Rube Goldberg Machines

Do you remember playing Mousetrap as a child? I loved the idea of setting up the trap and watching it fall into place....

Can you even find them anymore? 
Little did I know that I was building my own "Rube Goldberg" Machine. With the onset of YouTube in the classroom, I have fallen in love with sharing these machines with my students.

My classroom full of future engineers and kinesthetic learners have fallen in love with them too.  Here's a great Mythbusters video for the holidays (wish I had seen it last month!)

 

Stay tuned for how my kids made their own versions in science class!

 

 

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Force and Motion - Rollercoasters!

Every year we use foam tubes and marbles to teach the concept of force and motion using the lesson plans created by Karen Ansberry and Emily Morgan.  Have you read the book More Picture Perfect Science Lessons? or the sister book Picture Perfect Science Lessons? Both of these books include science lessons based on children's literature in a meaningful context - based on the 5 E's of Inquiry. You can buy them at NSTA or Amazon for about $36.  They are well worth the money!

Recently...I was browsing YouTube and found an excellent explanation of this same lesson that we do each year that was taped in Kansas City.  The teacher does a great job of explaining what she is doing and why she is doing it.  She explains the 5 E's - Engage, Explore, Explain, Extend and Evaluate

It is a perfect example of the program with great modeling by the teacher.  I enjoyed seeing her cute additions to the lesson - the kids wear lab coats and safety goggles! She also had some cute visuals of expressions kids may make when riding on a roller coaster. I hope you will check it out and see a great way to introduce a rather difficult science concept. 

 

 

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Vocabulary Connections

If you have ever read my blog before, you know that I am passionate about including vocabulary connections in my science classroom.  What you may not know, is that I am passionate about including natural vocabulary connections in all curricular areas! 

For the past several years, with the help of my wonderful mentor Kip Bisignano from Delta Education, I have implemented these strategies into my classroom. What has been the result?  Well, not only have my science scores risen but my math, reading and social studies scores have risen as well.  I am NOT putting more time into reading instruction - but instead am putting more reading, language and writing into my content areas.  One hour is enough for guided reading!

In thinking about the new year, I thought it would be great to have a planning guide with proven structures listed and ready for me to pull from and plan.  I have created a list of 20 tried and true structures, many of which I have already blogged about.  For the ones I haven't yet blogged about, well...look for them in the future!

The actual planning sheet includes a spot for the topic you are teaching.  For example, the next topic we are teaching is force and motion.  I would write that general topic in the star. 
Next, I would purposefully plan what content words I would teach - like push, pull, gravity, speed, acceleration, deceleration, stop.  Third, there is a spot for Science Process words or Critical thinking.  We always compare and contrast in this unit as well as predict, conclude and observe.  I included Related Books to remind myself to read "Rollercoaster" by Maria Frazee as well as other nonfiction books.

The last box is the place where I can dump my ideas for connections to the topic - word wall, guess my word game for morning meeting, concept maps, jigsaw activities for reading nonfiction text to clarify force and motion concepts, drawing diagrams of a roller coaster to label where we see forces at work, and highlighting vocabulary words in our science notebook itself. 

I hope you can use this FREE resource for many lessons - not just in science.  Please drop me a note to let me know if you used it and how it worked for you!

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Bird Treats for the Winter

Just before Christmas break, we spent some time creating bird feeders for our local birds.  Let me warn you...it did create a MESS on the floor.  However, my students were wonderful helpers with the clean up and graciously borrowed brooms from other classes to sweep it all up in no time!

Here's what we started with:

We made two bird feeders.  The first one was the typical pinecone feeder with a twist.  Because so many students have peanut allergies, I couldn't use peanut butter as the spread.  Instead we used shortening - generic for crisco. The crisco was much cheaper than peanut butter too!!! The students started with yarn and tied it around the pinecone, spread crisco on the cone and then dipped it in the birdseed. 

 

The next one was really fun...old fashioned popcorn strings with a twist!

Instead of using thread and a needle, we used wire from the craft store.  The kids could easily string the popcorn on the wire and no risk of getting cut!

 

Parents sent in popped corn for us to use.  They sent in a ton of popcorn!

 

After we finished, we took them outside and hung them on our local trees for winter break.

 

 

 

Hope you can use this too!

 

 

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Watershed Models

Do you build models of the watershed in your classroom? As part of our unit on natural resources, we teach students the importance of watersheds, forests, and mineral resources.  We are responsible for teaching the students about what a watershed is and how humans impact it.

So to start, we teach students what a watershed is.  They are all familiar with the water cycle model.  I use this to start as they can connect what they already know to something new.  When looking at this model I point out that water runs downhill towards a body of water.  When they ask, what about the water that just soaks into the ground - I remind them of ground water. Where I live we don't have city water - not even at our school!  We are very familiar with well systems...so they understand that there is water underground.

Next I want them to learn that a watershed is land. We all live in a watershed. A watershed is simply an area of land that leads to a body of water.  In Virginia where I live, we lived in the Rappahannock watershed that leads to an even bigger Chesapeake Bay watershed.  Because we often mention the river or bay connected to the watershed, students often think a watershed is a water source.  This is a common misconception, even with adults. 

So to help them see the land is the watershed that leads to the water source, I tried this experiment.  I found this idea while previewing the FivePonds science text book. I think this idea is genius! 

Materials:  Potting soil, text books (for stacking), paint liners ($1 each at Lowes) and water.

This model was easy to create.  It was cheap enough for me to purchase 5 - one for each group.  The students built up the soil in the paint liner and stacked one side with books.  There is already a built in collection pool (for the paint) where the water will run and collect.

 

My students were able to observe what happens when it "rains" on the watershed.

 

They noticed that the water "pushed" soil with it when it was flowing.

 

 

It was a great introduction to the watershed.  Some other ideas for extension would be to grow grass in one pan and compare what happens with grass and without grass. This would give them a visual of a true Riparian Buffer. 

 

I will also include some excellent watershed videos:

 

 

 

 

 

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A day to remember

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My Heart breaks for the parents, the children and the staff at Sandy Hook Elementary.

God Bless them...

 

Freddy the Fish...water quality

Back into my classroom....we are learning about watersheds.  Boy have we had fun! One of the activities that I love is the Freddy the Fish Story from the WUP center in Michigan.  In this activity, you read aloud a story about Freddy the Fish (see the green sponge?) and his travels down the watershed.  He starts in a nice cool, clean stream.  As he travels he encounters all sorts of pollution - from too much sediment, to litter, fertilizer, etc..

The materials you pour into the tank are easy to find at home and are earth friendly for when you pour the water out as well.  We used Koolaid mix, basil, syrup, coffee sludge, soil, etc...

The students really enjoyed this demonstration and were able to visualize the effects humans have on water quality.  When we were finished, the students then went back to their science notebooks and drew a picture of before and after.  They were able to add their opinions as well as noted observations about the quality of water and the effect on Freddy (he dies, by the way!).

Great lesson!

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