Sprouted...and Odaiko New England

So today was Odaiko New England, aka the "Japanese Drummers." I took some video with my phone...so here are some of the videos:)

So today was Odaiko New England...Here are some video clips from the show!  The kids had a blast.  Not only did they get out of class...they learned a lot about the culture of Japan and the importance of the Japanese drumming.  Did you know that "odaiko" means "big fat drum?"

Soybean named "bungalow" 

I was out sick yesterday, which is always terrible because I hate missing class time (because I leave the kids work...and have no control over it...and the substitute makes their own decisions...) However, we make the best of it!  The best part was, there were sprouts in the soybeans!!  Soybeans germinate much faster than tomatoes.  So, we have one tomato sprouted and several soybeans!

a whole lotta soy!

Katie E's Soybean

Our ONE tomato sprout...only about 99 to go!

Soybeans and some Spongebob!

I don't know why, but Spongebob makes kids happy.  A few years back I discovered a set of worksheets created by Tracy Trimpe, and they use Spongebob to teach genetics.  For some bizarre reason this is a genius idea.  I heard kids excited about it in the hallway.  BEFORE they got to class.  That means, they talked about it.  That means it caught their attention!!

So the words of the day were:

Homozygous

Heterozygous

Genotype

Phenotype


Then we applied these words and put them to work doing a little Spongebob Genetics!

NO visible changes in the seeds yet...I will update photos on Monday...but I did take pics today. 

Hopefully they will grow a little by then:)

So, over the weekend, have your child explain to you how they used our friend Spongebob (from the previously thought to be educationally useless cartoon) to learn about GENES!

Extra credit!

Ok, so a new extra credit assignment: find a cool website about genetics, Mendel, or punnett squares! Then comment on this post with the link! Please use first names only!

Only rule: no wikipedia...we all know about that one:)