It's already December, the last month of the year! We began the fourth workshop with a tulip-making origami starter activity, in relation to one of our experiments, and because the children seemed to enjoy doing origami in our previous session. It was more challenging compared to making balloons, but despite some difficulties here and there, they all managed to make them beautifully, and some of them went on to make a second one with a different colored origami paper!
The first experiment we had planned was making a 'capillary bridge' by connecting cups of water with different paints in them (there was an empty cut in between each of them) with wet wipes. By capillary action, the water (and the paint along with it) was to go up the wipe and transport water to the empty cup, causing paints from different cups to mix. After demonstrating how it's done, we made three other set-ups in groups (one of us was feeling unwell that day, so each one of our members was in charge of one or two more children than usual). It would take a little time for the capillary action to take place thoroughly in all cups, so we moved on to our next activity while we waited.
Our second experiment was making paper flowers 'bloom' through, again, capillary action. Because the adhesive forces between the water and the papers are stronger than water's cohesive forces, the liquid is drawn upward through the pores in the papers, causing the petals to unfold and the flowers to bloom. After showing them an example of the flowers they should draw, we let the children make their own flowers and color them before we put the paper flowers on water to observe what happens.
They wanted to make their flowers differently and color them so that the blank spaces cannot be seen, so drawing them and cutting them took a long time- they were adorable😂🥰 We advised them to make around 5 petals, since doing too many of them would not only take time drawing them but also when the petals are 'blooming' on water (when we tried it at home as a pilot experiment, the ones with more petals had trouble opening up because the petals were overlapping).
As we waited for the petals to bloom, some of the children got a little impatient in the middle and unfolded the petals themselves, but otherwise, it mostly went as planned, with almost everyone's petals opening up.
Meanwhile, the first experiment was also ready to be observed, which the children were ecstatic about. Maybe because of the time it took to prepare for the second experiment, the amount of water that ended up in the empty cups was more than when we did it at home. I was overall happy with how both experiments went.
It was about one and a half weeks before Christmas, so we also handed out some tasty Christmas-themes snacks (jellies, candies, etc.) to them as early Christmas gifts before we parted. I hope the kids will like them!
I'll admit I was exhausted after this workshop compared to the ones before, mostly because we had to take the role of our other member while doing everything we used to do- I realized the importance of each of our members once again😅👍 Folding tulips with origami paper was also difficult to explain and to make and helping almost everyone out with them in every step seemed to have taken a toll on me. Besides, it was the first time we came in the afternoon (we mostly came in the morning time), so I think that the children were also slightly more tired compared to usual due to their previous activities.
I'm still thankful that they took part in all our planned activities so enthusiastically despite being tired! I hope this has been a delighting session before the holidays. Wishing them a merry Christmas and an early Happy New Year🎄🎆
Comments