Tornadoes and Teacher of the Year!

This morning we had a gathering and I was awarded Teacher of the Year!  I'm so amazed and humbled!  I have awesome colleagues, so to know that they think I am great is just the best feeling.

We also had a short day for the kiddos and the teachers were off to Professional Development.  We have been learning about storms all week so today we focused on tornadoes and made some tornadoes with our big buddies (a third grade class down the hall).  The students thought this was the best!  It's so easy too.  I bought a case of the cheap bottled water (since you have to fill the bottles with water anyway...).  I tore the labels off and gave one bottle to each student.  We put in a few squirts of dish soap and some glitter.  I found the best idea for adding the glitter - just wet a pencil in water, stick it in the glitter, then put it in the bottle of water.  The glitter washes off into the bottle.  Simple, clean, no mess - and the perfect amount.  The buddies had a great time shaking the bottle and finding the best way to make a tornado.  We found that it is easiest to see if you turn the bottle cap side down and shake it very fast like a maraca as opposed to swirling or spinning the bottle.  I failed to bring my iPad to school today so no pictures of all the fun.  Maybe next time.

Still, here is a link to a great video with some visuals on how to make the tornado (including the pencil in glitter trick) Click on the picture below.