Salt

I bought a lot of salt today.

I'm going to use it for the children to practice writing their letters and numbers. I am going to set up an activity that I remember doing when I was in kindergarten...Mom reminded me recently how to re-create it.

The picture above is me preparing the activity. You can see the salt on my right, and the paper bowls on my left. You can also see Carol's ipod which she generously left in China for me to use while she's gone. I don't know how I'd survive the long bus rides without it!

Back to the salt...the children will each have a paper bowl with salt in it. The bowl will have a coloured piece of paper in the bottom, to contrast the salt on top of it. This was one of Mom's tips that I wouldn't have thought of myself.

My students can then practice writing their letters and numbers with their fingers, in the salt. When they're finished one, they simply shake the bowl Etch-a-Sketch style and start again.

Mom said I should use salt instead of sugar, since the kids will eat all the sugar. And Mom suggested I use salt instead of sand as well.

We'll see how it goes tomorrow. I bought all the stuff tonight, and spent an hour cutting out coloured circles of paper to glue into the bottom of the bowls, and getting the whole thing ready. I have 18 students, so it takes awhile to do anything since I have to prepare 18 different sets.

Ma Lao Shi, a co-teacher of mine, came into the classroom as I was working. She's not a fan of this activity, and says I should use sand instead. She said with the heat in the classroom, the children will sweat and the salt will stick to their fingers. She also said if a child has a cut, it will really hurt to be using salt.

I told her I'd try it out, and see how it goes. I told her we won't use scissors during the activity, so she won't have to worry about rubbing salt in anyone's wounds. Like she cares anyway, since she sometimes grabs the kids by their necks and shakes their heads vigourously when they misbehave.

It is really humid in the classrooms though, so maybe the salt will end up being too clumpy. I hope it's a good activity and I can milk it for a lot of class time.

When I was buying the salt at the checkout, I kept an eye out for how the supermarket was dealing with the new ban on plastic bags. The customer infront of me didn't want a bag and just walked out holding his purchases in his hands, and the woman behind me had a cotton grocery bag to put her stuff in. I had grabbed a sturdy plastic bag from under my sink before I left home, so I put my salt in that.

I'm pretty impressed with the ban. Scanning the people leaving the supermarket, there were very few plastic bags to be seen. I think Canada should so something similar.