Mr. Hanson, what is texture? Like, feeling?

Today was science for our 1st/2nd grade kiddos. In a nutshell, our goal was to learn that we can use properties (details) to describe things. We took our super duper describing skills to 4 different foods: oat cereal (cheerios), split peas, sunflower seeds, and macaroni.

How did they do? Awesome! We had some kinks (read further), and we didn't have enough time. Science has been pushed from a 45 minute block to a 30 minute-ish block at the end of the day. Can we do some of the work? Yes, but it makes the exploration, sharing and closure all very confined.

Kinks? After going over that we use all but one sense in science, our sense of taste, we had someone push the boundry. I am not so sure who has touched the materials, as they come from the district, so the issue is more one of safety than anything. Other kinks? Well I went through words that we could use for our describing (shape, color, texture, etc) but then failed to follow through and say exactly how we would get there... hence where the title comes from!

Alas the responses were awesome. We had descriptions like greenish, half-moon shaped, like a C, soft, smooth, bumpy, sounds harder than the others, like a bridge, felt cool, holey... Plus I had responses from just about everyone, and everyone was engaged.... Success! I just need more time...