1st grade science

Today I taught a science lesson to my first grade class. It went really well, except for a minor problem. It was actually kind of funny. :o) It is good that I can laugh about my mistakes. It was a lesson about temperature so I wanted the kids to be able to see the mercury in a thermometer go up and down. So I had a cup of tap water, some ice, and a thermos full of hot water. It was all going great until I got to the hot water. The kids were all in a circle and were struggling to stay in the circle. I put the thermometer in the thermos and watched the red mercury (I don't think it was actually mercury though) go up and then I heard a Pop (!). Yes the thermometer broke in front of the whole class, my master teacher AND my advisor who was observing the lesson. It was actually rather funny. I had a good laugh over it and the kids thought it was really cool. Note to self: don't use super hot water for an experiment in class.

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Another funny thing happened in the lesson. We were talking about thermometers and I was reviewing what we know about thermometers. I was trying to see if they could remember what was in the thermometer (mercury) but they were all having a hard time remembering. I was about to just tell them, when I noticed this one little boy who was ernestly raising his hand. So I asked him if he thought he knew and he said yes. And the answer he gave was "Venus." I wanted to laugh SO badly! It was so cute. I just told him that he was very close then I told the class the word was mercury.

What a fun day. :o)