First day with the grade 3456s September 4: first two labs: silly putty and Lego robot (nonrobotized)

I've never taught anything below grade 8 before. The prospect of a collection of 7-12-year-olds was quite terrifying! In this job I teach these courses: Grade 9 10 11 math Grade 9 10 science Grade 7 8 math Grade 7 8 science and, not mentioned at time of hiring... Grade 3 4 5 6 science. Luckily two other aides came into the classroom at the same time too, so it was actually kind of relaxed considering how terrifying it was. Anyway, I pulled out two good labs to start with: Lego, and, silly putty. Since I had NO IDEA what to do with such young people I gave them all a handful of Lego at the beginning of class. Then, the aides made them behave really well and not touch the Lego while I was talking. That was impressive. They actually didn't touch it until I said okay. So I said "what should we have for a challenge" and someone said robot and they were all down with that. I should have taken better photos, but anyway, I feel inspired. They're good at Lego and they're all down with it. I just wrote my buddy who I gave our Zometools to, to ask if I might borrow them back for a while, I hope he says yes. Danilyn made a flat beautiful penguin-looking robot and one boy made a robot with wheels and some kids made wheels with lasers and Olivia made The silly putty worked AMAZINGly well. You get a tablespoon of borax and a couple of litres of water, mix a saturated solution, pour (or drizzle) a glob of white glue in, and instruct students to mix it just long enough in the water to get a nice kneaded consistency. If it stays too long in the water it gets too crunchy and loses its stretchiness, I showed them a sample of that at the beginning, and showed them the twenty-mule team on the Borax box and told them the story about how more money was made in California by the people who were smart enough to pick up the sodium borate crystals off the desert floor, than the money that was made in gold. Anyway, I had about 3 or 4 kids up at a time and supervised them dunking their hands in the water mixing up glue into silly putting and it all went amazingly well. Look at this one. It was made into a long long long string -- better than store bought silly putty even! and as you see, it now looks like a brain.

Since I only have to teach this 3456 class every third day or so, so I guess I need about 60 more labs. Anybody have any good party tricks? I'm glad that there is the Lego. We can set all kinds of Lego challenges. Lego bridge building. Cardboard bridge building. Popsicle stick sculptures. Toothpick sculptures... I think structures might be next. Anyway, if you have ideas, please send them to me!!