SNOW, Bubble Gum Lab, & Foldable [Freebie], etc.

School has been quite challenging lately due to the incredible winter weather we've been having in the northeast. Over the past two weeks we've had more school closings and delays than full days, making it very hard to get into the groove of things. Recently we had our biggest storm yet, measuring over a foot of snow in my area. We've had about three storms in a row, and we're expecting another one on the morning that we return from the President's Day holiday. WOWee! I absolutely love getting to stand at my door and watch the beautiful snow fall down and blanket my neighborhood on our days off, getting to stay in my PJs all day long, and catch up on my daytime shows, but I must be honest now and admit that cabin fever may be about to set in for me. Besides, with all the snow days now our school year will definitely be extended well into June. Boo!

We did manage to get a few days of school in this past week, however, several of which were school delays, where our day began at 11:00 am. Within that time, I was able to have a pretty exciting week with the students when they came to science class.

Our second graders are participating in a "Bubble Gum Lab" with our High School STEM Academy students. They are learning the Scientific Method to determine the answer to the question, "What happens to the mass of a piece of bubble gum once it is chewed?" For Part I of the Lab, the students loved getting to chew bubble gum for the entire class, share their observations, make predictions (make a hypothesis), test their hypothesis, and record their data.

Students were introduced to the scientific method by making observations about a picture. They practiced using prior knowledge to look closely at the picture on the SMART Board and make inferences.

They came up with a hypothesis about the bubble gum, namely, "I think the mass (weight) of the bubble gum when it is chewed will... (get heavier, get lighter, or, stay the same)."

Next the High School students helped my students use electronic scales to record the weight of the gum before chewing it, as well as the weight of the cup and wrapper.

Students will conclude the Bubble Gum Lab shortly with Part 2, where they will get to show their data by creating bar graphs. Finally, they will come to a conclusion about the mass of the bubble gum based on their data. 


Double-Sided Flap Book Foldable [Freebie]

Students also got to start a fun new foldable flap book (double-sided) that I created to help them review the properties of liquids (transparent, translucent, foamy, viscous, bubbly, and color).

Students write the name of each of the six properties of liquids on each of the three flaps on either side of the foldable. The pictures come from the FOSS Solids and Liquids duplication masters. I had the students color the liquids the colors of our liquids, cut them out, and glue them to either side of the foldable under the flaps. They wrote the meaning of the property on the underside of the flaps. You can get directions on how to make the foldable below.

First graders are just learning about other properties of liquids by observing liquids in bottles. They identified bottles of transparent, translucent, foamy, bubbly, viscous liquids. They also saw that liquids can have many colors.

Their favorite part was holding the bottles up to the light to see the translucent liquids, and shaking the bottles to see which liquids make bubbles and were foamy.

Click here to get directions to make the foldable flapbook.


 Etc...

Oh, and did I mention that we managed to fit in the 100th Day of School and Valentine's parties into the week as well?

Since the 100th Day of School fell on a day that we had a two-hour delay, I decided to delay my plans for having a day of STEM Challenges until next Friday. Instead, Friday was Friday Science Flicks day. This is the day (every other Friday) that I show enrichment videos which tie into the theme for the week. Since it happened to be Valentines day, I showed a Magic School Bus video where the setting was Valentines Day called Magic School Bus: Gets Charged. Students got to learn about how a light bulb gets charged.

Wow, what a week we've had! It always amazes me when I look back on the week and see just how much ground we have covered. AMAZING!

I hope you enjoy your week,

Lori