Junk Yard Science and Flying Marshmallows

Found a great website to use to help the students use FOSS and yet connect it to what we are learning...variables. Here is the sheet I made to go with it and a quick video to show.

Electromagnet Warm Up Sheets

I included the answer key on the second page, and the link to the lesson I am using for the activity. 

Now, onto 5th grade. Here is the idea and sheet for my bigs as they build catapults for marshmallow shooters. I can't wait to see the marshmallows fly. 

 

                             Marshmallow Catapult Directions

Peek At My Week

Well, in our district, we are on a day one, two, three, four, five schedule this year. Confusing...yes, do we miss a day with our kids...no.  So, teaching science all day looks kind of like this... my day ones, what might be a Monday for someone else, is actually on Thursday for me. Yikes, right?!? My Thursday, started like this.. Each day we start out with a fourth or fifth grade, followed by a third grade. My afternoons, are kindergarten, first, then second grade...each and every day, but day fives...Wednesday's right now. That is when most of my prep time is. Three days a week, I also teach an enrichment class of 15 kids in third grade. I teach reading, writing, science, and math to this group. They help pick out the concept they want to learn. This next unit, is space. So, I am organizing a space unit for them. At least, I get a chance to change it up a bit, but I do love teaching science. Our kids get so bogged down with learning every second, science lets them get some hands on fun, while learning.

I will post pictures this week once my kiddos start their new experiments. I can't wait to see if my fifth graders can make a catapult out of 10 tongue depressors and  two rubber bands to toss marshmallows into the air for them to catch in their mouths. I am working on the sheets to go with it today. I will share that free. Stay tuned.

Storybook Science

Here is my latest Unit for sale on TPT. It takes the concept of a storybook for kids and connects it to other books, writing, reading, and of course science. Our kindergarten teachers love it and so do I. It allows great connections to our new standards and common core.

Storybook Science: Chicken Little and Gravity

What's A Slope Mrs. Heinrich?

The cutest thing, one of our kinders asked me this question yesterday. I looked down at her sweet face and said, "we are going to be scientists and conduct an experiment to find that out." She replied, "what's a experiment?"

We started our slope lesson asking if they ever went sledding. Duh, we live in Wisconsin and have a hill at our school. Vocabulary word number one, slope. Now to the experiment part... we are going to set up an experiment to find out if a big slope or hill makes us go faster or does a small hill make us go faster? We made a prediction. Look at all that vocabulary. I had our kiddos get a car to place on our graph. Then we went to set up our experiment.

We set up two slopes a big one and a little one. Then we raced our cars down the hills. We shared our findings to see if our predictions were correct. We then filled out a sheet to share our conclusions and findings. There pictures show it all...they got it. Before my kinders

left, I asked the class, "what is a slope?" "Moving on a slant!" "A hill!" Well then kids, what is an experiment? "A test!" Cool beans, when kindergartners "get it"!

Castle Catapults

Our FOSS 5th grade unit has us testing variables, however sometimes the kids have a hard time connecting to why they are making lifeboats, pendulums, or flippers. In an older post, I shared how I introduced the lesson...here is how I wrap it up. Each group tests for length of stick and angles. We figure out what angle gives the best distance and the length of stick that gives us the height we need. We then give each kingdom a chance to scale the wall of the there castles in the room. The can change the length of stick or the angle or both now to use what they learned in their controlled experiment. We give them a chart to tally out of three tries how many times they scaled the wall of a castle. The winning team gets Burger King Crowns and are rulers of the room. We discuss how kingdoms were won and lost due to battles such as this. It makes it make sense as to how it relates to history.
Castle Catapult Sheet

Here is a group trying to scale the castle walls. Who will be rulers of the kingdom?

Plant A Seed...

This last week, we focused on my plate. We watched this fun video based on the song Born This Way explaining the new my plate food guide. We then played the optional activity Growing a Garden Game called My Plate Hoopla from Nutritious Delicious Wisconsin. We set out hula hoops that portrayed plates. We set out bean bags, you could use colored paper. Orange=grain,m green=veggies, purple= meats or beans, blue=dairy, and red= fruit. I made sure that there wasn't enough of some and I added yellow for sweets. You could steal from someone and add a sugar. I only gave so much time and then I called it. We went around to see if we had a well balanced meal. Then we went back to our room to make a my plate,  plate. They did a great job making their favorite meal, but making it even healthier. 

We worked on creating balanced meals that would be use in our lunchroom to encourage others to think about half of their plate being fruits and veggies. My plate does...does yours?

Here is a great video that we watched that helped the kids understand the new food guidelines. It is sung to Lady Gaga's song Born This Way! 

Pushing And Pulling Our Kindergartners

So, as we continue to develop our unit on push and pull, I am helping set up two different activities for you. The first one is an extension for push and pull. I read (paraphrased) the book Push and Pull... and then showed them different pictures that helped them understand the difference between the two types of motions. We modeled pushing and pulling and that sometimes it is both a push and a pull. We defined a push as a force that moves something away and a pull is a force that brings something closer. We did a Venne Diagram with pictures I included for you to use. We then went outside for a few minutes...brrrrr it was cold. We practiced pushing and pulling on the swings, slide, and Rocking Boat. We went back in to practice being on a row boat. We pushed and pulled our oars in our boat as we sat on the floor. Another great resource for push and pull ideas are from a fellow blogger at Chalk Talk.

push and pull cards Used in the Venne Diagram. Are we pushing, pulling or both.

               Our little rowers. Push the oars, pull the oars, push the oars, pull the oars...