Teddy Bears, Oranges and the Five senses

Wow!! I can't believe it is already October! We have done several fun experiments in class but this was the first one I got up on my blog (I misplaced my camera). We have been working for many weeks on matter and during this experiment the kids got to have a hands-on experience with mass. Each partnership got to predict the mass of their orange, peel and pulp and then got to actually find the mass. It was fun to see some of them make the connection that once the knew the mass of the whole fruit and the peel, estimating the pulp was not as hard!! They really enjoyed getting to do an experiment that included a nice, sweet treat at the end! I also threw in some pictures of a previous experiment we did where the kids used their 5 senses to observe the properties of matter. I hope you enjoy watching your little scientist experience this hands-on learning moment!

Research Projects

Some of the students were able to participate in a research project if they had extra time in class. I am going to be attaching some pictures of the kids presenting their projects to the class. Here is a video that one student put together on her study of pteradactyls. More to come!!



Here are the rest of the pictures! Sorry it took so long but I hope enjoy!

Houston Livestock and Rodeo

Scrapbooking design generated with Smilebox

Dirt is Fun!!!

What could be better than being told to play with dirt?!! We got to do some experimenting with soil this past week, and the kids got a hands-on experience with what makes up soil. The kids were able to observe with their eyes, hands and then got to use a seive to see what all was in their soil. If you look closely, you will see we found a worm and a roly poly in some soil samples. Ask you child tonight, "What did you learn about soil?" You will be so impressed with all they took away from this messy experiment!!!

Frog Friday

I just wanted to post some great pictures and a video I took on Frog Friday. The kids got to learn all about frogs as well as other interesting animals from science expert Barbara Cargill. Enjoy!

Sound is a Vibration

I can't believe how long it has been since I updated our class blog. I was looking at pictures of our last experiment and realized I never updated an experiment we conducted in December. My sincerest apologies for the oversight!! Anyways, right before the holidays the kids got to do a station rotation of sound experiments. They were allowed to do the old string and cup experiment and play telephone with each other. They also used a string and a spoon to bang things and feel the vibration as well as listen to the sound bottles make with different amounts of water in them. Their favorite was using a tuning fork and seeing what would happen when it was dipped in water! You were definitely in a splash zone during this experiment! These hands-on experiments really helped the kids realize that sound is caused by vibrations and without vibrations, there is no sound!

Digestion . . . EWWWWW!

What a fun and exciting time we have had working through the human body this year. We have studied the skeleton, heart, lungs, brain, muscles, and the digestive system. We completed the unit today with a station rotation that allowed the kids to study x-rays, monitor their pulse with a tack and a match, make a stethoscope with a Styrofoam cup, learn about reaction time while trying to catch a dollar bill and see an example of how our lungs work with balloons and empty dish soap bottles. However, this post is about the digestive system and how our stomach works. The kids were partnered up last week and given a bag with a few banana slices, a few crackers and a couple of drops of water. We discussed the job of the stomach and the kids got to see first hand how much work it takes to "digest" food. We created a not so appetizing liquid in our "stomachs" and had some interesting conversations about what we observed! As always, lots of fun was had and I hope you enjoy the following video!!