myGanBlog: Where's the oil?

A look at this week:

Where is the oil? Ask the children at The Gan! This week we talked about oil and even went on an oil hunt to find a very small bottle of oil. We started out the week by talking a little about why oil is so important. Then we started learning about oil. We went on an oil walk (where we walked on the letters that spell out OIL), we wrote out a recipe for latkes and even played latke letter memory. For math we had a bean bag toss and depending on which number the beanbag landed in we had to add that many latkes to the frying pan. We used forks to paint on latkes in art this week as well as we made oil/water bottles as a science experiment. We saw that the oil and water separated. Then we added food coloring and watched how it all mixed together and then the oil slowly separated and eventually lost the color that was added by the food coloring. And to make sure we got into the Chanukah mood while talking about oil, we made latkes and watched them fry in the oil before we got the chance to eat them for snack!

Conversations from the week:

We took water bottles and filled them about half way with water. Each child had their own. Then we took out the oil and talked about what would happen when we add oil to the water.

Morah Amanda: When I put the oil in the water, what do you think is going to happen?

Mussie: It will turn yellow.

Morah Amanda: Mussie thinks it will turn yellow. Does anyone else have an idea?

Avery: I do!

Morah Amanda: What do you think will happen Avery?

Avery: It will turn orange.

Morah Amanda: You think it will turn orange?

Avery: Yeah.

Morah Amanda: Any other ideas?

Lizzy: Um…red.

Morah Amanda: You think it is going to turn red Lizzy. Any other ideas?

Miriam: Me!

Morah Amanda: Yes?

Miriam: Pink!

Morah Amanda: Miriam thinks it is going to turn pink. Any other ideas?

Jayden: Red.

Morah Amanda: You think it will turn red, Jayden.

Josh: I think it is going to turn in your tummy.

Morah Amanda: It’s going to turn in your tummy? Are we going to drink this?

Class: No.

Morah Amanda: No. Once we are all finished we are going to make sure to keep the lids on all the time! We don’t drink oil. We cook with oil but we don’t drink it. Something special happens when you mix oil and water. Are you ready to see what happens?

Class: Yeah.

Pour oil into the first water bottle.

Mussie: It turns white a little.

Morah Amanda: What happened? What’s this and what is this? What’s at the top?

Mussie: Yellow.

Morah Amanda: Yellow, and what’s at the bottom?

Mussie: White

Morah Amanda: Just like this (taking a bottle of just water). What’s the difference between the two bottles?

Mussie: This just has white and this has yellow and white.

Morah Amanda: This one is just white because it has water and this one has yellow and white cause it has oil and water. And what happened to the oil? Where is the oil? Watch. (Shakes bottle) Is it all mixed up?

Class: Yeah.

Morah Amanda: Now just watch the bottle. Do you see what is happening at the bottle? Do you see that it is turning more white at the bottom? The oil is going to the top. Oil and water don’t mix; they separate. So, if I shake Avery’s bottle it is all the same color cause it is just water. But if I shake Lizzy’s bottle do you see where at the top it is turning yellow again?

Lizzy: There’s oil in there.

Many of the children start shaking their bottles.

Mussie: There’s no yellow in mine.

Morah Amanda: When you shake it they start to mix and then they separate back out.

Noah: Oil!

Mussie: Look. Mine is coming back. My yellow is coming back.

A look at next week:
Next week we will really “spin” into Chanukah as we talk about dreidels. We will be using dreidels in many of our activities, which include making our own dreidels, graphing the spins of dreidels, sorting dreidels and making a dreidel class book.

Oil find