Our Cosmic Journey...

We ended the first week of school with the presentation of the First Great Lesson by our third years.  This has become a tradition in our class which the first and second years eagerly look forward to each year.  Last year, we had the fun idea of presenting the charts on our projector so they could be seen more easily.

The First Great Lesson is our springboard into lessons on space, stars, gravity, the Earth, rocks and minerals, volcanoes, mountains, the water cycle and more.  This year we also did some nebula art...

When do you present the First Great Lesson?  What special/different traditions have you added?

A Really Gross Lesson

At the beginning of the year, we talk a lot about class procedures.  One of the most important procedures is handwashing!  We have a snack table, and the students are able to get snack as they are hungry, once we have established the snack procedures (get the snack necklace, put on the snack shoes, wash hands, take the amounts indicated, eat at the snack table in about 5 minutes so that classmates can also enjoy snack).  Somehow, the one step that is usually "forgotten" is the handwashing.  We talk a lot about the importance of cleanliness and how germs spread, but there is nothing like a visual reminder!

So, we did an experiment to see how many germs are on our hands even when they look clean.  We all wiped our hands on one half of the apple and didn't touch the other apple.  We left the two halves in a clear plastic container with a lid near the snack area for observation.  After about two weeks, the half that we all touched was covered in nastiness, and the half that we left alone was relatively germ-free.  We discussed our findings and realized that it IS really important to wash our hands with soap even though they might look clean!