Germ Expert

Today Mrs. Randle came to speak to our class about germs and her job. She works in a lab at Wishard Hospital which analyzes medicines to see how effective they are against strains of germs and also tests the cultures that are sent in from your doctor's office for things like strep, etc.

She brought in some agar plates that she had set up for us yesterday. On one, she had rubbed her hand on the bottom of her shoe and then placed her dirty hand on the agar. Then she washed her hands thoroughly and placed her clean hand on the other plate. Here are the results:

This is the agar plate that had the dirty handprint. It grew lots of germs: staph, fungi, and bacteria. The thumbprint was where all of the fuzzy growth is.

This is the agar plate with the handprint after washing her hands. It did not grow anything.

Students also made observational drawings of the agar plates and also of the microscope that she brought in. It had all the same pieces and parts as the microscopes we use here in the classroom, except it was biocular and an oil immerison microscope.

Students enjoyed looking at the prepared slides that our guest speaker brought to share. She also showed us a website that had animated characters that looked like real germs. The children really enjoyed seeing them come alive.

www.giantmicrobes.com

April Willy: Illustrator Visit

The students at our school were fortunate to have a visit from illustrator April Willy on Monday. Ms. Willy has illustrated such books as Three Cups, Full Moon Maxi, and others. She showed our young authors some drawing techniques, as well as read from some of her books. Students had the opportunity to recreate one of her drawings from the book Full Moon Maxi. She emphasized the importance of planning ahead and taking your time to do your best.

Please visit her website at http://www.aprilwilly.com/

Chinese New Year

Today we had a guest speaker who taught the students about Chinese New Year. They enjoyed hearing about the beast who was afraid of the color red, and practiced saying some words and phrases in Chinese. Learning about another culture and their customs was intriguing to the students and we are grateful to our parent volunteer who shared about his family's life.

Guest Speaker

Master Cooley came and talked to the class about martial arts per the invitation of one of our students. He was also kind enough to give us a demonstration of tae kwon do. The students really enjoyed learning about this martial art and were cautioned to not try any of the moves out at home.

Air Force

As part of our Walk-a-Thon this year, we have been assigned a branch of the armed services. First grade has been studying the Air Force. Yesterday Mr. Reeves came and talked to us about what he did in the Air Force. We learned about their flag. Today another member of the military came and spoke to us about the different jobs you can do and about the Thunderbirds.