Egg Day!

After our egg measuring activities with our buddies last Friday, children were allowed to decorate their eggs. A few eggs survived until the end of the day, but not many. Here is a nicely colored one:
This child used tape to secure his 'Yoshi' egg to a piece of paper for safekeeping.
A lot of children peeled and ate their eggs (especially if they had dropped it on the table and it had already cracked)
Okay, not onto today's egg-tivities:

A few days ago someone asked how the chicken sat on its eggs - wouldn't they break? So we talked about how God made eggs really strong. Today we found out just how strong they really are...

I love this science experiment! First we predicted how many books the egg could hold up (1 was the most common guess, 0 the lowest, 10 the highest). They were so excited as we added each book and it still held - sometimes it is exciting to be wrong :)
The result was 17 (hardcover) books, and then SMASH! Some children were making plans to try this at home. Don't worry - I cautioned them that they needed an adult's permission and assistance.
Of course we then had to go record our observations with words and diagrams.

The egg is strong. (Note the simple yet accurate diagram of the experiment)
It got crushed.
(See the yolk running out of the egg and the children on the carpet in the background?)

The egg holded 17 books and it cracked.

I gave very little direction for writing the observations, other than "write what you learned" but the independent level has grown so much that almost everyone managed to write something about the experiment. I remember at the beginning of the year when we all wrote a (3 word) sentence together, letter by letter.

We also had some fun egg centers today. This one included matching numerals to dots and then putting them in order. This group blasted through the center and finished it all quickly by working together.
This is 'egg-dition': open an egg, count the erasers, open another egg, count the erasers, add how many altogether. Formal instruction on addition will begin in April, but we are practicing the concept already.
Here we are working on the concept of printmaking - making 'egg' shapes on a paper. Tomorrow they will color them.
Not pictured: egg name game (because I only took one picture of it and it looked terrible), and egg sharing (because I took anecdotal notes instead of pictures)