Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Color Bottles & taxes

I taught a class at our co-op today. When I signed up I was very nervous. Last night, around midnight, I finished up doing our taxes and remembered that I needed to go buy supplies. It's a good thing that one of the nearby grocery stores stays open 24 hrs! Our nearest FedEx/Kinko's copy place isn't even 24 hrs anymore. :-(

Anyway, I got the supplies, DH finished reviewing taxes, and we e-filed at 2:00 am. Yeah! I didn't have to file an extension for the first time in 4 years.

Class went fairly well. I had 6 signed up, plus one tag along sibling. That was okay because his mom stayed and assisted, which I really appreciated. Another class was in the same room, but we did that intentionally, so the other teacher's kids would do better in my class. The craft/experiment I had was clear plastic bottles, half full of water, adding food coloring, then adding oil. Shake well & watch the bubbles mix then separate again. (Tape the bottle cap on with duct tape to prevent spills/leaks.)

It was basic color mixing and solubility together. Earlier there was a class on solubility for older kids, and a class on color mixing (with frosting & vanilla wafers) for any age. My class took the whole 30 minutes, which was longer than I expected, but that was because we did one step at a time one bottle at a time all around the table, instead all 3 bottles at once. The first 2 were just water, color, and oil (which was yellowish). On the third one the kids had the option of using Italian salad dressing instead of plain oil (much yellower with sediment), adding hand sanitizer, or adding alcohol.

Between my previous three bottles, the three DS1 made in class, and the one extra that I made at home afterwards, we have a full rainbow of oil/water color bottles to play with at home!

I had fun, and I think the kids did, too. They were very cooperative. I only made a big mess once (poured Italian dressing too fast). Next time I do something potentially messy I'll remember to bring paper towels to class. Yes, things went well enough that I am thinking of facilitating something again next semester. :-)

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