Salt II

Today's salt activity went OK. The room was really humid as I expected, but I was surprised just how much the salt clumped. It still worked OK though.

One of my students, Rosary, sweats a lot through her hands and fingers. When she colours, sometimes her paper gets really really damp, and her crayons too. I'm not sure what it is, but Guo says it's always been like that. In this activity, the salt caked on to her fingers making it a bit more of a challenge for her. But she kept happily drawing the requested numbers and letters.

The salt got everywhere too, and was most noticeable on the floor. When it got on the floor, it brought with it moisture from the air and made the floor all wet. My shoes squeaked as I walked.

I was reminded of grade eleven biology with Mr. Rice, where we learned that salt likes to suck the moisture out of things. That's why in the spring the grass by the sides of the road is always dead...the moisture has been sucked out by the winter's salt. It's osmosis or diffusion, I can't remember which. At any rate, the salt fell on the floor in the classroom, and brought a lot of water along with it. So that was interesting.

I think in the future I'll have to modify the project. I'm thinking about using small grains of rice. It might work, and the rice seems impervious to the moisture in the air here, since grocery stores have huge vats of bulk rice sitting out in the open.

I also would like bigger vessels than the paper bowls. I just don't know what to buy. It would have to be cheap, since I have to buy 18 of them. I think a shoe-box lid would be perfect, but I don't know where to find 18 of them without buying the shoes inside.

Maybe I'll have this activity perfected by the time I leave. The children liked it, and many were excited to learn how to properly write the letters. An almost constant chorus accompanied the activity: "Mr. Jon! Help me!" I will do the lesson again, but hopefully improve it somehow.