An Unexpected Visual Addition

So, things don't always go as planned. Sometimes that's a bad thing, and sometimes that's a good thing. In the case of some unexpected plans for this week, it was a really good thing!
This week, my 8th-grade students were set to work on the next part of the lessons dealing with particle motion when thermal energy is added or removed. To help them understand this process, we had an online simulation set up for the students along with a packet to record their findings. The students did a really nice job with it--it's really nice when you can see that all the students are engaged with what they are doing! However, they were so on task with the simulator that many of the students finished in one day (rather than the two days I had planned for). This left me with a conundrum--there were still a good number of students who needed more time, so I didn't want to just move onto the next task for some of the students because I needed everyone to be at the same point. Plus, the next task is the culminating activity for this series of lessons. Therefore, I did a little online browsing to find something that could support what they had learned--and I found it. But rather than tell you, I think I'll just show it (not that this is actually me doing it)!

This was such a cool opportunity for the students to actually see what they had just learned in the simulator, and I for one am glad that my initial planning was a little off!

Mindfulness thought for the week: Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new. --Albert Einstein