Matter does Matter!!

Matter Matters Lab Report Cover

Now that all the dust has settled and we have finished out another great school year, I wanted to catch up on some posts! This is a follow-up to my earlier post about matter when we began our Rubber Egg Experiment. Check it out here.

This is how the eggs looked after the weekend!  I think beginning any of these
experiments on a Friday and waiting for the results on a Monday just add to the excitement.
Look at the change in the egg!

Now it's time to examine our eggs and notice ALL the ways they have changed.
 They sure do LOOK different!

They definitely FEEL different!

Now it's time to record our results on our Lab Report...

The Rubber Egg Experiment Lab Report

We referred back to our hypotheses and decided which ones were correct and which ones were not.

We documented the changes in our eggs and the vinegar in the cup and answered the Big Question.

We went back and answered our more specific questions, also.

Now it's finally time to GENTLY pick up our eggs and feel for ourselves how they changed!

I loved the look on their faces as they held their eggs!

SO rubbery!!

I love their illustrations!

I wanted to include the lab reports that we used for the Snowflake Experiment from January.

Check out my post from last year on this experiment here.  

Snowflake Experiment Lab Report Updated

I saved this experiment for the last day of school. I know, crazy, but it WAS fun and something to look forward to! Don't be jealous of my smooth dance moves as I try to run BACKWARDS to keep from getting soaked!

This is so simple and I'm sure most all of you have heard, seen or performed this experiment for yourselves so I know I'm not sharing anything new but I wanted to tell you how I tied it in to our study on Matter.  The liquid (Diet Coke) has a gas already present (the carbonation). When the solid (the Mentos) meets with this liquid and gas, you get an IMMEDIATE result! Needless to say, the kids LOVE it.  Look how high the soda shoots up! I use three different 2 liter bottles of Diet Coke-less sticky when it sprays all over you :) -to see which bottle will spray the highest.  The kids vote on which bottle sprays the highest by clapping.  **I used Steve Spangler's Mentos tube made just for this experiment. So much easier to get those Mentos into the coke bottle and make a quick getaway!

We then go back to the room and complete a very quick lab report and then our Matter Matters! book is finished! Learning til the last second, people!! Fun, fun, fun!!
Mentos Lab Report

Snowflake Experiment Part Two and Teaching Time!

We completed our Snowflake Experiment and now it is
time to see if our hypotheses were correct! 
Put on your lab coats!

They did soak up the water/Borax solution. 

They did bend/change shape.  Some bent when the snowflakes stuck together as the water cooled and the solution hardened.

They did harden and turn crunchy!
(Aren't these faces precious?!)

They did develop dots (the Borax crystallized).

They did not change colors, however.
Five out of our six hypotheses were correct!

Now it is time to complete our Lab Reports!

We answered the questions as a class and they illustrated their snowflakes.  They were so excited to take their own snowflake home that afternoon!

I LOVE science experiments and the level of interest and excitement it sparks in every one of the kids!!  This is the fun stuff!

Mrs. Fowler used this clock to introduce time when her class read Bunny Day.
Love it!!

She also used Judy clocks with the sequencing cards from Bunny Day.

Math Centers-two groups worked at tables with a practice page and some
Valentine games while I worked with one group.

Those are math puzzles on their table that I got from
the Dollar Spot at Target.

I am working with a small group to teach time telling using foam clocks from the Dollar Spot at Target (bought a few years ago). 
We are practicing learning how to use the the hour hand and the minute hand to tell time on the hour.

These are laminated books on time telling and money that I also found at the Target Dollar Spot last week!  We used them to practice writing in the hour and minute hands to match the time listed.  Loved it!

She got it!

We completed this page together at my group to make
sure they were all getting it!

I will post more photos of our February Math Games and Activities.  I am pretty happy with the way they turned out and the kids are working well with them.  Yay!!

Snowflake Day!

I know there must be an awful lot of us who are desperately working to incorporate our own units/activities into our curriculum and still meet all of our standards and expectations with our mandatory reading programs.  I actually enjoy the Scott Foresman series our state adopted but find it odd to have a seed unit in the middle of winter and an Antarctic story just when spring is about to burst!  Oh, well, we dance the dance, don't we?  That being said, after completing all that was required with our program last week and having spent two days Dibeling I was ready for Friday which I decided would be Snowflake Day!

First, we read The Little Snowflake.  We talked about some snowflake facts and looked at photos of actual snowflakes.

We then learned how good scientists solve a problem using the Scientific Method.  These pages are available through Deanna Jump's  website for free.  If you haven't checked out her website and her Teachers Pay Teachers account, you are missing out on a goldmine!  I just bought her America unit and am so excited to get it going next week!  Check her out at
http://mrsjumpsclass.blogspot.com/ .

We started by asking ourselves the question, "What will happen to our snowflakes after we soak them in hot water and borax?  Will they change?  How will they change?  What will they look like?"

Next, we came up with our own hypotheses.  It was very interesting to see what the children thought would happen.

We set everything up in our Science Corner.  I used an electric skillet with the lid on to boil the water.

I bought a package of 24 dowels from Hobby Lobby (these were left over from our Christmas wreath banner parent gift).  They were juuuuuust long enough to reach each side of the tub! 

After the water boiled, I added the water and the Borax to the tub and stirred well.

I called one table at a time to hang their snowflakes on a dowel for me to place in the tub.

A few fell in, that's OK.  We'll see how they turn out!

Then we completed our Snowflake Experiment page.  It was interesting to see how they illustrated their hypothesis.

On Monday, we will complete our Lab Report after we have observed what happened to our snowflakes over the weekend.  This will all go into a Science Lab Book that will go home at the end of the year.

Next, we made our own snowflakes just like Suzan at Krazy for Kindergarten does with her class.  I loved this activity!   



Then they had to illustrate the snowflake that they made in their math journal and write a sentence about it. She wrote,  "I made a snowflake."



The kids were able to cut their own snowflake and decorate it with sequins and foam snowflakes.

I am concentrating...

When they came to my table, we wrote snowflake facts we had learned.  Some students need help sounding out the words and shaping their sentence.  But for the most part, I let them sound out their own sentences to see if they are hearing beginning, middle and ending sounds. All of our sight words that we have learned so far are on their Sight Word rings and our Word Wall for them to use. They are also able to check around the room for number, vocabulary and science words we have listed.

She wrote, " All snowflakes have six points.  They are all different."
This is the last page to go into our Winter Book. 
Good work, people!