FOSS Science Liquids in Bottles Smartboard

Today was definitely dig in and concentrate on school materials day.  It's so hard to concentrate knowing that there are only a couple more weeks of summer left for me. This next product is one of my favorite things to do with my students in Science class.

This Smartboard is the must-have companion to the FOSS Science Solids and Liquids Investigation 2, Part 1: Liquids in Bottles. It's a 14 pager that is perfect for using as a visual tool while teaching the steps of the investigation. Pages in this Smartboard include:

 1. Liquids in Bottles Essential/Focus Question

2. Liquids in Bottles Liquids Center Materials

3. (Guided) Exploration Questions

4. What We Learned Word Bank (Vocabulary)

5. What We Learned Student Page (Discussion/Completion sentences) w/Answer Sheet

6. Liquids (Properties) Four-Square

7. Home/School Connection (Homework) Project

8. Liquids in Bottles Writing Journal Page

My students' absolutely love this very hands-on, active investigation. They get to investigate different liquids to develop their concept of a liquid. They work at a center to tip, swirl, shake, roll, and spin seven liquids in small plastic bottles. The liquids include plain water, colored water, corn syrup, liquid detergent, liquid hand sanitizer, cooking oil, and fabric softener. 

My students have a ball spinning, shaking, turning, rolling their bottles down a ramp, and finally, seeing if they can swirl their liquids to make a tornado inside their bottles. Many actually do make tornadoes!

Your room will surely explode with outbursts of loud shrills, cheers, laughs, and even a few screams at times by what your students discover about their bottles of liquids.

I use the Smartboard pages as visuals to explain the steps of the investigation to my kiddos, from asking the question, to setting up the center, to explaining the materials, to guiding them through the exploration questions.  To record their observations about their liquids, I've included a Liquids Four-Square where they write and draw the properties of their liquids (fast, slow, bubbles, tornado (swirl)).

For recording what kiddos learn about liquids, I do an oral What We Learned student page with my kiddos, where we discuss and write down our findings and complete the sentences together on the student page. This year I plan to have my students add these pages to their Science Notebook or Journal.

As an extension, I've added a reflective writing component, where students are given an opportunity to respond to a prompt and illustrate a picture. I do this investigation in early October so I realize that my students will not be able to write much. To this end, I provide a page with a large space for a picture at the top and a few lines at the bottom with the prompt, "Some liquids..."

Finally, I include a Home/School Connection culminating activity, where I challenge students to find pictures that include both solids and liquids in them. I copy this activity as a double-sided page, and on one side there is an explanation of the project with an example. On the other side of the page I put the student page for mounting their picture/s. There are two sentences with prompts for writing about their pictures. I have my students bring these to their next science class, where they get to share them with their table partners and/or the class. This year I plan to place these projects on my Focus Wall.

As in past years, I'm really looking forward to this investigation this year. I will be sure to post pictures of this year's students doing the investigation. I'm sure they will be just as great.
 

Happy end of summer days,

**Lori**