Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Wizard's Brew

What happens when you mix a solid like dry ice with a liquid like water? The kids had a blast watching our "wizard's brew" bubble and float out of the bowl. Did you know dry ice is called dry ice because it goes straight from a solid to a gas? It is one of the few objects that does not change into a liquid before it changes into a gas. This was a great, fun experiment to wrap up our matter unit. Now on to animals and living and nonliving!!

Miss Simpson's Class


Mrs. Gist's Class

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Mystery Matter

What a great day we had in class today! One student said, "Mrs. Gist this is fun like science recess!" We used our imagination and imagined that aliens had visited our classroom last night. The aliens left a box with regular objects like a battery, a domino, a key and even some mystery liquids. The problem was that they forgot some of their favorite objects, and they need them back. However, the list they left for me is written in alien language and I can't tell what they want us to keep and what they need returned. The only clue is the information they left about the object's properties. For example, they told us the "burble" they forgot has a mass of 41 grams, is 5 cm long, sinks, is magnetic and is shiny, pointy and small. Your children got to choose an object from the box and analyze their matter's properties to help decide if their matter was the mystery matter the aliens need back. The kids had such a good time and got to experiment with balance scales, magnets, deductive thinking, measuring cups and rulers. I took a few pictures during our experiment, and I know your children learned from this hands-on experiment about the properties of matter!! Make sure to let them tell you about it!