Recording: Sugar Making Process

Friday (06/02/2009)

a) What’s the answer, teacher?
Sharlene asked me why the sugarcane juice became so little and crystalised into sugar?
I told them I wasn’t sure. (Not to give answer directly). It could be the hot fire that gives the water the energy to disappear?!
The kids thought so too. They wanted to know if other water sources would be the same.
So, together we brainstormed 10 types of water. They are drain water, rain water, sugarcane water, swimming pool water, bubble water, washing machine water, tap water, drinking water, sea water and also fish pond water.
We agreed that the kids would be in-charged of getting swimming pool and sea water; if they are able to. The others could be obtained from school.

b) How shall we heat the water?
Jen Ning said we could have 10 gas stoves in auntie’s kitchen. I disagreed because the kitchen is too small to boil the water separately at the same time.
I gave them a riddle. What is hotter than fire, is big and strong, yellow in colour and is a planet?
Immediately, they answered the “sun”.
Thus, we would place the water under the hot sun next Tuesday, hopefully.

c) Recording and Observations
I explained that we must record our experiments in order to produce reliable information. Thus, one must be observant.
Immediately, around 6 kids put up their hands saying that they wanted to be a Scientist when they grow up. Namely; Eugene, Foo Soon, Ze Yan, Yun Zhe and Eugene.
Thus we discussed about the Sugarcane experiment which we did yesterday.
They came to draw on the board immediately. They drew from the day we went to chop the sugarcane, blended, boiled and finally ate the delicious sugar.
They learnt to label the pictures. Vocabulary: sugarcane, boil, chop, eat the sugar.