Shooting Stars...Meteors!

I WONDER how a meteor can change Earth?

After we inquired into how dinosaurs and super crocs have changed over time, the children naturally wanted to learn more about meteors and how they can change Earth. They already knew a lot about the meteor theory that killed the dinosaurs, but they were wondering what other changes could happen if it landed on Earth now. 

We first took ACTION into our new line of inquiry on meteors by reading articles in National Geographic for Kids. Luckily, we found a copy of an issue online about our topic! 

 

Then, we took our investigation further by watching a video online about meteors and asteroids.

Finally, to make CONNECTIONS between what we read and heard, we extended our thinking in an experiment. I WONDER if the size of the meteor that lands on Earth matters?

The calm before the storm!

The children chose three different sized spheres as our meteors. They threw them past Earth’s atmosphere and into it’s brown sugary-flour crust! The results WOWed the children! The biggest meteor caused the most amount of changes on our Earth. Once we removed each meteor, the children also noticed how craters were left in the ground. 

The DISCOVERY of craters left by the meteors led into another rich discussion! I also showed the kids my connection to seeing a crater at Meteor Crater in Arizona! They also realised how heavy the meteors can be!

Meteor Crater, Arizona

Making Butter!

When the children came to school, they saw a table with cream, a bowl, a whisk, plastic zip-block baggies with marbles inside of them, glass jars with plastic marbles and 2 loaves of fresh bread. Their curiosity boomed into overdrive!

I WONDER what we are making today? This was the common question throughout the class, but I didn’t spill the beans…yet! They had to execute the experiment first and watch the changes happen to the cream in order to DISCOVER the mystery treat. 

The kids EXPLORED and took turns with a partner in the shaking of the cream. A few whisked the cream in a bowl, a couple shook the cream violently inside of a jar and some shook the cream in a baggie with a marble. 

Shaking inside of a jar

Whisking the cream

Shaking in a baggie

After a while, they DISCOVERED some changes happening to the cream. They saw it change colour, from white to yellow. Some of them saw small lumps in the cream. Others noticed how it went from a liquid to fluffiness like with scrambled eggs. The excitement was roaring in class! 

But, what did we make?

After our muscles were aching from all of the shaking, we took a deep breathe and REFLECTED on our findings.

At first, the kids were fixated on the fact that the substance looked like eggs, so it must be just that. But, then they connected the bread on the table with the yellow, slimy mixture. WOW...we made butter! They also DISCOVERED which method of shaking worked the best in making butter. We decided making butter in the glass jar with the plastic marble worked the best!

Finally, it was time to taste our Science creation! 

Once we finished our mini-feast, we REFLECTED on whether we enjoyed the butter or not. We recorded our answers on a graph. Looks like the majority of us loved it! 

A Moon made out of Oreo's!

In the middle of our inquiry unit, I asked the children what kind of changes they wanted to learn about next. Once a kid in our class wondered about space and how the moon changes, it was game over with any other ideas because of the enthusiasm involved!

So, we WONDERED about how the moon changes. 

The children's prior knowledge about this line of inquiry was interesting! 

Next, we took ACTION and EXPLORED online about how the moon changes. 

"I'M CONFUSED!" To further investigate and DISCOVER into this phenomenon, we had to borrow globes and flashlights from the Science department of my husband's high school (where he also teaches Science!) We also had to add Oreo's into the mix!

The children's understanding of the changes that the moon experiences sky rocketed with the Oreo demonstration. They were able to conduct the Oreo experiment with a partner and talk (REFLECT) about the changes to others. Now, when you ask them about how the moon changes, they'll be able to shed light on this topic.

What can you do with milk & vinegar?

The children came to school with many wondering questions when they saw the front table with milk, vinegar, measuring tools and a bowl on it.

The children followed the very precise procedure in our Science experiment. 

Action/Explore:  Boil a cup of milk. Measure 4 teaspoons of vinegar into mug.

 

Pour milk into mug and stir ingredients together.

 

Use a strainer to drain excess liquid out.

 

Scoop the solid out.

After all of the liquid was drained from the solid, the kids formed the 'dough-like' substance into a shape of their choice by using a cookie cutter. They made tree ornaments.

When we completed the experiment, we talked about what we made. The children at this point, didn't know that they made plastic. Further exploration online was required to fill in the gaps. They also made the connection to our symmetry unit...the ornaments are 'equal shmequal!' 

Discover/Explore/Reflect:  So many changes happened during our experiment! We made plastic like in the olden days!!

Diorama Galore!

"Shoe boxes...calling all shoe boxes!"

The children have been inquiring into how/which animals change colour and/or shape for the past week. It all started with a reader that a group read about how octopus can change shape and colour. This sparked the students' curiosity into further action and exploration. 

We discovered that four animals either change shape or colour in our investigation. Below are our findings!

To share their new learning, the children were in for a real treat when they brought in their old shoe boxes. Talk about recycling! The kids changed their shoe box into their chosen animal's habitat.  Some of the animals were hard to find as they changed and were camouflaged within their surroundings. 

Symme-TREE...TREE...TREE!

To start our exploration on symme-tree (see what we did there!?), the children read the book called, Equal Shmequal, by Virginia Kroll. This really helped the kids to understand how symmetrical objects have equal-shmequal sides.

To further investigate this phenomenon, the students created symmetrical butterflies by first painting only half of the insect. Then, they folded the sides together to complete the beautiful butterfly. Wow! The butterfly patterns are exactly the same on both sets of wings!

To challenge the children even further, I had the children draw the other side of their face! Once the kids received their picture very excitedly, I told them that they had to cut their face in half! Afterwards, they carefully drew the other side of their face, making sure to include an eye, an ear and the other half of their nose and lips. They turned out very well!

Lastly, we conducted a Science experiment where we turned milk and vinegar into plastic. Once the ingredients were mixed, the children molded the dough-like material into symmetrical, or equal-shmequal, ornaments made out of cookie cutters. 

Our room was radiating symme-tree-tree-tree objects!

The Gruff...Gruff...Gruffalo!

I found out this past week that an all time favourite book of my kids is, The Gruffalo. Many could read the book from memory! Well, I found this little treasure in our resource room as a BIG book! WIN, WIN! We can all be teachers while reading the book!



A graph was created to discover the students' favourite character. We also analysed the results.



The children wrote and described their favourite character by using WOW words; just like how the author did in the book with the Gruffalo.



For Art, the kids made a mask of their favourite character.

Fox

Mouse

Snake

Owl

To retell the sequence of events that happened in the book, the children made a retell map. The setting was illustrated as the forest, and the path that the mouse took to meet each animal was documented. The kids loved retelling the book with their maps!