Observational Drawings of Water Beads

As I was poking around the DollarTree this weekend, I found colored water beads with plastic vases - perfect for the classroom!  I was so excited because I've been wanting to get some water beads for the class to explore.

The water beads take a while to expand into their final size.  On Monday, we looked at the small hard beads and made predictions about what would happen when we added them to the water.  Here's a picture that shows the water beads shortly after they had been added to the water.  This picture was actually taken at my home.  I did a test run with the beads to make sure they worked well before we experimented in the classroom. 

  

We captured our observations and dictated our thoughts about what would happen after we left the water beads overnight.  The ever expanding water beads were placed on the windowsill in the classroom and the children checked on the expansion throughout the day.

The real fun was on Tuesday when we arrived to find the vases filled with water beads.

Each child had the opportunity to touch the beads.  They used words like "slimy" and "bouncy" to describe the water beads.

After touching and describing the water beads, we recorded our observations for a second time.  Below are samples of the children's work.  The left-hand side of the paper records our observations from Monday.  Tuesday's observations are recorded on the right-hand side.  Each observational drawing includes a dictation and some include the children's own descriptive writing.