The Beginning/ Science in the Classroom

Hello again!!

I realized that I should give a little bit of a back story to help you understand why human trafficking became an issue so close to my heart. If you read my Rubies and Redlights blog a few years ago, this will sound really familiar. If not, here it goes:

In the summer of 2010, my parents and 4 of my siblings spent three months at a missions school in Mozambique. While they were there, the Lord did an amazing work in each and every one of their hearts! My parents felt a call to serve full time overseas. They are now living in Asia where they have since adopted my youngest litter sister, Maci, (WHOO HOO!) and are daily loving on and ministering to children who so many had deemed "unlovable." My older brother, Matt, fell in love with the people of Mozambique and came home with a new understanding of the Lord's heart. The restoration of Mason's hearing became an even bigger prayer priority for our family. Molly accepted Jesus as her Savior and was baptized in the Indian Ocean (so cool!). And Madelyn was prophesied over by several people telling her she would play a huge part in ministering to women and children who had become victims of sex trafficking...when my mom told me what had been spoken over Madelyn, it was the first time I felt the Lord tug at my heart about this issue. 

        A couple months into their stay in Africa, my mom and I were having our usual weekly Skype date and the Lord began to tug at my heart again, this time a little lot more strongly! After we had small talk about the weather and the kiddos, Mom asked me to pray about something specific. It was a prayer request that I believe that Lord has used to shape my future for maybe the rest of my life. She told me that one of the teams from their mission school had gone into a village a few miles from their base to preach the gospel, bring food, etc. As soon as they arrived they knew something was horribly wrong. As they started talking to the people there, they discovered that almost all of the children from that village had been sold to a neighboring village for $6 each. Before you pass judgement on the parents who agreed to take such a small price for their sons and daughters, know that they were probably led to believe that their children would be offered a better life. Most of them probably couldn't even afford to feed them, so they figured they would have a better chance somewhere else....sadly, that was not the case. After the team looked into things further, they found out that these children were being used as slaves in a ruby mine that this other village had recently found. As if that wasn't horrific enough, they eventually found out that on top of all of that, the girls were being used as prostitutes for the owners of the mine. Some of these children were barely old enough to be in school and their childhood was being stolen from them! I have never felt such a strong sense of urgency in my heart as I did when my mom started explaining exactly what was going on over there. She told me everything the team was doing to try to get these children back in a safe place, but it was going to be a really long road. I spent the next couple of days just sobbing, because for the first time in my life I wasn't able to numb myself to the true depravity in our world. That was almost 4 years ago, and I still think about the children from that village on a daily basis. So that's the reason this has become my "thing," the issue that tugs at my heart like almost no other issue in the world can.

Ok, so that was the "Freedom" part of this blog post. Now for the "first grade" part. 

If you're familiar (and I can't imagine that anyone isn't with all of the articles being posted on Facebook these days) with the changes happening in the education world over the last several years, you won't be surprised to hear that SCIENCE is being almost completely cut from curriculum in most schools. I happen to work at an amazing school where science, social studies, art, and music are still very highly valued. However, I know that when I taught public school there was definitely no science curriculum, and even if you could find time throughout your week to plan your own curriculum, there was barely enough time in the schedule to teach it. I stumbled upon this website today, and I thought it was so perfect!  These are all science lessons that have been created inside a plastic bottle, so all you have to do is set them in a center and let children explore and investigate. I love it!! 

You can find all of the ideas for these discovery bottles at: http://familylicious.com/how-to-make-science-discovery-bottles/

Here are a couple of examples, though:

layered density 

coloring mixing

sink or float 

magnets

I'm in love with these! There are over 30 examples on her website with instructions on how to make them! Some of them are clearly geared toward a younger crowd, but I think some of them would be fun even for my first graders. I'm going to try to get some together in the next couple of weeks.

Have a wonderful day!

-Missy

PS- Here is my newest TPT product. And speaking of science, I'm in the process of creating an interactive science notebook to be used in the classroom!