Combining Science and Art!

Continuing with our science fun this summer we decided to combine one of our favorite science activities with art! We decided to do our baking soda and vinegar explosions on top of a piece of construction paper to see what would happen. First we placed a piece of paper in a container and covered it with a thin layer of baking soda (you do not need a lot).

 Next we mixed our vinegar with food coloring.

Then we used spoons to drip the vinegar on the baking soda. 

When we were done we pulled the paper out of the container to dry. The paper stayed in one piece. At first it was wet looking and then it dried out. You could see the colors where each reaction occurred. As it dried the colors were not a bright as when it was wet. We did have to shake of some baking soda when it dried but we have some fun art work now displayed! 

Check out my post about our colorful explosions during our rainbows/colors unit.

Frozen Goo!

We made frozen goo! This is a great summer science activity, especially for the days when it's too hot to go outside (or take it outside to play with!). To make the goo, all you need is a container, water, food coloring and cornstarch.





To make the goo, I started with cornstarch in a container and slowly add water until all of the cornstarch has mixed with water. It will still be a liquid but all of the cornstarch should be mixed with water.

Next I poured the goo into small cups and mixed in food coloring. Some we did 1 color, others we added multiple colors. It is a little difficult to mix the food coloring into the goo, which is good for adding many colors since they won't really mix together.

Then we put the cups in the freezer. We left them over night, so I'm not sure exactly how long it took them to freeze. When we were ready to play we removed the frozen goo and put it in containers to play with (I definitely recommend putting it in a container because it gets messy as it starts to melt).

This is what it looks like as it starts to melt. 

Everyone (including me) had so much fun playing with the goo. It was fun to watch it melt, and to move the melted goo around. Plus once it as melted you can still play with it (and probably would be able to refreeze it but we didn't). Once ours had melted the colors really started to mix together, which was great to use to review our colors and what colors we can use to make new colors. 

I'm linking this science activity up with Monday Made It at 4th Grade Frolics! 

Colorful Explosions!

As part of our colors and rainbows unit, we did colorful explosions! I did this last summer, and still had the pictures hanging up in our science center and the kids have been asking when were we going to do it this summer. We used baking soda, vinegar, food coloring, glitter and bowls. I set the bowls in the top of a large rubber maid container to help catch the explosion. 

Next I got our cupcake container, which we usually use for sorting, so that each student could do their own explosion. We put the baking soda in a couple of the containers and then each student was able to pick which color they wanted to mix in with their vinegar. 

 

The cupcake container was great because it helped to contain the mess plus it was the perfect size for small explosions! If you are going to do this with a group of students it was so much easier than when we used bowls last summer, plus less mess to clean up. 

Colorful Mystery Word Art

We have started our science exploration for the summer! To start off with, we are focusing on colors and rainbows. Our first project is mystery words (and pictures) art. I premade a few sheets by writing sight words (using a white crayon) on white construction paper. I explained that I had written color words on the white paper using a white crayons. I asked the class how could we see what was on the paper? The students suggested using our "paint markers" since we knew from previous experience that the color from these markers would not stick to the crayon. Students could only color a part of the paper and had to guess what word/words was on their paper before they could color all of it to see if they were correct.

getting started

Afterwards a few of the students decided they wanted to draw mystery pictures for their friends to color. This was an interesting (and had a few frustrating moments) experience since they quickly realized they could not see what they were drawing.

one of the "mystery" pictures

rainbow

swirl

They did a great job though (once they figured out a few tricks). One student had a friend helping her and kept on having her friend put her finger on the paper so that she would know where she had just drawn. Another friend kept rubbing their fingers across the paper because they realized they could feel where they had drawn with the crayon.

This was a fun project. They enjoyed trying to guess the words on their paper and were laughing at their friends (sometimes crazy) guesses.

I'm Back! (and giveaway!)

I had such a great time in Las Vegas! There were 13 of us total, ranging in ages from 21 to 86. It was great to be able to catch up with my cousins that I usually only see 2-3 times a year.

We stayed at the New York New York. 

Me on the lake cruise

View of the Hoover Dam from the lake cruise

Here is a short summary of some of the things we did: lake cruise to the Hoover Dam, drove to the other side of the Hoover Dam, zip lines, had my fortune told, spent some time at the pool, went to the aquarium, saw the Medieval Times show, checked out many of the different hotels and casinos and won a little bit of money playing the slot machines.


Now it's time to catch up on the blogging world!

Don't forget to enter my giveaway. It ends tonight at midnight! I will announce the winners on Sunday.

Setting Goals

I have so many more things that I want to get done this summer. At least my pre-k kids start leaving this week (my pre-k program is year long, they stay until they actually start kindergarten) for kindergarten (our year round schools begin this week) and I will not have so many kids so that I can start getting ready for this fall (especially for the last week of August and first week of September when my new group starts). Also we are teaching a few new themes this fall that we have never done before, so I'm starting to look for ideas for those.

Plus I am also in school getting my k-5 teaching licence (and the hopefully finishing my masters once my teaching license is complete). I have my birth-pre k certification, but since it's not an actual NC license I have to do student teaching to get my k-5 license. Then I'm good to finish my masters (I needed a k-5 license for my program) and hopefully adding on my reading license as well. I do part of my student teaching this fall (one full day a week). Its going to be weird not being in my pre-k class everyday but I'm excited for getting to spend time in a different classroom. I find out next week what school and grade level that I'm working with. I'm hoping a K-2 class because I have no experience with anything above 2nd grade (besides for one reading class I took where I worked with a 4th grade class).

In addition to trying to finally actually organize all of my teaching items/lessons/games/books/stuff/etc including actual materials and everything that I have saved on my laptop. I bought a new flash drive just to organize all of my stuff on and it's been a slow process.

My "Letter Activities" folder with a subfolder for each letter, activities that include all letters, and vowel activities.

Then I have my TPT goals, blog goals (I want to add 10 new followers a week), work on my facebook page, I want to start a google plus page, the list of things I need to create for the upcoming year, then the ever growing list of ideas from all of the clipart that I have downloaded recently (which I still need to organize as well).

How about you? What's on your to do list that you want to get done before school starts back?

Also, check out the giveaway at Wild About Teaching! I have donated one of my products to the huge giveaway (and you can win a gift card to TPT!).