Yesterday was a great day in Mrs. Almond's and Mrs. Greenfield's classrooms. I arrived at Mrs. Almond's class at 1:30, like always, and Mrs. Almond had me take the students out to recess while she set up her science experiments. During recess I discovered that children gravitate toward slippery ice, especially if you tell them to stay away from it. After I saw two students run across the ice and biff it, I stood right by the ice and told the students to stay away. I think they needed some salt to melt the ice.
When the students went in, Mrs. Almond had transformed into Professor Scatterbrain. She had on a whit lab coat and protection goggles. The students always love it when Pro. Scatterbrain comes to visit the classroom, she does a lot of fun experiments. The class has been learning about air pressure, so Mrs. Almond did a couple of great experiments to help them understand air pressure better. She talked about how the air is pressing down on us all the time, but we can't feel it because we are accustomed to it. Then she pointed out that the higher up you go in elevation, the less the air pressure is. She had 5 boy volunteers come up to the front of the class. Next she had the first volunteer lay down on the floor and the second volunteer doggy pile on top of the first . She said, "How are you feeling number 1?" He said he was feeling a little squished, but that he was ok. Then she had volunteer number 3 doggy pile next. Number one was then feeling a little more squished, number 2 was feeling a little squished, number 3 felt just fine. Number 4 was the next volunteer to pile on. By this point number 1 could only grunt because he was so squished, number 2 wasn't feeling too great either, number 4 was a little squished, and number 4 felt great. Number 5 was the last one to doggy pile on top. Number 1 couldn't make it much longer because he was being so squished. Number 2 was feeling pretty squished too, number 3 wasn't feeling great. Number 4 wasn't too bad. And like always, number 5 felt great because he was on top. The classroom was having a blast, they were laughing so hard at poor number 1 and 2. Mrs. Almond talked more about pressure at different altitudes.
Next Mrs. Almond did some more great experiments with a 2 liter coke bottle. She punched 4 holes down the front of the bottle and then taped them up. Then she filled the bottle with water and put the lid on. She had the students predict what would happen if she took the tape off of the top hole. Most of the class thought that water would come out of the hole, but they were wrong. When she removed the tape, nothing happened. Next, she had them predict what would happen if she took off the tape over the second hole. A lot of the class thought nothing would happen this time since nothing happened the last time. Of course this time water did come out. She then took off the rest of the pieces of tape and the lower the hole was, the farther the stream would shoot because of the air pressure. The students were so excited about this experiment.
Her next experiment was with a can of water. She had a hole on the bottom with tape over it. She put a balloon at the top of the can and then took the tape off the bottom of the can. All the students got to watch as the balloon was being sucked into the can as the water poured out the bottom of the can. She told them that they were seeing air pressure in action. It was a pretty great science class and all the students loved it.
In Mrs. Greenfield's class the students were working on writing a sequel to a story. They had to use their dictionaries to look up how to spell words that they did not know. I walked around answering questions and helping them find words in their dictionary. After writing, they worked on phonics. I love the way that Mrs. Greenfield does phonics. Each student has a white erase board and a white erase board marker and an eraser. She gives them a few minutes to draw and play with their boards, after that they are expected to practice writing their phonics words. They write the word and then mark all the rules that they have learned. They always seem to love phonics.
During phonics they had a fire drill. It was obvious that they have practiced a lot because they got right up and out the door so quickly. When they came back in they didn't have time to finish their phonics lesson so they started getting ready to go.
I helped hand out papers and folders and then the students were ready to go home.
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