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!