Girls and Science

Greatest Rube Goldberg I ever saw. During our Simple Machines unit I am definitely sharing this video. This video shows how I would have liked my three girls to play with toys. We need to remember STEM should focus all students to integrate Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math into their lives! Forget those Barbies...My friend sent this out as well as my fellow Science Blogger...Science Penguin. Check it out!

Here is an activity I use during my simple machines unit. It is fun to see all of the different ways to deliver a pizza.

Rube Goldberg Delivers A Pizza

Dig It...and Gobble It...

My I/E group is working on Rocks and Minerals unit. We read our book and learned about the rock cycle now it was time for our Science and Math component. Why not use this great site to get some ideas to learn about archaeology...  http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/history/handsonhistory/dig_partners_english.pdf

 There are some great questions in this book that I have my kiddos working on by using the ipads. They are creating posters that we will hang up to share what we learned. We are also cookie archaeologists. We dug out chocolate chips and compared them to dig sites such as Hot Springs or Jamestown...which I have been to and could share pictures of.  Here are my kiddos working on their dig site. Check out Cookie Archaeology for the unit I used with my kids.

As we shifted into primary sources compared to archaeology we can compare historians using primary sources to tell us about the past, just like artifacts at a dig site. Here are two great sites to use for your students right before Thanksgiving.

First, an interactive site...
http://www.plimoth.org/learn/MRL/interact/thanksgiving-interactive-you-are-historian

Some great videos...
http://www.scholastic.com/scholastic_thanksgiving/webcast.htm

Gobble, Gobble!

Take Me Back... Wednesday...Sorry

I love to see how far I have come with my blog. Last year, I had my own homemade blog, pretty cheesy, no followers, few posts. For my birthday this year, September... I bought myself a blog, a real one, and I love it. I can share my Farm to School ideas, Science ideas, FOSS connections, and connect with other bloggers. I watch every day to see if I get another follower. I take myself back to my first post last year that showed something that is timely...cranberries.

I think my students really loved the Thanksgiving themed activities. Who doesn't love eating popcorn and bouncing berries? I thought I would love Cranberry Thanksgiving, but what seemed to work out better was pictures of cranberry bogs, plants, and processing of the berries that I showed on an I pad. We used our five senses in the younger grades with both popcorn and cranberries. I was impressed that most of the students tried the tart treat. As for the popcorn activity the soaked seeds didn't pop, the lesson was a success, and the sheets helped guide my kiddos. I am posting the activities on TpT. Hope you like them.

The leftover berries were great. We used them to make homemade cranberry sauce. My son thought it was pretty awesome that the berries he picked for me were actually tasty once you add a bit of sugar and orange juice to the pot.

Planting a Seed...

Squash. Who would have thunk the kids would like squash soup? Well, we surveyed our kids and our littles voted half and half for liking and disliking the taste of butternut squash soup. I thought that was pretty good. We made the soup in the crock pot, shared the recipe and how to prepare it and yum, the majority of our bigs liked it. We even made homemade applesauce in the crock pot, too. We want to provide our after school classes the ability to try new things, be okay with not liking it, and learning ways to share these ideas with their families. We had a drawing for free butternut squash from our garden...they even loved that prize. It was so cute, I even got letters the next day from them thanking me for the food. Yesterday, we served squash in the lunch line. Can't wait to see the numbers of kiddos that tried it:)

 Our little survey with the littles. Tie isn't so bad!

 Thank you notes are sooo fun to get. I love that she said that the soup tasted like chicken noodle soup, we used chicken stock.

 What does butternut squash look like inside?

We finished up our Fall Harvest snacks by reading Fall Harvest. Just planting a seed, my garden friends.

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