Wednesday, September 26, 2012

The One That Failed

I don't know about you, but I think posts with pictures are so much better than posts without.  That is my excuse for not posting in awhile.  I get so busy during the day that I simply forget to take pictures.  Does that happen to anyone else?

A lack of pictures keeps me from posting what is happening in my classroom.  Toady I decided to just post anyway.

I did a lab Monday that did not quite go as planned.  Please tell me that has happened to you.  The frustrating part is that it is a lab that I've done for several years and have done successfully for several years.

The question we were testing was "Which brand of dishwasher soap makes the biggest bubbles?" as we practiced collecting data to make bar graphs.

You can find this lab here. I think I've done this lab every year for the past six years.  It has worked beautifully every year.  Students love blowing huge bubbles.  They forget they are learning.

This year it was an absolute flop.  We couldn't get any decent bubbles going.  It was awful.  The students still had fun "playing" and we talked about what should have been.  We were still able to answer some of the questions and talk about the bar graph.  It just wasn't quite as fun.

I was so frustrated.  I have no idea what went wrong this year.

2 comments:

  1. Sorry to hear that your lab didn't work out. I have labs that flop all the time. Uggg... Sometimes, you just need to take a deep breath and remind yourself that the next one will be better.

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  2. Ah that is what stinks about teaching science. But it provides great learning experiences for the kids to see what happens when things dont go according to plan... happens to me all the time :) Good luck! And I understand your picture dilemma...Im glad I am not the only one who feels the same way :) Hope you have a great week!!!

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