I gave my students white beads, Wednesday. Along with the beads, I introduced them to the phrase, Imagine Your Potential. I wanted them to think about the possibilities that will be available to them in the future. I want them to consider themselves ready for amazing things to happen in their lives.
Little did they know, the beads changed color when struck by the ultraviolet light of the sun. As soon as they went outside the pigments in the beads activated, showing them that a plain white bead does not have to remain plain. The same is true of their own lives - especially when we consider the potential they have bottled up inside of them.
Little did they know, the beads changed color when struck by the ultraviolet light of the sun. As soon as they went outside the pigments in the beads activated, showing them that a plain white bead does not have to remain plain. The same is true of their own lives - especially when we consider the potential they have bottled up inside of them.
As long as we were experimenting with our color-changing beads, why not answer the age-old question: did out solar viewing glasses really protect our eyes from UV light? I folded some of our viewing glasses in half, placed some beads between the two lenses, and taped the edges. If the UV light permeated the lenses, we would know that the glasses failed to protect our eyes from the rays of the sun during the solar eclipse earlier in the week. Happily, we discovered the beads remained lily white when we ripped the tape off of the glasses!
Returning to the classroom, we did some reading on our first Wonderopolis for the year: What Is the Difference Between a Solar and Lunar Eclipse? We discussed how to respond to the questions and got into a lot of reading strategies in this short reading and lesson. Hopefully, students realized that I did not simply give an assignment and have expectations of completion and correct answers, but that I provided them with steps and strategies to get the results they needed.
