Location: McCormick Elementary School
Date: Saturday, January 11, 2014; 10:00 am-12:30 pm
Once again, I was going back to a
project that I had last attended almost a year ago. Then I had encountered some really spirited kids, including
a little girl who had won me over. One of the experiments that we had done was a probability one using
M&M’s. This time, our volunteer
leader Maureen sent out the instructions beforehand and once again, M&M’s
were on the agenda. Looks like
they are on an annual cycle as well!
Wilson who is regular at this venue picked me up in the morning, which
was definitely more convenient than taking public transportation. We arrived at the school to see that
several volunteers had assembled, but some of them were there for other
programs like, Arts and Crafts, Reading and a project titled, 'Adventures In Math'. Wow, talk about selling math to kids!
Besides the M&M game, we were
also doing an experiment to understand Acids and Bases, and also an activity
called 'Winter Worksheet', which was
a word search game. There is a
cupboard where all the supplies are usually kept and for the next few minutes,
I tried to look for what we would need today, just as the kids arrived. Maureen keeps the kids on a tight leash
and while they were making some noise, all of them took their regular
seats. As an icebreaker, Maureen
asked the volunteers to introduce themselves and state their favorite
color. This is always a tricky one
for me since I really like all colors and it depends on the context. For example, I like to wear black; I
think green eyes are fantastic, red for cars and so and so forth. But I went with violet since it looks
sophisticated and is makes a melodious sound when you say it.
All the volunteers took their
places on each table and I was next to one with two little girls, so I asked if
I could join them and they nodded.
Since this is an annual program, all the kids have a badge that they
made at the beginning of the year and which they collect from Maureen when they
come in each time. Both of these
girls did not have one. I asked
their names and they introduced themselves as Millie and Sandra. I said I would look for their badges
and after a bit of searching I was able to find the one for Millie, but not for
Sandra. So I gave her a Chicago
Cares sticker and several colored markers, for her to design a colorful nametag. She however just wrote her name and was
ready to go.
 |
| M&M's again |
We started with the Word Search
puzzle and with the winter theme, had words like “Snowy”, “Downhill” etc.
Having been a part of some competitive word search puzzles during ‘What’s The Word’ projects at Lakeview
Nursing, I was also looking for words along with the two girls, determined that our
group found all the words as soon as possible. It was apparent that Millie was really smart and able to
find a lot of the words fairly quickly.
Sandra was slower than her and we were working together. Both of them were extremely shy and
smiled a lot. We found
all of the words just as time ran out and pleased with our efforts, moved to
the next task with the M&M’s.
There was a cup of different colored M&M’s in front of us and the
idea was for both of them to alternate picking from the cup and then noting on
a worksheet which color they had found from the available Red, Orange, Yellow,
Brown, Blue and Green. After 25
tries each we would count the total, tally by color and then calculate the
probability of finding certain colors based off that data. As luck would have it, Sandra kept
finding Orange and each time she did that, she would look at me and smile. I was beginning to get fond of the
little one.
 |
| Our graph |
After they both had their 25
turns, we did some preliminary probability, though I did not want to reduce to
lowest fractions, since I wasn’t sure they knew how. I remembered one summer afternoon long long time ago...in
another lifetime, when my dad was trying to teach me fractions and I was
definitely older than them.
Another volunteer on our table was going all out with his kids, doing
some complex math with lowest common denominators etc. as the kids looked at
him in confused horror. Hey, at
least I had gotten a smile. We
answered some of the questions on the worksheet and then using colored crayons the girls filled out a graphical chart depicting how many M&M's of various
colors they had found. Once they
were done, they started coloring their 'Winter Worksheet' from earlier, while I
picked up the crayons and did my own graph combining their results. The kids were allowed to eat their
M&M's and Sandra kept offering me.
She would remove one M&M, put it on the paper and nudge me. I would thank her, pop it in my mouth
and then after some time she would nudge me again.
We took a break and the next
experiment was ‘Acids/Bases’. We had 9 different solutions – Soda,
Milk, Baking Soda, Dish Soap, Poweraid, OJ, Lemon Juice, Distilled Water and
Tap Water. Idea was to write down
what we were testing, guess if it was going to be acidic, basic or neutral and
then validating by dipping a litmus paper in each using tweezers. We were to observe the color change
against the primer that Maureen had and then reporting back the pH number and
our conclusions. Myself, another
volunteer and our 4 kids combined to do this together and each kid had a choice
of what they wanted to test. I
must say that I was surprised at some of the data, for example Poweraid is
really acidic and so was dish soap.
I said that it could be due to the citrus in the dish soap, while the
other volunteer said that he should stop drinking the Poweraid based on this
evidence of acidity! The kids
really enjoyed this activity, especially watching the pH paper color change. Sandra, in her typical shy manner,
kept asking me what she should write in her observations worksheet. Man, she was sweet.
 |
| From the most Acidic to Basic |
We were done and before clean-up,
I asked the kids to arrange everything from the most acidic – lemon juice - to
the most basic - baking soda. After that we disposed of all the
solutions into a giant jug, which looked as disgusting as anything I have seen
after it was full of all the solutions.
The time was up and the kids formed a line to leave. Maureen has really disciplined them
well, for example whenever she would say, “Fourth
graders”, everyone would stop whatever they were doing, freeze, clap and
look at her. After the kids left we tidied up and the Maureen assembled all of the volunteers for
reflection. She said that “Service without reflection is just work”. We discussed the parts we liked, what
we could do better etc. I left
with Wilson and it was really a shame that I had been unable to come for almost
a year. I had really enjoyed my
time with the girls, especially little Sandra. Hopefully I will see her shy smile soon.
*All
the client's names have been changed in order to respect their privacy
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