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The Brown Bag Teacher

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Candy Cane Experiment

It’s the week before Christmas and all is well in 1st grade. My friends are not too distracted or crazed, and we are loving the chance to sneak in a few extra read-alouds. 😉 Our mornings have been perfectly normal – Daily 5, math workshop, and writing. Then, in the afternoons we’ve been enjoying some holiday-themed activities. Today we pulled our favorite Christmas treat – the candy cane – and practiced making predictions!

Our question was – What we will happen if we place a candy cane in a cup of water or vinegar. To conduct our experiment we needed vinegar, 3 clear plastic cups, candy canes, and paper towels. (Please ignore the baking side and foil tins. These were for another venture!)

We labeled our 3 clear cups, filled them (cool water, vinegar, and warm water) and then, made our predictions. Which liquid will cause our candy cane to dissolve fastest? (At this point in the lesson, I had not introduced the term ‘dissolve’ so our friends talked/wrote about melting candy canes.)
Then, partners took turns placing the candy canes in each cup. We voted to put the ‘hook’ side of the candy cade down, so more of the candy was in the liquid. 
It was SO fun to watch the kids’ faces as the candy canes started to dissolved. Within 2 minutes all three candies were starting to turn the water pink/red. It was definitely magic!
Groups of friends took turns coming up to the table to observe the cups and compare the reactions. 
As the candy canes were dissolving (taking approximately 25ish minutes), I would quickly snag the candy canes and show their progress. It was SO neat to see how the candy canes had transformed in the water – splitting into multiple pieces, bending significantly, etc. 
Within 25 minutes or so, we had our results and we could determine if our predictions were correct/incorrect. The cup with the warm water was the first liquid to completely dissolve the candy cane, while the vinegar was the first liquid to remove all of the red from the candy cane. The cool water removed the color/dissolved, but just more slowly than the other two liquids. 

It was then that one of my friends had a GREAT science question. Are you ready for this???? A asked – “Since the warm water dissolved the candy first and the vinegar took the color first, what would happen if you combined the vinegar and the water?” Woohoo! Don’t you love their thinking?? Therefore, we have our experiment for tomorrow!

As the wrapped-up the hands-on part of the experiment, we went back to our desks to record our observations and then, write about the results. It was so neat to see the kids use their new vocabulary words (dissolve, prediction, result), as well as, how they explained the ‘why’ behind the experiment. Oh to be in 1st grade. 😉 (You can grab the recording log from DropBox here.)

Well friends, I hope you are having a fabulous week and you’re keeping life somewhat normal. So, my question for you – are you able to slip in some holiday-themed learning?  If so, what have been your favorites so far?

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