Pop Rocks Experiment...Continued

Last week, we did an experiment with Pop Rocks. The experiment left us with lots of questions, including: "What is inside a Pop Rock?"

To figure out if there was "air" in the Pop Rocks, we added them to a balloon, sealed the balloon onto a bottle of water and then poured the Pop Rocks from the balloon into the water.

We made predictions about what would happen if we added Pop Rocks to water (pink post-its).

Next, we observed. We heard the Pop Rocks crackling loudly, saw the water turn read, and saw the Pop Rocks rise and fall. It didn't look like the balloon filled with any gas. To be sure, we all squeezed the green balloon. 

There was a small bit of gas!

We discussed that the gas in a balloon is carbon dioxide. We talked about what we knew about soda and combined that with what we knew about Pop Rocks. We made predictions about what would happen if we did the same experiment....with soda.

We discussed our predictions and reasoning. Then we did our experiment! Look at the faces of our scientists...

We compared the two balloons. We asked why there was more gas in the soda bottle's balloon. We realized it was because the carbon dioxide in the soda + the carbon dioxide in the Pop Rocks = more gas to fill up the balloon.

We had a lot more questions after this experiment about gases. So during Daily 5 - Reading, we used two nonfiction texts to learn more about gases. We learned that gases fill up spaces and you can't always see them.

To show this, we talked about the bottle of soda and discussed if it was empty or not. Many children said it was empty. We put the balloon in the bottle, sealing it to the top of the bottle. I tried to blow up the balloon and I couldn't do it! ASK your child why I couldn't blow up the balloon!

Next, we talked about how gas fills spaces and why we can blow up balloons in a room. Children decided it's because gases can escape from our room, making more room for the balloon to be blown up. The kids suggested I cut a hole in the bottle for the gases to escape. ASK your child what happened!!

For the rest of the week, we explored liquids and solids. Next week? How to change between the states!

All School Share

All first and second grade classes collected trash for 10 days.

What does it look like? What does it smell like?

ASK your child about this experience! 

Cursive Update

Today we learned the cursive letters: i and j

Recycle, Trash, Compost

We're all lovin' our community mural right now. That means it's a perfect time to talk about the data we've been collecting....


For the past 2 weeks, we've been recording each trip to the trash can, recycling bin, and compost bucket. I've kept the reasoning a mystery from the children, but today was the perfect day to talk about the purpose of our data collection.

Students noticed that we threw things in the trash the most, then the recycling, then the composting. They thought it was funny that it was a reverse staircase. "We should be composting the most, then recycling, then throwing stuff in the trash."

How could we make this data come alive?
Well, the 1-2 South House has been saving trash since last week so in the middle of our conversation, I went in the hall and brought in all of the bags of trash.

....they REEKED! There was an immediate reaction from kids about the things in the trash that shouldn't be (and of course the stench).

We talked about how we heard the blasts in the mountain at Grow Compost (from the landfill). We discussed the implications of throwing a lot of stuff in the trash versus sorting it properly. "What will happen to the mountain if we run out of space?" "What will happen to the trash if we run out of space?"


How could we make the idea of landfill locations come to life? 
It all goes back to our pride and joy - our community mural. We all went into the hall and looked at our beautiful town. I had our landfill in hand (a bag of trash) and we discussed where it could go. We went back and forth and couldn't figure out a place to put it so everyone was safe and the town stayed beautiful.

The solution? 
Our class decided to make the landfill smaller by building a recycling center and a compost center. They wanted these centers so some "waste" could be sorted and reused - making less trash.

We went back into the class (relieved that we weren't going to staple a big bag of trash on the mural) and discussed possible solutions to reduce trash.

Interested in more information about this investigation? 
Come to All School Share this Friday - all first and second graders will be presenting some incredible data they've collected and .... well, you'll have to wait for the All School Share to see/hear what else!

Community Mural? Check.

Did you hear the news?! We finished our mural last week! The children worked hard and are so proud of their work and community building (both in our classroom and our literal building of a community). Please view this with your child and ASK him/her about the process and product!

• Click "pause" to go through the slideshow at your own pace (using the arrows) or "play" to let the pages turn automatically
• Click any picture to enlarge or shrink
• Click videos to enlarge/shrink and play

Grenier's Pumpkin Patch

Which pumpkin do I like?

Can I lift it easily? Could I carry it?

No problem!

Snack time!

Thanks for the delicious apples, Grenier's!

Here's some of our class with our pumpkins!

What is Science?

At first...children came to the consensus that science was space, potions, and explosions. Then, a few quiet voices started saying things like, "animals?" "weather?"

We learned that science is the study of...well, anything! We talked about how baking is science and how math is a science (the study of numbers). We discussed how science involves predicting, observing, and asking more questions. We came to the conclusion this week that we were scientists because we often study things and predict, observe, and ask questions.

On Friday, we did an experiment to focus on observations. We learned about the five senses and investigated a cup of mysterious "rocks."

First, we smelled, looked, and felt the "rocks" and recorded our observations on chart paper. Then we went back to our desks and tasted, smelled, listened, and felt them!

We wrote down what we felt, tasted, smelled, and heard and put them on the chart paper...

We got so excited about our observations that we used them to help us learn about similes in Writer's Workshop. We practiced talking about comparing two things with "like" or "as."

We know that science means to PREDICT, OBSERVE, and ASK MORE QUESTIONS. So after our experiment focused around observations, the scientists were buzzing with  more questions. Some of them knew about Pop Rocks (the mystery material), but we all still had a lot of ideas and questions.

The 2nd Grade Scientists asked:

 "How do they pop?"

Some of them thought water made them pop. I tossed some on the ground (sorry custodians) and stepped on them. The Pop Rocks exploded and crackled.

They were all shocked! They thought and thought.

"Maybe it's a pocket of air and the water melts it down to the air bubble so it'll pop. When you step on it, you make the bubble pop too."

"How do you know?"

"Balloons are filled with air and then they pop when you squeeze them."

"How do you know they're filled with air?"

Again, they thought and thought. 

"Maybe because soda is filled with air and it fizzes, it's like that."

This conversation continued going around and around and we still weren't done talking about it by the end of the day!

To close - we realized that science is never-ending. It's a cycle that keeps going with the production of more questions, testing, observations, and predictions. Next week, we're going to take the next step and figure out how Pop Rocks pop and if they are filled with air. Some scientists were developing plans during indoor recess and Quiet Time to experiment and figure out the answers to these questions.

Powerful Punctuation Post

We have spent the past two weeks thinking about punctuation in reading and in writing!

 First, we were punctuation detectives. We looked for it in our books and practiced reading with punctuation in mind! We looked at periods, commas, question marks, ellipses, and exclamation points. We wrote what we found on post-it notes and shared them with partners.

Our Morning Message was written with NO PUNCTUATION! It was so hard to read, we ran out of breath! We decided to add in new punctuation marks and remembered to put in capital letters for the start of the sentences. We read the message after we made our corrections and it sounded so much better.

After a week of practice, we decided to try our hand at adding punctuation marks. This is what some of the authors in our class came up with...