What an amazing first day! We had a great time getting to know each other and will learn even more about our new friends in the upcoming months. Today focused on learning about our school rules and classroom manners. We also toured the school for our new friends from other schools.
We started our year with a great science experiment which also focused on the importance we play in our community. We started with a ZipLock bag of water. We explained that the water in the bag is our community. Then each student pushed a sharp pencil into the bag and all the way through. They thought it was magic because the water did not leak. We explained to the students that each pencil was a person in the community. Our community is better and stronger because we are all a part of it. Then we asked what would happen if one person decided not to follow the rules of our community? What would happen if just one person decided to do whatever they wanted? At this point we pulled out one pencil which represented one person. The water started to leak out of the bag.
Students made the amazing connection that our community would "leak" or fall apart if we did not all work together. One student even said "I don't want to be the hole in my community bag!" After a bit of a chuckle the kids realized that this was exactly our point. Be an amazing part of our community and our world!
(A few teachers asked where I got this idea. The experiment itself is all about molecules and can be performed many ways. I decided to add the community part because it was the beginning of the school year. It just kind of worked. :-) )
