Balloon Skewer

As mentioned before I love science. This is the reason I also love Steve Spangler's site. He has videos, lessons, explanations of all things science, and of course a store (be careful--highly addictive).

I have been focusing on our investigation and experimentation standards because these transcend the grade levels and also encompass many higher order thinking skills. I also thought it would be great review in preparation for our science fair. We are therefore spending our time having fun, fun, fun through rigorous science investigations.

While on Steve's site, I came across this Balloon Skewer experiment and thought it would be great for my kiddos. I was so right! The target vocabulary alone is impressive: stress/strain, elasticity, polymers, and reviewed molecules. Students had to determine if it is possible to poke a balloon without popping it. They all thought it was impossible. They made various observation, took notes, and made inferences based on those observations. In our first attempt, only one of my students succeeded. This caused an uproar of questions. Everyone wanted to know how he did it. This was an excellent opportunity to have that student explain their reasoning, steps, inferences and model what he had done. Of course, now students wanted to do it again to try out their "NEW" learning. The second attempt had 18/20 students successfully accomplish the task. On the third attempt 20/20 succeeded. They really did a lot of learning and had so much fun in the process. This is a win-win lesson for me.

  

You really need to try this...they will have so much fun!

The Elements of the Periodic Table

I LOVE science-all science. I think it is amazing, fascinating, mind-blowing, and so much fun. There of course have been some units of study that are more difficult, abstract, and/or even content intense to teach, but I have learned that the more hands on you are and diverse in your teaching, the better the kiddos understand difficult concepts and above all enjoy the learning.

As I have mentioned before, being new to 5th grade has had some challenges, but it is fabulous teachers such as Stephanie, from Teaching in Room 6, that have saved me time and time again. When it was time to tackle the periodic table (by now we have done chemical reactions left and right), I went over to her blog to see what fabulous ideas I could "borrow". Well, like I said, she is great!

We started out by reading our science resource book, other articles I found online, and The Elements by Scholastic. They loved the graphics and real life examples in the book. We did a lot of the reading in small groups and they took notes as a group. This eased the pressure for students that were having  a little difficult time with the content.

I downloaded the PowerPoint she suggested from The Science Spot  (the site many other great resources) and they had a blast with the chant.

The other thing I did, was show them videos that dealt with the topic in fun and engaging ways:

Bill Nye--Chemical Reactions

Scholastic's-Study Jams

After we had done all the background building and understanding, students had a project to do.  I used, Stephanie's All About the Elements --totally complete project. Students did all the work by themselves. I only provided the poster paper and some computer time in class. the rest they completed at home. They could not stop talking about the things they were learning and about how they never knew how many things could contain their element. It finally solidified that ALL things are made of matter. Of course that made me happy! I totally recommend you get yourself a copy at her TpT store. It comes with student directions, samples, and criteria checklists. I loved it!

Here is a collage of my students work. My students also had to present their findings/poster/diorama. I cannot begin to tell you how impressed I was/am.

Free photo collage customized with Smilebox

This is a larger picture of their posters.

I truly enjoyed teaching/learning about the elements with my kiddos and I know they like it too. :)