1st Grade Science Fair Winner!

Ankle Issues

I have really been busy for the last few weeks.  I found out that I need yet another ankle surgery (#4) which will require me to be out of school for an extended amount of time.  Planning lessons, assessments and homework for several weeks was an exhausting task.  I finished up on yesterday and I am ready for the surgeon on Tuesday with my class fully prepared.  Thank goodness I found a wonderful substitute while I am recuperating.

Our School Science Fair

Enough about that and on to good news.  Our school held its annual Science Fair.  First Grade classes were to do a class project.   This experience will prepare them for next year when they must create their own experiment and science board.  

Drumroll please.... the winner for the best First Grade Science Project was........ MY CLASS!! Yay for the Foster Froggies!  Let me share our experiment.  I had always heard that adding pickle juice to Gardenia plants will produce more flowers.  Every so often I give diluted pickle juice to my Gardenia bush and the flowers bloom in May.  I was not really sure that it helped, but it made me feel good and I love the smell of Gardenias.  So I decided to have my students test this concept out on Begonia plants.  We took 3 Begonia plants and gave them only water while the other 3 plants received water with 2 droppers full of pickle juice.  Every several days we recorded the number of flowers on the plant.  Low and behold the Begonia plants with pickle juice did produce more flowers than the plants that were only given water.  Apparently the vinegar in the pickle juice makes the soil more acidic which indeed is what these flowering plants need. Next stop is the county competition.

Abraham Lincoln Fun

Just thought that I would share a little art project that we did for our unit on Abe Lincoln.  I collected paper towel rolls and spray painted them black.  I found a head shot of Mr. Lincoln in Google images and copied one for each child.  I gave them a piece of black construction paper and they had to design the hat, arms, legs and shoes.  Then they made tiny hands out of white paper. Mr. Lincoln is looking fine!

Until next time remember...

• You are a blessing!

• You are amazing!

• You are important!