March 17, 2010 - Observation 1

Today was my first day of observations in the schools and luckily it was also St. Patrick's Day! The class was doing holiday themed activities so it was a lot of fun observing how the teacher creatively designed assignments that were St. Patrick's Day themed and educational! The class I observed incorporated science, math, and St. Patrick's Day in an activity called "Leprechaun Stew." The students had to follow a recipe to create the "stew," but in order for their to be enough stew for everyone, they had to figure out how to double the recipe. Because some of the measurements were in fraction form, they had to multiply to find the correct portion of the ingredient. One of the ingredients used was pistachio pudding mix; this ingredient turned the stew green. The teacher called the mix "Leprechaun Dust" and the students were thrilled to see that when they mixed it in the stew turned green. This is related science because the children had to think about why the "dust" turned the mix green. It was not because of magic, but because of science!