Physical Science
Supplies
1 Blank Composition Book (must be this brand, but choose any color)
Glue Sticks
Sharpened pencils with erasers
Black Ball Point Pen
Colored pencils/crayons (up to you!)
Personal sharpener
Scissors
Ruler
Highlighter(s) - I will provide one
Hand Sanitizer
Overview
In-Class Updates
Week 1:
This week we discussed what science is to introduce the students to what we will be learning about in the year ahead of us. We spoke about science as learning more about the world around us that God created and asking questions about it. We watched a video on what a scientist does and then we learnt about the scientific method. The students each glued the scientific method steps into their science notebook which is kept in our classroom at school. Following this, we did a science experiment by poking a sharpened pencil through a ziploc bag filled with water. Each of the students made a "guess"/hypothesis as to what they thought would happen and then we tested it out. We then learnt a song about the scientific method that we will be using throughout the year to help us remember what steps are included in the process. Lastly, we memorized a verse, Jeremiah 51:15, that went along with our lesson.
Week 2:
To start class off this week, Annabelle led us in prayer. We then began our science lesson for the day, on matter. We begun with reviewing our scientific method song that helps the students to remember the steps in the scientific method. Next we put on our "thinking caps" and discussed the question, "What is matter?". We had a few students make a hypothesis/guess about what they thought matter was. We discussed how matter is something that takes up space and has weight. Then the students went on a class matter hunt, where they each selected an item from the classroom that was made of matter and placed it into our bag full of matter. We then all sat down and read pages 9-19 in the book, "What's the Matter in Mr. Whiskers Room?". We learned two big ideas, (1) that matter takes up space and has weight, and (2) that we can observe matter with our senses. We made note that even air is considered matter because it takes up space, like air in a balloon. Following this, we went through our bag full of matter and each student explained why the item they chose was matter. To end our science lesson, we filled out our lab reports with the conclusion that matter is anything that takes up space and has weight.
Week 3:
To start class off this week, Annabelle led us in prayer. We have certain class roles for the students and these will switch each month or so. We then began our science lesson for the day, learning more about matter. We begun with taking a look at a mason jar that was filled with milk and butter, with room for air too. The main question we lead with was, "Can we group types of matter together?". I asked the students a series of questions with regards to the matter in the jar so that we could come to the conclusion that matter has three different states: solid, liquid, and gas. We discussed the characteristics of each state and drew what the particles in each look like, and then the students had the opportunity to "act out" the three different states of matter. Next, we continued our reading in, "What's the Matter in Mr. Whisker's Room?" where we learned our two big ideas, (1) that we can group different types of matter together, and (2) that matter can change states (such as water). Lastly, the students filled out their lab reports with their findings and results.
Week 4:
We then began our science lesson for the day, learning more about matter. The main question we lead with was, "Does all matter look and feel the same?". The students worked in pairs to sort out different items (pennies, pipe cleaners, cotton balls, sand paper, tissue paper, and rubber bands) and match them according to their "property" such as: hard, soft, delicate, rough, bendable, and stretchy. We discussed that matter has different properties, and so even though everything they sorted through was a solid, the items felt and looked different. Next, the students filled out their lab reports with their findings and results. Lastly, we glued in and worked on a little add-on worksheet that mentions the different categories we can separate matter into based off properties, such as size, weight, color etc. We ended our science class a little early to head to the rally.
Week 5:
To start class off this week, Kinsley led us in prayer. We then began our science lesson for the day, learning more about matter. The main question we lead with was, "Can matter change it's look and still be the same matter (same properties)?". The students worked in pairs playing around with different items and seeing how they could make those items look different. They were all given some paper, some legos, and a pencil. It was so fun watching the students get creative... and destructive haha! Following the activity, we discussed that even when they made the matter look different, such as ripping/folding/crumpling the paper, breaking/sharpening the pencil, or building the legos, the item still stayed the same type of matter (solid). This is called a physical change. Next, the students filled out their lab reports with their findings and results.
Week 6:
We began our science lesson for the day by reviewing our "Big Ideas" about matter that we have learned the past few weeks. We put on our thinking caps and pondered the question, "Why do some things sink and some things float?". We then read a few pages from our book, "What's the Matter in Mr. Whisker's Room?". From this, the students had the opportunity to learn about "density" and what it is and how it relates to matter. More specifically they learned that if something is more dense than water it will sink, but if the object is less dense than water, it will float. We then tested this out by placing different objects into a bowl of water one-by-one and seeing if they floated or not. If the item floated, they glued the picture related to the top of the beaker that they glued into their science notebook. If the item sank, they glued the picture to the bottom of the beaker. To finish off our lesson we tested out water and oil together!
Week 7:
We began our science lesson for the day by reviewing our "Big Ideas" about matter that we have learned the past few weeks. We then read a few pages from our book, "What's the Matter in Mr. Whisker's Room?". We then asked and answered the following question, "Can matter change its look and become new matter?". The students learned that yes, it can and they gave me some examples that led us to speak about reversible and irreversible changes. While they completed a worksheet where they sorted through and categorized reversible and irreversible changes, the students had the opportunity to make their own pancakes! After this, they completed their lab report, filling out what they learnt from our little tasty experiment with pancakes!
Week 8:
We began our class with Victoria leading us in prayer and then started our science lesson for the day by reviewing our "Big Ideas" about matter that we have learned the past few weeks. We then asked and answered the following question, "If I change the appearance of matter, can I ever change it back?". The students learned that yes, with certain matter such as water, we can. This led us to our Big Idea 6, that matter has special properties when heated and cooled to change its state. We used some ice cubes that we then melted in a kettle, as the students observed, into a liquid which then evaporated into steam. We then "trapped" that steam into a ziplock bag and saw that it condensed back into a liquid after being a gas. The students were able to see how water cycled through the three different states, solid, liquid, and gas, when heated and cooled! After this, they completed their lab report, filling out what they learnt from our little tasty experiment with water. Then they sorted through diagrams, pictures, and descriptions to show what the water looked like in each state.
Week 9:
We began our class by reviewing our "Big Ideas" about matter that we have learned the past few weeks. We then asked and answered the following question, "What are some of the purposes for wearing clothes?". Together we all discussed and spoke about many different purposes for clothes and why there are different materials, such as to keep us warm or cool, to protect us from getting dirty, or injuring ourselves, to tell people where we work, to make it easier to do things such as swimming, and to protect us from the sun. The students then had the opportunity to get creative and use their imagination in our Mad Hatter Experiment where they were able to make a sunhat out of different materials.
Week 10:
This week we started a new unit on Forces! We begun by putting on our thinking caps and asking and answering the question, "What is a force?". We learnt through some discussion that a force is a push or pull that puts an object into motion. The students were grouped up and each group was given a tennis ball. First, they were asked to move the tennis ball without using their body at all. They learned that this is not possible and some type of force is needed! From there, they had the opportunity to get creative and play around with the tennis ball, figuring out different ways to push and pull it. After this, we filled out our respective lab report and if the students had the time they were able to complete a "Push vs Pull" worksheet, separating different images into the correct category based on what type of force was being used.
Week 11:
We started class with a word of prayer and then jumped into our unit on forces. We read an informative book on this subject called "Forces Make Things Move". The students then had the opportunity to watch Dude Perfect's World's Longest Trick Shot in order to see a multitude of pushes and pulls at work together. We then moved onto our experiment where the students were each given a toy car. They had the opportunity to put that toy car on a ramp and watch what the car did on different surfaces, such as the tile floor, carpet, or even concrete. The students learned about gravity (the force pulling us towards the center of the earth) and friction. The students then filled out their corresponding lab report.
Week 12:
We started class with a word of prayer and then jumped into our unit on forces. We started with asking and answering the question, "Why does an object stop moving?". We then moved onto our experiment in order to be able to answer this question. The students were able to play around with a tennis ball and discuss the different reasons why it would stop moving. We came to the conclusion, thanks to Sir Isaac Newton, that an object in motion wants to stay in motion and an object at rest wants to stay at rest. The students learned that this is called "inertia". We then filled out their corresponding lab report.
Week 13:
We started class with a word of prayer and then jumped into our unit on forces. We first reviewed our big ideas on forces from the previous weeks and we then began with our experiment. The students tested out exerting smaller and larger forces on an object and witnessing how that changed the objects motion. We came to the conclusion, that the greater the force, the greater the change in motion. We then filled out their corresponding lab report. Next, we started speaking about simple machines and different types of simple machines. The students were each handed a few cards with different simple machines on them. They had to sort the simple machines they had into the different categories such as levers, pulleys, screws, incline plane, wheel and axis etc.
Week 15:
We started class with a word of prayer and all caught up with each other after a fun Christmas Break! We discussed that this semester the students will slowly but surely be introduced to homework to prepare them for 3rd Grade. Next, we reviewed the four Big Ideas we have learnt so far about Forces. Then the students popped on their thinking caps to answer questions such as, is it easier to move an elephant or a mouse? Why? We came to the conclusion that items or objects with more weight take more force to move the object. We put this to the test with a little experiment using a longboard and an empty box. Students were able to see how much easier it was to push something with less weight than something with more weight, therefore the heavier items needed more force. We filled out our lab reports with our conclusions from the experiment and then we took the longboard outside to have some fun and test out the force needed to push each other!
Week 16:
We started class with a word of prayer and then we reviewed our Big Ideas we have been learning so far about Forces. We then begun looking at our next big idea, where we asked the question "How can we measure motion?". Two students had the opportunity to 'race' each other; however, one student ran a shorter distance and we asked the students, "How can we tell who was faster?". We came to the conclusion that we had to look at their speed, which led us into learning that speed = distance/time. So, we got to testing this formula out! The students made paper airplanes and we did three trials in which we measured the distance and time of their paper airplane. The students were then able to see the speed of their paper airplane on three different trials. On the third trial we even added a paper clip to their planes to see what difference it would make, thank you Ms Kelly for this idea! Students filled out their lab reports with their trial results and the conclusion that speed is measured using distance and time.
Week 17:
We started class with a word of prayer and then we begun our Sound Unit by asking and answering the question, "How does sound get from one place to another?". We spoke about the feeling of vibrations when listening to sound and we discussed some of the other things we already know about sound. The students were then each given toilet paper rolls to play around with and figure out how they could use it to make different sounds, and how the sound changed with their different uses. The students came up with some great conclusions! We then discussed our Science Fair Experiment that we will be working on for homework over the next few weeks. You can find the information for the Sound Science Fair Experiment linked under "homework" under the THURSDAY tab on our webpage.
Week 18:
We started class with a word of prayer and then we asked and answered the question, "Does sound have the ability to make things move?". The students agreed sound does indeed have the ability to make things move and they were able to give me some great examples. We then conducted our experiment which helped us clarify the answer. Students then filled out their lab reports and we reviewed where we were at with regards to our Science Experiments.
Week 19:
We started class with a word of prayer and then begun our science lesson with asking and answering the question, "How are high sounds made and how are low sounds made?". We used an instrument as an example and looked at the longer strings and the shorter strings and discussed why they sounded different and with which string sound waves, or vibrations, would move quicker on. We came to the conclusion that the shorter strings produced faster vibrations and a higher pitch, while longer strings produced slower vibrations and a lower pitch. The students filled their respective lab report and played around with a few more instruments. We also made our very own instrument to test out the different sounds produced by different lengths of strings.
Week 20:
We started class with a word of prayer and then begun our science lesson with asking and answering the question, "Does sound always travel from one place to another at the same speed?". We reviewed the difference between solids, liquids, and gases to get us started with answering our question. We then tested it out as a class by lining up closely together (representing a solid) and sending a "vibration" down our line. Then students took a step away from one another (representing a liquid) and we repeated the experiment, and lastly they spread further out (representing a gas) and we repeated the experiment one last time. Each time we recorded the time it took for our "vibration" to make it all the way down the line. We found that the sound vibration moved fastest in a solid and slowest through a gas. This helped us understand that sound travels at different speeds through different mediums. The students finished with filling out their lab reports and handing out their valentines.
Week 21:
This week we had Career Day!
Week 22:
We started class with a word of prayer and then begun our science lesson with asking and answering the question, "What happens to sound when it hits a metal? A fabric? Water? We discussed that sound can either be transmitted, reflected, or absorbed. Our experiment included the students sorting different sound scenarios under the three different options: transmitted, absorbed, or reflected. They worked in groups to encourage cooperation and teamwork, and after they completed it we went through the correct answers and discussed things as a class. Lastly, students filled out their lab reports.
Week 23:
We started class with a word of prayer and then we had our Science Fair! All the students did such a wonderful job and I was so proud to see what they had all learnt and taken away from this assignment.
Week 24:
We started class with a word of prayer and then begun our science lesson by introducing our new topic, "Light". We looked at how light can be reflected, retracted, or absorbed. We spoke about the difference between the three and watched a corresponding video to further understand. We then used a tiny mirror to see how the light was reflected off of it. Students then went on a hunt around the class, in groups for objects they thought would either retract or absorb the light. They wrote/drew out their findings in their science notebooks.
Week 25:
We started class with a word of prayer and then begun our science lesson with asking and answering the question, "Does light travel in straight lines?". We used a few index cards with hole punches and lined the holes up, by standing the index cards on the table. We then had someone hold a piece of paper at the end of the train of index cards a few inches back. We switched off the lights and shone a flashlight at the first index card. What we noticed was a small round circle of light on the back piece of paper. Telling us the light was travelling in a straight line through the hole punches and was shining onto the paper in the back. The students drew what they saw in their scienc notebooks.
Week 26:
We started class with a word of prayer and then begun our science lesson by looking at and discussing Big Idea #3, “When light waves hit something flat & transparent they transmit”. We used a flashlight and put it up against different materials: a sheet protector, a projector sheet, and white cardstock and discussed the results. The students then completed the lab report for their experiment.
Week 27:
We started class with a word of prayer and then begun our science lesson by looking at and discussing Big Idea #4, “When light waves hit something curved and transparent they refract". We watched a video on concave and convex lenses and then discussed the differences between the two. The students then completed their lab reports for the experiment.
Week 28:
We started class with a word of prayer and then begun our science lesson by looking at and discussing Big Idea #5, "When light waves hit something flat & shiny, they reflect”. We watched a corresponding video on light and then the students completed the lab report with their findings.
Week 29:
We started class with a word of prayer and then begun our science lesson by looking at and discussing Big Idea #6, "When light waves hit something dark & opaque, they absorb”. We watched a corresponding video on light and what happens when it hits different object. Students then opened up their science books and completed a page of vocabulary relating to light. They looked at the words: refract, reflect, transmit, transparent, translucent, and opaque. For each word they drew a corresponding image to help them remember what the word meant.