It’s the first Friday of April—let’s do a giveaway! The Mailbox editors for all levels of books and magazines are eager to learn about your favorite science activities. They’re looking for whole-group activities, center activities, and timesaving tips for teaching science.
You know the drill! If an editor selects your idea for publication, you’ll be rewarded with a $20 gift certificate that can be used to purchase magazines and books from The Mailbox! In addition, if you win the giveaway, you’ll receive a fun prize from little ole me. Roxie won our last giveaway, and look what she won! (Aren’t you green with envy? 🙂 )
So hop to it and leave your favorite science-related ideas and tips right here on this blog before midnight, EDT, Sunday, April 14.
Eager to hear from you!
Diane
Congratulations to Mary! She’s the winner of our drawing!
I love to do a unit on Jan Brett books…specifically using the books: “The Hat” and “The Mitten”. To incorporate science into our literacy studies, I ask the kids to bring in mittens and gloves. We take a Hersey Kiss and unwrap it. We put the unwrapped kiss into a ziplock bag and then tuck it between the glove/mitten to hold while we reread and discuss the stories. At the end of our discussions, we check to see which kiss has melted the most…lots of fun and of course we get to enjoy a kiss or two while we read and talk too!
Spring is the best time! My favorite science project with the kids covers several days. First we take a clothes pin and have the kids glue on small pom-poms to create a caterpillar. I glue on googly eyes. Then another day, we give the kids a toilet paper roll – having them put their caterpillar to sleep inside with tissues at either end.
A few days later, I have the children use markers to color a coffee filter. When they are done, I use a spray bottle filled with water to wet the coffee filter. The kids all “ohh and ahh” when they see the colors combine and create new colors! The next day, I have them check their caterpillars. When they pull them out of their “coccon”, the caterpillar has turned into a butterfly (clothespin now has coffee filter wings and curly antenna). The kids are always fascinated by the change and are thrilled they now have a beautiful butterfly to bring home!
One of the units that I just love to do is about rocks and minerals. One activity that my kiddos look forward to each year are the pudding volcanoes. Since we learn about dome volcanoes vs shield volcanoes, we use pudding to make volcanoes. Their 1st “volcano” uses vanilla/lemon/butterscotch pudding (light colored). They mix the light colored pudding with a small amount of water so that it is thick. Then they put it inside a ziploc bag, cut one bottom corner off, and squeeze.They have to squeeze hard to get their volcano to “erupt”. They repeat the process, except this time they have chocolate pudding and they mix it with a lot of water so that it is thin. Then, when the students squeeze their bag hard, the pudding “erupts” all over! It’s messy and fun but the students really understand the difference between the two volcanoes.
Love this topis Diane. Looking forward to acquiring some new science ideas.
My favorite science unit is insects.
Each child gets to dress as a insect. I have acquired many of the props at a dollar store.
to teach the children about insects having a exo-skeleton I put a toy shield on their chest. The wings are fairy wings. I add a pair of stuffed socks to make 6 legs counting their legs and arms of course. The antenna is a headband with foil added.
Then of course insects do not see like us so I add a crazy pair of sunglasses. We then sing the insect song. The kids love this activity.
Another thing I do is wrap the children in toilet paper. They then flap their wings and emerge as butterflies. Make sure to take lots of pictures of these activities the Parents love to see.
My favorite science activity I do every spring with my preschoolers is when we bring in live butterfly larvae into our classroom! Both the children and parents absolutely LOVE watching as the caterpillars grow and grow until they finally spin their chrysalis. Of course, they are always light up with pure joy and amazement the day they come in and find butterflies!!
We always observe the butterflies for a few days as they feed on orange slices and then it’s time for the best part–releasing them outside and watching them fly away 🙂
I am doing a project based learning unit on weather. I teach the first graders how to use the tools (thermometer, cloud cover, wind speed-they look at the flag for that one, rain gauge, which they make). As teams of 2-3 they record their daily findings on a chart. At least once each team gives the weather report, using our puppet stage as a TV. The end product is not only a weather report, but a forecast, based on their observations.
I love incorporating science with cooking in my classroom. we watch to see how materials react with each other, how we can add fodd color to things to change the properties and colors etc. This is also a good way to connect nonfiction reading and math as well. the kids love it
I love incorporating an experiment with the book Cloudette. After a read aloud we discuss clouds. We go outside and look at the clouds. We come back and for science that day we talk about how rain comes from clouds. Then we make rain clouds. We use large mason jars and several different colors of food coloring. We wait and see how much food coloring it takes for the shaving cream cloud to start to rain. All of the lessons are done whole group. These lesson are part of a bigger unit on weather.
During my prek insect unit the children make an ant farm mural. On a large sheet of paper have children add grass to the top. Then cut paper towel tubes in half and add scotch tape to the back. Give the tubes to the children and have them design their own tunnel shapes. Then children can use markers to add ants to the tunnels. Children can move the tunnels different ways. They can count the ants and add more if they want.
One of my students’ favorite science activities is earthworm exploration. I buy a dozen worms (nightcrawlers are best) at the local fishing supply store. Then, I introduce the activity by having a morning sign-in. (Would you touch a worm?) This really gets students interested and conversations about the sign-in question are great for assessing prior knowledge. After reading a nonfiction book about earthworms; we go to small groups and my assistant does a writing/art activity where the students use plastic fishing worms and brown paint along with coffee grounds to create a worm picture. They then dictate a fact they learned about worms. In my small group; the students get to observe earthworms by holding them and observing them. I facilitate a conversation about what the students are seeing during this time- it makes for some interesting conversations. At the end of the day; the surviving worms get to live out their lives in my garden at home.
I also teach a unit on butterflies/caterpillars .I order the larvae and we watch the different stages take place. We act out the stages with the following song, sung to the tune of “Up on the Housetop”.
First comes a butterfly who lays an egg;
out comes a caterpillar with many legs ;
oh ,see the cater pillar spin and spin
a little chrysalis to sleep in;
oh, oh, oh, look and see;
oh, oh, oh, look and see;
out of the chrysalis, my, oh my;
out comes a pretty butterfly!
We do a craft about the 4 stages . On a branch, we glue, an “egg”(white bean),a pompom caterpillar, tissue paper chrysalis , and a butterfly made out of a clothespin and coffee filter that has been colored with markers and squirted with water for a tie-dyed effect. When our butterflies come out of their chrysalis , we go outside and have a goodbye ceremony ,singing the songs we learned about the butterfly life cycles.
I love doing this germ experiment. Each child is given a slice of bread. They choose what to wipe on their bread.(shoe, floor, door knobs, spit, hand, tongue,etc.) Then we spritz the bread with water and seal in a zip-loc. We put away in a dark closet for a few days before checking! I will tell you..some of the stuff that grows on these bread slices is very scary. In fact the school nurse had us double bag the whole lot last year. Fun!!
Having to teach Scientific Method, I wanted my students to have a hands on experience. We took three variety of dish soap. First we explored the consistency and wrote about it. Next we mixed each soaps with the same amount of water and sugar. The students had to take an educated guess on which soap they thought would make the best bubbles both size and colors, then write about why they thought this brand would make the best bubbles. I had the students work in pair. We headed outside to blow bubbles. The students have to catch a bubble, measure it(hint math), record it and document the colors in their bubbles for each brand. Next we headed back inside to analyze results. Each group had the opportunity to explain what they found. Last we graphed results of all the groups.
To change this up the following day we used a variety of instruments to blow bubbles, spatula, pipe cleaners, string. slotted spoons, paper towel tubes or any thing that the students could blow into.
You can’t go wrong with seeds! I teach special ed at a small private school and just planted seeds with my class. We did a variety- lettuce, spinach, marigolds, basil, cilantro, parsley, etc. The students eagerly check each day to see what’s going on. They love to spray the plants and help to carry the trays back and forth from our “Growing Station” (lent to us by a local HS) to their tables for care. Lettuce is several inches tall- they love watching me trim it with scissors to put on my sandwich at lunchtime. We also used a product called Root Vue to plant carrots. It’s a styrofoam v-shaped planter with plexiglass on one side so you can see the roots! Carrot seedlings have several sets of leaves and look green and very healthy today. This unit can go on for months, with the goal of potting up herbs for Mother’s Day and moving excess plants outside. Hopefully some of my students will continue to garden as a lifetime activity.
I am a big beliver in Phil Parratore’s series of Hands-On… Hands-On Life Science for elementary grades is my favorite. Any teacher could benefit from his series. He has a number of activities which last 5 minutes or 30 minutes.
However, my favorite science activity is building bridges with Popsicle sticks, particularly in the 4th and 5th grades. This is a great activity that can incorporate math and economics. In groups of two, students are issued a business loan, ($5000.00) to build a bridge. They must purchase “wood” (Popsicle sticks)and “bonding material” (Elmers glue). They are required to create a set of blue prints, and keep their design as close as possible to the original plans. The price for building material fluctuates based on market need. On Monday of week one it is the most expensive, and by Friday of week two it is the cheapest. This means they must budget their money well, to get the most for their resources, and have time to build a quality bridge.
We then set up a weight system,and gradually add weight to the bridge till it collapses. Students receive awards based on how much weight it can hold, most unique design, and most accurate to original blue prints.
I do one unit on experiments in plastic baggies and one unit on experiments in soda bottles.
I wish I could have a document camera for my classroom!
These Common Core standards are numerous and overwhelming!
I have to design many new materials, lessons, & centers and am not receiving any funds or materials from my school district to help me with all of this. A document camera would be an invaluable tool and would help me out a lot!
(0: Thanks very much,
Jana
I just finished a unit for my Prek class on gardening today. We plant grass seed on sponges. I have been doing this for years and the kids love it because its so quick growing.
Take a kitchen sponge and soak in water and wring most of it out. Add rye grass seed and place the sponge in a storage bag and seal. The grass will grow and I of course let them cut the grass witrh scissors.
A funny thing about this activity when it goes home the Dad’s often threaten to plant the sponge in their yard because the grass looks so good.
14 Apr 2013 at 11:38 pm # 1. Rosemary Blessman
We make a little booklet about the senses at the winter holidays at the end of December. Each child gets a little 5 page booklet made up of 5 envelopes stapled together. Each envelope is labeled with one of the senses: see, hear, smell, taste and touch. In the envelope labeled see, the children put glitter on a little card with a holiday light bulb shape drawn on it for the lights we see this time of year. For the one labeled hear, they put in a little jingle bell threaded on a pipe cleaner. For smell, they put in a little plastic bag of cinnamon . For touch, it is a piece of evergreen, real of artificial. And for taste , they put in a little candy cane. The children love taking their booklet home and sharing the pages with family members talking about what they can see, hear, smell, taste, and touch or feel.