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Gooey & Messy Inquiry in the Summer


The first week of our 2018 Summer Programs took us into summer on a high note! We had wonderful camps/classes all around. Gooey & Messy Inquiry was so much fun. A group of first and second graders explored and brainstormed together to come up with projects, creations and play with materials. We started each day with an open exploration time, and after lunch moved into larger group activities where we would also sometimes join with the older Gooey & Messy Inquiry group (3rd, 4th, 5th grades).

Some of the explorations we did involved mixing and dumping with baking soda, vinegar, glitter and liquid watercolor. We also made Elephant Toothpaste, a science demonstration involving hydrogen peroxide, yeast and dish soap to name a few ingredients.






We exploded sandwich bags by creating a gas through mixing baking soda and vinegar again, and experimented with borax and water by making flubber and growing crystals on shells. We also played with mixing paints and adding it to our experiments!








We were also inspired by food. We made pancakes from scratch and added our own toppings, we made fruity popsicles by crushing fruit with our clean hands and adding them to cups to freeze, and we made mustard and ketchup to try on top of hot dogs. We didn't get any images here, and the ketchup was way too salty to eat and the mustard was spicy! Not popular, but fun to mix and create! We ended our food explorations with fresh squeezed lemonade, topped off with our extra fruit! 




Our field trip this week was to the amazing Creo Chocolate - a family owned chocolate shop in Portland that proudly makes delicious chocolate from bean to bar! We learned about direct trade, how to harvest and ready the bean pods, and got to break open the roasted bean to try the cacao nib inside. We saw the cocoa powder and cocoa butter that makes up a cacao nip, and learned it takes three days to mix cacao nibs with a little bit of sugar to make creamy dreamy chocolate! We ended it all by designing our own chocolate bars to take home. 









We had so much fun this week, this camp theme may be back next summer!

Warmly,
Meredith




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