers, so students realized that they had to take a different approach. Every time, they get more confident at explaining their answers. 

Santa’s Letter. We dictated and decorated our Santa’s letters. We are crossing our fingers and hoping that Santa loves the drawings we made for him and the elves. We also made holiday cards as part of Mrs. Demetra’s class project. Our cards were sent to seniors living in a nursing home away from their families. We hope our cards bring cheer to them during these harsh times. 

Build a Santa. Students colored and put together a stick puppet. We practiced our fine motor skills and made our Santas and Elves. Cutting each part and then putting it back together was the hardest part. Once the whole class had finished, we made up our stories and threw a puppet show. Sometimes we were the audience, others we were part of the show. We are learning to create a story with all of its elements: setting, plot, conflict and resolution of a conflict. The only characters of the story this time were Santa and the elves, but we had fun hearing the funny troubles they got in.  

Elf Steam Challenge. Jack was very busy this week, hiding in our room and leaving notes behind with fun activities for us to do. Our favorite one was designing jingle bells for him. Without Jingle Bells, Jack cannot go back to the North Pole, so we rushed to help him out. I provided students with various items that could help them jingle bells, like tiny plastic cups, paper cones, toilet paper rolls, paper towel rolls, bottle caps, plastic eggs and tape. They looked around for things that could help it make a rattling sound, and they could use anything that was NOT a toy. They finally found tiny pebbles, eggshells and beans. The hardest part was putting all the pieces together with tape; they discovered that collaborating and helping each other worked best. After testing their creation, they decorated it. We used them to sing our favorites carols to serenade Jack. (He loved our Jingle Bells and he could go back to the North Pole).

Grinch Potion. After reading the book: How the Grinch stole Christmas, we were inspired to create a special potion to stop the Grinch from stealing our Christmas in our own house. We mixed five ingredients and stored the final result in a small bag for students to take home. We hope the Grinch sees all the magic surrounding our home and his heart grows three times bigger. (Ask your child about the ingredients we used in our special potion). 

The greatest gift of all. We discussed the book and why all the whos in Whoville did not get sad or upset after the Grinch had stolen all the Christmas gifts and decorations. We talked about how exciting our Christmas would be if we had a house full of gifts but not family or friends to share them with. Or how a Christmas dinner would be if we had a table full of all of our favorite things to eat but not family around. Then each student thought of what’s more important on Christmas than gifts. Here are their answers: Family, Love, Friends, Kindness, Music, Spending time with everyone, Eating together. 

We talked about the shape of a gift box and compared it to our 3D shapes. After agreeing that it was most definitely a cube, we decided to draw a cube ourselves. We followed the directed drawing step by step. It was not as easy as drawing a simple square, but we raised to the challenge and we’re proud of our results.

Pumpkins. We continued our pumpkin exploration watching the decomposition of our pumpkin. I thought about ending it right after the Thanksgiving break, but kids are still interested in watching the pumpkin “melt” right in front of their eyes. We are witnessing the whole life cycle of mold! I wonder what we are going to find after the long winter break. I sent our pumpkin sprouts so children can take care of them at home.

Christmas Tree Challenge. We talked about the shape of a Christmas tree, we all agreed it was not a 2D shape, but we still weren’t sure what shape it was. We then grabbed our 3D shapes and started comparing them one by one. It did not look like a cube, or a sphere, or a cylinder. Some were hesitant when we compared it to a pyramid. We all finally concluded that it looked more like a cone. Once we figured this out, I gave the students an engineering challenge using simple supplies: popsicle sticks and clay. I told them that they could use as much material they needed, but to finish the challenge the tree needed to end up in a standing position. And so they began, students played with the material trying to figure out how to start building. Some started by making triangles with the sticks, others tried to make one single stick stand and then build from there. Others were fast at making a triangle stand by adding an extra stick at the bottom, while others found that the more clay they used the faster they could make the sticks stand. Once they succeeded, they added ornaments to the tree, and were confronted with another problem, the more clay they added at the top, the heavier it became. Some lost their shape and others were destroyed completely and they had to start over. But this time, they were more encouraged because they didn’t have to start from zero, they already knew how to make it stand, they just had to figure out the correct amount of decorations they could add so their trees wouldn’t fall. Some students even made improvements to their initial designs and made their bases stronger by using more clay. They found that reinforcement was a necessary improvement to allow the tree to stand independently. In the end, they all share their creations proudly. 

Tessellations. A tessellation is any pattern made of repeating shapes that covers a surface completely without overlapping or leaving any gaps. “By making tessellations, students are given the opportunity to recognize geometric shapes, mathematical relationships and engineer the tessellating patterns”. This activity was not easy but we love puzzles, patterns and a good challenge. After coloring and decorating our tree shapes, we tried to fit them together like a puzzle. They were excited when they found out that the trees fit perfectly against each other when positioned correctly. Once they found out how to fit them together, I told them they had to do it in an AB pattern, and that they could build up to form another shape. “I made a triangle”, “It’s another tree!” “Mine looks like a Christmas tree!”. We made trees with tree shapes and we were fascinated. 

Dancing Jingle Bells.  We added a bunch of jingle bells in a clear jar. I asked them what they thought could happen after I poured some soda into the jar. Some said they would float, others said they would sink. After making our predictions, we poured soda into the jar. Then we observed. The jingle bells stayed on the surface just long enough so that the students who had predicted they would float started celebrating. Suddenly, they sank. The rest of the class screamed joyfully: “they sank!” Then again, within seconds, the jingle bells started going up and down. They were dancing! We hit the table in excitement and noticed that the harder we hit the more bubbles appeared. The science behind it: the jingle bells are on the bottom and do not instantly begin floating in the soda because they are denser than the liquid. Air bubbles begin to surround the jingle bells and cause the bells to float up. When the air bubbles pop, the bells sink again. We were so mesmerized! 

About Jack. Our Elf Jack has been very active since he came out of quarantine. He hides candy canes for us to find, and he asks us to read books to him. He even asks for our help when he gets stuck. I wonder what other challenges he’ll bring for us next week. Stay tuned.

Our little friend Jack came back from the North Pole. He is in quarantine, of course, because he travels a lot, but we are counting the days and cannot wait until he gets out of quarantine. He came bearing gifts for us and we could not be more excited. (Ask your child about the special gift from Jack).

Hot Chocolate Science Experiment. We started our experiment with a question: Which water temperature would dissolve the hot chocolate the quickest? Then we made our predictions and recorded them. Some chose hot, some chose cold, others chose room temperature; (some students were not sure what “room temperature” meant, so they touched each jar to compare, “It’s warm!” they said). Then it was time to experiment. We started by adding the chocolate powder to the mugs, and students took turns stirring. We used the digital stopwatch on my phone to time how long the hot chocolate took to dissolve. We stopped the stopwatch as soon as we saw the hot chocolate had dissolved, then we started with the ice-cold water. We stirred and stirred and stirred some more. It wouldn’t dissolve. Eventually, we stopped after three minutes and fourteen seconds. We moved on to the room temperature water, which clocked in at three minutes and one second. And then the hot water, which only took 28 seconds. The results: hot water takes the least amount of time. Some students concluded that it dissolved in hot water better because we were making Hot Chocolate after all. Now we know why we need to use hot water. The science behind it: Why does Hot Chocolate powder dissolve faster in hot water? Hot water has more energy than cold water. With more energy, the molecules in the water move faster, breaking down the chocolate powder quicker. Next, we will do the same experiment using milk. I wonder if we’ll have different results. What a yummy way to learn science! 

Christmas preparations. This week we were busy making our Christmas ornaments for our Plato Academy tree at downtown Des Plaines. We also made window decorations for our windows and are still working on our door decorations and props for a special activity. Stay tuned.