It Was a Strawberry Applesauce and Liquid Starch Kind of Day...

I could hardly contain myself!  Only 30 minutes until I could introduce today's way cool science project to my 24 kindergarten kiddos!  I ran through my materials and instructions as a mental checklist throughout the day.  Yes.  This was going to be great!

It was finally time.  3:00.  I gathered my students to the bright red carpet in the middle of our classroom.  One friend promptly told me, "Um, there's some strawberry applesauce on the floor where I'm supposed to sit."  I calmly told him to not sit there and find somewhere else.  Now, onto my amazing project that I knew they would just love!

I flipped through a book I had gotten from our school library on different types of leaves.  Kids "ooed" and "ahhed" over the actual photos of leaves.  I dramatically pulled out the laminated leaf outlines they would be using and colorful tissue paper they would stick to the outline.  I poured the liquid starch into a bowl and modeled how to dip the paper into the bowl and lay it delicately onto the outline.  The kids nearly jumped out of their skin, excited to try it themselves.  The problem?  I think I was a little too excited too.... because as I would soon learn, I hadn't given nearly enough directions.

As kids began working, I tiptoed over to my desk to get a camera.  I wanted to snap photos of the kids working to put onto my parent website.  By the time I got my camera and turned around to capture the beautiful learning moment that was happening in my classroom, I quickly realized there were many small "fires" to put out.  One student had slopped about 40 pieces of tissue onto their outline, another had literally poured the liquid starch onto their bits of tissue paper, and another began screaming, "My hands are green!!!"

I set (or rather, threw) the camera back on my desk and promptly put the fires out one at a time.  As I assisted students with clean up, I saw that half of their leaf outlines were not only smothered in liquid starch and 5 times too many pieces of tissue paper, but were also sitting in puddles of strawberry applesauce.

They packed up for the day, went out the door, and left me to scrub tables full of sticky goop.  Oh well.  That's what I get for being overexcited about a new project.  Next year, we'll stick with leaf rubbings.  I guess it was just a strawberry applesauce and liquid starch kind of day!  That's what happens in kindergarten :)