What does a Moose have to do with Valentine's Day?

I love Valntine's Day! I'm not really sure why, it's not like my husband and I celebrate in a grand way or anything. I think it has to do with all the fun and exciting things we do at school. This year I decided that since I love it SO much, we should start talking about it even earlier, you know like we do Christmas and Thanksgiving! So, starting February 1st, we begin our unit on Valentine's Day!!! YEAH!

I decided that there isn't much I can't make with hearts. You name the animal and I'll use hearts to make it. This week we are talking about the letter "M" and of course we read the book "If You Give a Moose a Muffin" by Laura Joffee Numeroff. I love all her books! And if you read the book, you have to make the moose. So meet our moose! He ended up being just a little bit too bit for our paper, but everyone loved how his little nose hung off the page!!! A lot of fun!

We also headed to the kitchen this week and made a big mess! We made salt dough and formed it into hearts. On Monday we will paint them for our parents. I'll post the finished product when they are done. But for now, here are some of our hearts . . .

Aren't they wonderful?!?!?!
We also headed to the kitchen for some marvelous milk experiments! I found that if you use milk instead of water to mix with food coloring, you get a better show of color. First we are blue . . . .

then we add the yellow to make . . .


GREEN!
Our finally experiment for the week was what I call "Mooving Milk". Here are the instructions -
SUPPLIES:
1/4 cup whole milk
1 teaspoon liquid dish washing detergent
1 small container that has been thoroughly washed and dried
different colors of liquid food coloring*
DIRECTIONS:
1. Pour about 1/4 cup of whole milk into the container. This should be about ½ inch deep.
2. Place a drop of each of 4 different food colors on the milk in the container, in opposite corners from one another.
3. Drop 1 drop of detergent into the center of the food coloring. What happens?
4. Think about what you saw. Can you explain why the milk did what it did? Here is what happened and why - the milk you are working with is more complicated it looks. It is made up mostly of water and then equal parts of protein, fats, and sugar. The fat has been broken up and spread throughout the milk (by the process called HOMOGENIZATION) into tiny pieces of fat called globules. When the milk was first placed into the carton, it was still and did not move. Even when the food coloring was added to the milk, things were still quiet. This is because the fat globules were steady and undisturbed. When the soap hits the milk, things begin to move.
Everyone knows you can't talk about the letter "M" without a little M&M math! This is one of favorites! Candy and counting, super yummy fun!
FUN, FUN, FUN! Learning should be and IS fun in our class!
Thanks for checking in with us. Be sure to come back next week and see how in the world we incorporate the letter "N" into our Valentine's Day theme!