Science in Blue Room

Last week, Teacher Thaovy's water bottle got left in the freezer too long and froze solid. Oops! The accident became the start of a great conversation, though. Blue Room kids were intrigued by the frozen water bottle and they all wondered how Teacher Thaovy got the ice into the bottle (since it was clearly too big to go through the opening) and how she got the ice to be bottle-shaped.

With the hot weather, it was good timing that this started our experiments with ice. We froze more water bottles and watched them melt. The kids observed how the water first appeared around the edges of the bottle and the ice in the center was the last to melt. This is because the warm air touches the outside of the ice first, and it has to melt away before the inside of the ice can warm up.

Later on, our teachers used sharp knives to cut the bottles open and free the whole bottle-shaped chunk of ice for the children to explore. We experimented with adding watercolors to the ice, which made the shape and details more apparent.

Please feel free to bring ice in different shapes for us at school to explore. Parents can help by freezing water in tumblers, bowls and other unique shapes. This is an experiment our children would love to keep exploring!













We also experimented with eggs floating and sinking in plain water vs. salted water.




We asked Blue Room kids, "What do you think will happen when we put an egg in water?"
Everyone felt that the egg would sink to the bottom.

First, we all got to taste the plain water.
Cody: "It tastes yummy."
Gabriel: "It is liquidy."
Nico: "It is sweet."

We also tasted salted water and the responses to that were:
"Very salty," "Yuck," and "I like it."

We also wondered, "What will happen when we add salt to water?"
Gabby: "It will disappear."
Murtaza: "That one is whiter and that one is clear."



















Then we put an egg in each type of water and watched the effect.










The egg sank in tap water but floated in salt water, so we asked our kids, "Why do you think the egg floats in salt water but not in regular water?"

Gabriel: "Maybe there is a chick inside like Quack-quack."

No one was sure, so we talked about salt water having a higher "density," meaning there's more stuff in the same amount of space, which helps it hold things up. Most of our children have gone swimming in fresh water pools and a few have gone swimming in the ocean. Swimming in the ocean is easier (aside from the chill and currents of the Pacific) because the salty water makes it easier to float. The same is true of these eggs -- the salty water is more dense, so it makes things float more easily. Science in action!

Chefs make apple pies...

In our discussion of "community helpers" recently, we started with the traditional roles highlighted in this topic, such as firefighters and police officers and doctors. This quickly expanded, though, as our preschool children and teachers began discussing the importance of almost every job in our community! Librarians, therapists, professors, and others have come to talk with us about their jobs.

We don't have any professional chefs/bakers among our parents (that we know of!), so we decided to experience this job first hand through a cooking activity. The teachers brought in ingredients for apple turnovers -- a first for us! The children wanted to create their own chefs' hats so they could more fully experience the role. Using paper and border materials found in our art cabinet, we had great fun making brightly-colored chefs' hats for ourselves.

Then we all watched in awe when apples were being peeled by the electric peeler. This peeler gets the whole apple skin off in one long piece, so Teacher Thaovy laid the three apples' skin strings on the floor beside each other and led a rich discussion about the differences. This was a chance to practice pre-math skills and vocabulary in comparing sizes (this one is longer, this one is shorter, this one is in between) and measuring the length. This led into a discussion of why the skins were different. We learned that large apples have more peel because they have more surface area, and small apples have less peel, just like adult clothing is bigger and takes more fabric than children's clothing because adult bodies are bigger. The children resonated with this analogy and began discussing how their bodies were different sizes and their clothes were sized differently to match.

After analyzing our apple skins, it was time to make turnovers...

First, after washing our hands, we sliced our apples very carefully, practicing safe kitchen skills with plastic knives and cutting boards.















Then we put our apple slices on our turnover dough, followed by sugar and cinnamon.






We saw them go into the oven and compared their color, texture, and temperature when they came out. We all enjoyed the smell while they were baking, and of course the taste when we were done. Delicious!

Thanks,
Teacher Richa

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