Oil and water dont mix

Tuesday 12th June 2012 On this cold and wet day we still had lots of fun in the classroom. When we arrived we noticed the big tank of blue water was on the floor with lots of sea creatures around it ready for us to play with. We then noticed there was some dried seaweed just like in the real ocean but this was in a packet which we could add to the water and watch it grow and grow. It grew very fast and the fish and other sea creatures loved swimming amongst it.

Koyo was very interested in the large letters Rachel was making with some Styrofoam and we soon realized that if he put it on his head he looked like an elephant.Shoko and Lily decided they were going to have a horse race on the rocking horses but we couldn’t decide who won!! Tokutaro, Nico and Miya all decided the water looked fun and soon had the sharks eating the fish. We then added more animals that like the water such as elephants which we had spray each other to keep cool.After snack time we headed for the park. We wanted to put on our park smocks all by ourselves and Darren showed us how to put the smock on the carpet the right way before putting it over our heads.

If we needed help we asked our friends nicely and they helped us with the arms. We wanted to spend some time there before the rain started and we were very lucky as it only started raining after we got back to school. Tokutaro, Koyo and Lily all wanted to play soccer together, while Nico and Gento used the slide to roll balls and toy cars down. Miya and Shoko spent a long time on the swings together which they enjoyed before moving to the sand box to make ‘cakes’. After returning to the classroom we did some stretching and saw who could stand on one leg, jump, stand up and sit down the fastest and jump up to touch the balloon. We then listened to a book called ‘Over in the Ocean, In a Coral Reef’ which had some beautiful pictures of sea creatures in it and we helped Darren count the Seahorses, Manta Rays, Octopus, Clown Fish, dolphins etc. We then looked on the pages for the numbers and were able to spot them easily. Darren then reminded us about yesterday’s ‘experiment’ with sink and float and we soon moved to the table to make our own little aquarium with sand, glitter, hairy pom-poms (which looked like sea urchins), stars (which looked like starfish) and lots of other sparkly shapes.

We put all these items in a clear pet bottle and added some of the water from the large tank. Darren then brought out something in a pack which was a little yellow and learned it was oil. He then asked us “Do you think the oil will float or sink”? We thought it would sink as the oil in the pack was quite heavy.When we poured the oil into the bottle with the water it stayed on the top but when we shook the bottle it jiggled around like bubbles and soon came back toi the top of the bottle.We were able to draw some extra fish on the outside of the bottle too with markers and will take them home soon.We then went into the library where Kana read ‘Smiley Shark’ to us and we were able to shake our mini aquariums and see the story at the same time. Love always Darren, Kana and Rachel