Thursday, May 12, 2016

Flower Inquiry Continued

I belong to a Professional Learning Community at my school
and our focus is on Project-based/Inquiry-based learning.
This past week as we were sharing our projects when a comment was made,
by one of the other teachers, that sparked an idea on how we could
extend our question about flowers, art, science and physical activity
Our question:  Can we make paint from these flowers?
I provided several materials to add to the flowers to help make paint.
Corn syrup, laundry soap, water, baby oil was the beginning then we
added vinegar and shaving cream.
Most started with cutting the petals into smaller pieces.
Then they added different liquids.
The children tested their findings on cardstock.
We wondered if they were able to mash the petals more
would that have a different effect.
So I brought out our mortar and pestle.
She transferred her ingredients into the mortar,
then used the pestle to crush it up further.
The results were instant.
We saw colour and were able to paint with it.
It was interesting to compare who did this activity versus
the hammering.
Did you notice that it was mainly girls?