Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Florida Fall Leaves

One of my schools traditions is the annual Thanksgiving Feast. The entire school sits down at once to eat a turkey dinner. As in everyone. They close the office and all.

The idea is wonderful. In practice, it sometimes leaves a bit to be desired. Thankfully due to some…errr…issues with our cafeteria staff this year’s feast was catered by Boston Market. Yum!

I had my Synonym Turkeys hanging in the hallway, but I wanted to make name cards with my class. We have just finished states of matter, so I channeled my inner Girl Scout and came up with these:

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We started with a solid (crayon shavings), sandwiched it between layers of wax paper, and added heat until it melted and became a liquid.

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There *might* have been a bit of a boogie involved as we acted out how the particles were moving once heat was added.

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I’d planned to make one big one and then cut out smaller ones. It didn’t work that way. I also played with the thickness of the cloth on top and the setting of the iron. I ended up using an old men’s shirt and a medium heat to get the desired effect.

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In the end I gave each student a piece of wax paper. They sprinkled a little crayon shavings onto their paper and put a matching square of wax paper on top. They watched as I ironed each side quickly. Once they were done “ooh-ing” and “ahh-ing” I let them use a Sharpie to draw the outline of the leaf and write their name.

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I am thrilled with how they came out. This is as close as we come to fall leaves here in our part of Florida!  Better yet I have enough left overs to take it home to repeat the project with my favorite three-year-old.

1 comment:

  1. Such a cute blog! I am nominating you for the Liebster award! This is an award for bloggers with less than 200 followers! It helps bloggers find new blogs! Check out my blog for more information!
    Jessica
    Wild About Firsties
    http://www.wildaboutfirsties.blogspot.com

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