Colour Days and Observations

We have been so excited to participate in the variety of colour days over the past two weeks! Each day we try to find matching clothing items for the colour of the day. Lots of staff and students in the school notice and ask us why we are all wearing the same colour! We simply say, "Because it's (purple) day!" We also read a book that goes along with our colour of the day and go on a scavenger hunt in our classroom! We try to find one thing that is the correct colour. We noticed some colours are trickier to find than others! We have also noticed a variety of different shades and are learning to identify light and dark colours.

Last week, we also did two experiments! We were quite excited to see what would happen. On Tuesday, we noticed three cups sitting on Ms. Petersen's desk. She asked us what we noticed about the set-up.

Some things we observed before the experiment:

• There are three cups
• One is filled with red water, one is filled with blue water, one is empty

Then Ms. Petersen rolled up two paper towels like snakes. She put one in the red water and arched it so it would go into the empty middle cup. Then she did the same with the blue water. We noticed it kind of looked like the letter M!
 
Each child had to draw what they saw and make a prediction. We talked about how it is okay if our guesses are wrong because they are just that - guesses! We were so excited to see what was going to happen. We kept checking the cups during the day. When we returned to school the next day, we were shocked to see purple water in the middle cup! We also noticed that the paper towels had changed colours. The paper towel coming out of the red water was now red, and the paper towel coming out of the blue water was now blue. We noticed the water "crawled" up the paper towels and went into the middle cup and mixed together to make purple. Blue and red makes purple!

We were so excited when Ms. Petersen set out another experiment for us to watch on Thursday. This time we observed different things:

• There were 2 cups instead of 3
• The cups were empty
• The cups were sitting in a pan with handles

We gathered in front of the desk and watched Ms. Petersen pour vinegar into both cups. We also observed that the smell was not so pleasant for some of us. Some of us have tried vinegar on our french fries before. She added food colouring, like the previous experiment, but this time we used red and yellow. Ms. Petersen showed us a spoonful of baking soda. It looked white like sugar or salt. She told us she was going to put some baking soda into each one of the cups after we made our predictions.

When we made our predictions this time, lots of us used our knowledge from the previous experiment. Some of us thought the cups would change colours - to blue and purple. Some of us thought the white baking soda would change to red and yellow. Some of us thought it would make orange, but we weren't sure where. Some of us thought it would explode! We really thought hard about our guesses!

Then we gathered around the cups again. When Ms. Petersen added the baking soda to the cup with red vinegar, it started fizzing and bubbling until it spilled out of the cup! The same thing happened when she added the baking soda to the yellow vinegar. It exploded! Then she took a spoon and stirred the liquid that was now in the pan. We noticed right away that it turned orange! Red and yellow make orange!

We can't wait to see what other fun colour activities we will do! We also want to thank our families for helping us remember what colour to wear!