Seed Investigation

Click here for free printables: Seed Investigation (+ Free Printables)! Click here for a free lima bean dissection lab!

Sap to Syrup: States of Matter and Heat

Explore what form of energy transforms maple sap into maple syrup, then maple candy!
Video Introduction: Sap in the Sugar Maple Tree
Book: Sugaring Time by Kathryn Lasky
Resources to explain the process: Word Playhouse
Maple Sugar Tree Identification sheet: Ohio Thoughts Blog

Recording sheets about Heat and the States of Matter: click here 
- Students label the states of matter for each stage of the maple syrup process. Then, they identify heat as being the form of energy that changes maple sap into syrup, then maple candy.
- Maple Taffy Experiment with snow, students record the results of the experiment.
- Checklist if students go on a maple sugaring field trip

Recipe for maple candy: All Recipes
Recipe for Maple Taffy for the Freezing Experiment - The Kitchn

Season: End of February / Beginning of March

Lava in a Cup

First, add 3 inches of water to a cup. Next, pour 1/3 cup oil on top. Then, squirt 1 drop of food coloring. What happened?! The food coloring drop will sit on top of the oil. Grab a salt shaker and start sprinkling to get a reaction! Magically, "lava" will drizzle down and fill the cup! Watch closely and blobs will appear and shoot up to the top of the glass (salt dissolves and heads back to the surface). For the scientific explanation, check out Exploratorium Salt Volcano! For more blob activity pour a tsp of salt in (Science Bob).

Pasta Rock

Kids take whole and broken pieces of pasta (1/2 cup) and mix it with 2 tbsp of water in a cup. They dump out the water. Then, they add 2 tbsp of glue to the wet pasta (sand - optional). They stir it around, pour it on wax paper (let it dry), and create coquina! "Coquina is a sedimentary rock (limestone) that’s formed when seawater minerals cement seashells and sand together." - Education.com. Check out the full activity here!

coquina rock image via Geology.Yoo7

Root Beer Float Science

Investigate the 3 states of matter with a tasty treat! Click here for the printable.
(Kids draw the ice cream, root beer, and foam in the mug. Then, they label: solid, liquid, or gas)

Lemonade WAR!

Lemonade War Book Unit 

Reading / Economics: 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NgjwCHVZ6I0H82dx6z5KGufgA3_5JOS-/view?usp=sharing

Celebrate the end of the school year with lemonade in a bag! Kids explore fractions and measuring, while creating a tasty treat! Recipe is from Education.com.

1 serving:

1/4 lemon, 1/2 cup water, 1 tsp sugar

add ingredients to ziploc bag and snap

mix, squish, and squeeze with hands

add an ice cube and a straw

sip!

Also, check out ice cream - it's in the bag!

Egg DROP!

Humpty Dumpty Project: Can you keep an egg from cracking? Kids use any materials they want to protect their egg from a giant free fall! They drop their protected eggs from a super high spot. Then, they examine their egg and see if it's still intact!

Featured above:
straws with paper propellers - Sun Pack
coffee filter, paper bowl, pie pan parachute - News Miner
balloon parachute - Virginia Tech Outreach Program
tp tubes/ bubble wrap and balloon exterior - My Science 8 

Fossil Sandwich

Investigate how fossils are formed by creating a fossil sandwich. Kids use bread to represent layers of sedimentary rock. They use books and their strength to represent heat and pressure! Then, they become mini archaeologists and extract their objects and examine the imprint left behind!

Visit Copetoons for Swedish Fish Fossil Instructions (above). This experiment demonstrates how rock keeps the shape of an animal if it hardens before the animal decomposes.

Check out Ice Age Life for creating a fossil sandwich using a variety of objects. This activity shows kids that some objects create a better print than others, just like real fossils!

Animal Cracker Habitats / Food Chain

Taste the Rainbow

Skittles Exploration
1. Online collaboration project - skype and compare results with schools across the U.S. (Registration opens March 1)
2. Skittles Density Column - Cool Science at Home
3. Skittle Chromatography - Awesome Crazy Guyz
4. Skittle Color Separation - Parents: Homeschool Den
5. Fizzle a Skittle - Gigi Reviews
6. Skittles Riddle Book - Fun with a variety of math concepts
7. Skittle Arrays / Fractions - click here
8. Crack a skittle open like a clam shell?! - Parenting

Free Printables!
1. Skittles Graph, Tally, Sort - Golden Gang Kindergarten
2. Skittles Math Center - Erica Bohrer's First Grade
3. Skittles Place Value - Beacon Learning
4. Skittles Fractions - NWACC

Online Tool
Pie chart creator

Guess Who?! - Teeth

photos via cc: mouth 1 - Dana Beveridge, mouth 2 - Chris Penny, mouth 3 - Izik

This fun idea comes from Fall into First! Take photos (or have students take photos) of students' toothless mouths (showing their teeth). Next, ask kids to estimate the total number of teeth that have been lost in the class (sum of all their teeth lost). Have students go around the room and tally how many teeth each of their peers has lost. Have them count all of their tally marks and figure out the total. Whose prediction was the closet? Then, as a class, create a graph of how many teeth each child is missing. Hang the photos up, as well as the graph. Students try to guess who's mouth is whose based on their knowledge of how many teeth each of their peers has lost, as well as their keen observation skills.

Science experiment - Brush your teeth! - Part 1 and Part 2

Cookie Rocks and Mining

2 activities, Science and Economics:

1. Cookie Rocks - This experiment is inspired by Kinderpond's "C is for Cookie." Have all students sit around a large table. Give each kid a cookie. Then, have them destroy it! 

Weathering
First, have them experiment with a toothpick. Next, give them an ice cube to see the effects of ice on a cookie. They'll use the cube to chop at the cookie. Then, hand out an eyedropper to represent rain. Kids squirt water on the cookie. Note: You could even use a spray bottle.

Erosion
Once their finished demolishing their cookie, pass out straws. Have kids blow (wind) their cookie crumbles (rock fragments) toward the center of the table. Then, sweep their crumbs into a pile. 

Deposition
Add a couple drops of water to their crumbs (if needed) and squish them all together.


2. Cookie Mining Economics -  Check out the Museum of Science and Industry's Cookie Mining Project. Kids excavate chocolate chips from a cookie; but, first they have to purchase the materials they need and stay within their price range!

energy resources (renewable vs. non-renewable) - You can also use this activity to explore . Kids get a soft and hard chocolate chip cookie (which represent 2 landsites). Can they dig out coal without harming the landsite? Which site was easier to retrieve the coal? Visit Third Grade Thinkers for instructions!

If Earth was the size of a cherry tomato...

BBC has a giant pdf filled with astronomy activities: Star Gazing Live Star Guide 2012! Featured below is their activity of comparing planet sizes with food (page 22). Illustration via BBC, click the link to check out the rest of the activities!

Marshmallows 101

Chemistry - Have fun munching and constucting a marshmallow atom!
Featured above:
3D model - Angelfire
Paper Plate "Electron Shells" - The Daniel Academy
2D model - Lights, Camera, Learn

More atom activities:
Over-sized outdoor atom on the blacktop - 5th Grade Rocks, 5th Grade Rules - kids play the role of the protons, neutrons, and electrons! Plus, many more hands on projects!
Scholastic - Chemistry for 3rd graders - lots of activities that kids can snack on!

photo via adventures of first grade

Geometry - If you don't eat all of your marshmallows, save them for a the classic toothpick and mini marshmallow geometry lesson! Kids construct outlines of 3D solids, as well as polygons. This is a great activity to help kids count the vertices of shapes! (Note: You will want to use dried spaghetti for the rectangular prism to get the correct number of vertices) Visit Adventures of First Grade for details! There is even a scavenger hunt to go along with this activity!

photo credit Tufts Now

Engineering - You can also just have fun free stylin'! Kids can become mini engineers and build skyscrapers and bridges! Who can make the tallest structure without it collapsing?! - link for tall structures here!

Geology Chef

Cook up some SWEET rocks in the Geology Kitchen! For more rock cooking classes click here!




Also, check out the SWEET Rock Lab by To the Square Inch!

Candy Exploration Lab

Don't eat all of your Halloween candy! Instead, create a candy exploration lab!

Featured Above:
1. Steve Spangler - Skittles Chromatography, Floating M's, Gobstopper Color Separation, and more candy chemistry!

2. Science Matters - Candybar Density - Do nuts make a difference?

3. Classroom Magic - Volume of funsize candybars, plus free printable for the activity!

4. What are we doing today Mom? - SweetTart Weathering and Erosion

For more candy exploration visit CandyExperiments.com and Science Gal

Black Snake Fireworks

photo credit: all spark fireworks

Celebrate the fourth of July with snakes! All Spark Fireworks conducted an awesome chemistry experiment, black snake fireworks! Kids are amazed as a super long snake grows and twists right before their eyes! The snake is simply "puffing ash" caused by the chemical reaction of carbonate and CO2! All you need is sand, powdered sugar, baking soda, and lighter fluid. Visit All Spark Fireworks for directions and the explanation! Click here and here to see black snake fireworks in action! Check out this video tutorial by Labconco Corporation to create multiple mini snakes!

Celery With A Twist

Can you change the flavor of celery? Everyone knows the old experiment with celery, food coloring, and water to show kids how plants transport water through xylems. But, what would happen if we dissolved sugar in water? Could a celery stalk suck it up? Dissolve 2 tbsp in 1/4 cup of warm water and stir. Let the sugar dissolve completely. In another glass, just pour 1/4 cup water. In a third glass, demonstrate the classic celery / food coloring (1/4 cup water, 1/2 tsp food coloring). Finally, in another glass pour 1/4 cup of fruit punch, juice, or soda (any beverage of your choice). Optional: Spike's Science says to add sand before adding your liquid to keep your celery positioned. Then, wash your celery after the experiment to remove the sand. Now, cut  an inch off the bottom of each of your celery stalks. Leave the leafy part on top. Then, add one stalk to each of your liquids.

When the food coloring has travelled up the celery, you know the experiment is ready! If you added sand, clean your celery with water. Cut the celery up and taste it (not the colored celery, just your flavored and plain)! What happened? The celery with sugar is now sweet! You changed the flavor, amazing! Experiment with other flavors.

Note: To speed up the experiment, use a blow dryer pointed down on top of the celery's leaves. Visit Science on the Shelves for the scientific explanation. 

Citrus Reaction: Natural Soda

Pour 2/3 of a glass of orange juice. Add 1 tsp of baking soda. Orange juice will bubble and fizz right before your eyes! Try this experiment out on other juices. The acid in OJ creates a citrus reaction with baking soda, releasing CO2. Apparently this mixture is good for your skin too. ;) I tasted it and it had a very unique flavor, not as good as sugary Sunkist! Visit Sunkist for more orange experiments! Visit Zoom for instructions on how to make Lemon Juice Rockets!

Ice Cream - It's In The Bag

A fun, tasty experiment that transforms a liquid into a solid right before your eyes! 

materials for 1 quart ziploc bag:
1/2 cup whole milk
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
1 pinch table salt

You can add chocolate chips, cherries, etc in the bag as well. Seal bag and set aside.

materials for 1 gallon ziploc bag
1/2 cup rock salt
ice cubes - enough to fill the bag half full.

Put small sealed bag inside of the larger bag and seal. Now, smush, shake, and roll the bag for 10 to 15 minutes. Check out your liquid mixture, it's ice cream! Pull it out, grab a spoon, and enjoy!

Note: The ice cream will have a soft serve consistency. If you want it to harden up a bit, toss it in the freezer.