The Balloon Experiment

After learning more about the scientific process, we decided to do an investigation.   We wondered what would happen if we added baking soda (solid) to vinegar (liquid).   The connection was made that it looks like the experiment with the Mentos in the soda.   Everyone know that blows up so no one wanted to sit to close to the table!  Our hypothesis was that the combination was going to blow up the balloon.  I forgot to add that the balloon has the baking soda in it and is attached to the bottle.

The videos I took were too long to post on this blog, but I will post a QR code outside the classroom
Make sure you have a QR Reader app on your phone. (it's a free app)
Scan and watch!

Melting ice

Here is a close up shot of what the salt can do to ice!

Melting Ice Part Ii

Here is another series of pictures where the students are performing

 scientific investigations using salt, food coloring and ice!

Melting Ice?

What is so exciting about melting ice?  Well, we made it melt by using salt.  The salt (solid) was sprinkled on the ice (solid).  The ice began to melt!  How did we know - we saw it happening!  The salt looked like it was eating through the ice.   Next, we added food coloring to see that the ice was no longer smooth.  The salt changed the texture to rough as it began to melt the ice.   

Lap Books Part II

Here are the finished lap books.  Open them up to find out everything you need to know about matter!

Lap Book Part I

The students are working together in cooperative groups to research information about matter.  They will use the information to create a lap book.  A lap book is like a foldable that can be used to teach information and used as a reference for further study. 

Properties of Matter

Your Superhero may have come home and asked for some strange objects!  That's because we are exploring matter in our world.   Did you know everything in the world is made of matter?  The question is - Is it a solid, liquid, or gas?   The one thing we know for sure is that water can be all three states of matter.  Once we have determined which state of matter an object is; we then need to figure out what properties it has. 

Observations of a Scientist

After the hearts had dissolved in their various liquids, we mad some interesting observations.  

Come by the classroom and take a look at our bulletin board. 

Observations

As with any experiment, you must record your observations and draw conclusions.   We decided that if the liquid has bubbles (gas) then the hearts can float otherwise they will sink.  Some other interesting observations that we made:  The green hearts lost their color over time and the water turned green and it had a minty smell!  The other hearts did color the water, but the hearts themselves did not lose color.  And the strangest thing of all -  in all three liquids (water, vinegar, soda) the hearts over time were not hard anymore.  You could actually squish them between your fingers!

Changing Matter

The hearts were perfect to use in an experiment to introduce our new unit of inquiry:  How The World Works.   Our central idea is:  Scientific investigations help us understand the world around us.   We decided that investigation means we should experiment to find out things or solutions.  Today we wanted to see if the hearts (solids) would sink or float in different liquids.   

To our surprise they did sink BUT in the Sprite the hearts floated to the top on bubbles (gas)!  When the bubbles popped the hearts sank again. 

Live version!

Valentine exchange time!

Finally, after lunch the Superheroes got to exchange their Valentine's! 

 The picture isn't as much fun as watching it live! 

How many???

I bought a very big bag of candy hearts and we began to wonder how many were in the bag?  That led to a math challenge:  If there are 12 candy hearts in a serving and there are 62 servings in a bag how many candy hearts are there in the bag?  The class broke up into cooperative groups and tried to find a way to solve this problem.   We have been talking a lot about how to use your strategies to find a solution.  Ava A. made the connection with work she was doing in math stations.

   Her group made ten frames and placed 12 hearts in each section.  That made it easier to count.  

We quickly discovered (skip counting by 2's and 10's) that each ten frame could hold 120 hearts. 

It turns out that the bag had more than 700 hearts!

Heart Challenge

Each group of students was given a cup of candy hearts and a graph.  The only conundrum was...  the graph only went up to 10 and there were obviously more than 10 candy hearts.  What to do?  Each team came up with an interesting way of solving the problem.   Next, the students had to alter the graph to accommodate their large numbers.  One group decided to skip count by 5's and then all the information would fit on one graph!  Interesting things we found out:  Every group had WAY more purple hearts than any other color.  The color with the fewest amount in each group was green. 

Valentine's Day

The Superheroes were very excited to bring in their Valentine box creations!

  I loved seeing all the interesting and creative designs. 

Bulletin Board

I have placed all the hearts maps on the bulletin board outside our classroom.  The large heart contains information as to how the lesson tied into our unit of inquiry.   The hearts DO NOT have any names of the students on them.  The question is:  Can you find your child's heart?

Heart Mapping

This is always my favorite lesson to complete with the students.  We use the hearts in many ways, but the most important is to communicate what is important to us.  The students have spent some time thinking about what means the most to them and recorded it using words, symbols or pictures.  

Communicating with symbols

As we near the end of our unit of inquiry, we began to wonder about the letters and symbols used to represent language around the world. The big question was:  Do all languages use punctuation marks?  This prompted a lively discussion on what languages do we know in our classroom.  It has been an interesting journey as we discover what language looks like in different parts of the world.  We are now adding new language by creating labels showing an additional seven languages!!

Writer's Workshop

Writing is an integral part of our day in first grade.   The students are learning how to revise a piece of writing by performing 'story surgery".   We are becoming experts at revision (which is only part of the writing cycle).   In the picture, two friends are reading a poem and asking questions and wondering about what the author is saying.  Conferencing is an important part of listening to yourself read your writing  out loud and having others listen while you read out loud.  

Reading Everywhere!

Our new favorite time of the day is READING!   The students use their reading bag 

which is full of JUST RIGHT books and find a quiet spot in the room.  

As you can see we find lots of interesting places to read!!

Morning Tubs

We continue to use our ATL's (Approaches to Learning) to explore, invent and create new and exciting things during morning tubs.  The Superheroes are getting better at sharing their amazing ideas and coming up with some incredible stories!

Heart Mapping

 As we continue our inquiry into Where we are in Time and Place, we discovered a new purpose for mapping.   Usually we think of maps as a way to show how to get somewhere.   This week we read "My Map Book" by Sara Fanelli and discovered other ways to communicate with maps!  She showed us some different perspectives that were unique and interesting.   Heart mapping is when you use words, pictures, and symbols to communicate to others what is close to your heart.  

We will utilize this information during Writer's Workshop to create poetry.