When the date of our field trip was changed due to a rainy forecast, we decided to create our own fun kind of learning. The story in our reading book was called Meet Rosina and was about a deaf girl and the way she went through her day. We compared her school day to our school day and decided that we have many similarities. One thing that was different about Rosina's school is that they use sign language to communicate and Braille to read. We invited Mrs. Strode's third graders to our room to teach us a few things about sign language. The students learned to sign their own name along with the names of some family members and pets. It was a good time and we thank the third graders for sharing their good knowledge with us.
We spent the rest of the day conducting Science experiments and focusing on the Prediction portion of the scientific process. Students made thoughful and smart predictions about what might happen in several different experiments. May students called on things learned earlier in the year to make their predictions. That made their teacher very happy! They are using what they already know to help them learn something new. It was a happy day in first grade even though we did not get to go on our field trip.
In this experiment, the scientists were really thinking about what was in the milk that made it "try to get away from" the dishsoap that we dropped in to it. We cameup withthe theory that there must be some kind of grease or fat in the milk because thatis what Dawn soap fights! There was good discussion about how that is what is used in oil spills and how maybe the o il is similar to something in the milk. Those little brains were smoking with that discussion. They pulled in so much knowledge from their backgrounds. I was very impressed!