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I am I

Today we read “I am I” by Marie Louise-Fitzpatrick.  It is about two boys who discover the power of words.  When they start fighting, their words turn into a dragon which destroys the land around them.  Once they apologize, the two boys discover how kind words help heal, as flowers begin to grow again.  The book is mostly pictures with very few words, so we used our reading power of inferencing.  We used the pictures to make inferences about what the two boys were feeling why the land was being destroyed.  We decided the author’s message was that we should get along and not fight – a good message for Remembrance Day!

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Mad Science Workshop

On Friday we had Mary come from Mad Science with her cooler full of dry ice.  We had already learned about solids, liquids, and gases, and had talked about how when solids changed to liquids we call it melting, and when a liquid changes to a gas it evaporates.  Mary taught us a new word: sublimate.  That describes what happens when matter changes straight from a solid to a gas.  We had lots of fun watching her experiments, including blowing up a balloon with carbon dioxide, and hearing a warm spoon screech when it was held against the block of dry ice.  The highlight was the dry ice shower!  Each person got to catch a bubble filled with carbon dioxide, so much fun!

Here's mary with the block of dry ice. It's -79º C
Dry ice sublimating to carbon dioxide in warm water
Looks like a witch's cauldron! Dry ice is how they used to make fog for movies.