Wednesday, January 11, 2017

Reading, Collaborating, Writing, and EXPLODING! - Fun with George's Marvelous Medicine


For the past couple days, we've been enjoying one of Roald Dahl's shorter chapter books, called George's Marvelous Medicine. In it, an 8 year old little boy makes a special "medicine" by mixing up all the ingredients in his house - shampoo, bug spray, hair spray, shaving cream, spices, animal medicine, paint - you name it, into the pot it went. He wanted to give a dose to his very horrible grandma, aptly named Grandma Kranky. 


Partners were given an everyday product to examine and talk about. They needed to decide why they would add this to the "medicine" and what it would do for Grandma Kranky.


After that warm-up activity, the whole class brainstormed over two days what ingredients they would add to a special potion or medicine. We took an imaginative tour through our houses and garages, and ended up with a huge list of possible ingredients.



For our morning writing activity, we practiced procedural writing by writing our recipes. They sounded almost as yummy as the concoction that George ended up with!





Then, in the afternoon, our mad scientists mixed some secret ingredients together to watch and be amazed. Of course, most could immediately tell me three of the ingredients - baking soda, vinegar, and food coloring. The final ingredient was guessed in a bit - using their senses of touch and smell, we soon figured out that I had added dish soap.


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