1st Grade Looks at Liquids!

1st grade has been exploring the world of liquids!  They have investigated the different properties (foamy, bubbly, transparent, translucent, viscous, has color)of 6 different liquids: hand soap, colored water, dish soap, corn syrup, liquid starch and cooking oil.  We even have played liquid card games - memory and Go Fish!

All the liquids have color.

Students chose two liquids to investigate. They
drew the liquid and described how it looked,
sounded and one more additional observation.

The corn syrup barely moved it was so thick!

The green liquids are a favorite of most students. The colored
water makes a tornado when it is shaken and the dish soap has
so many air bubbles that the color changes to a lighter green when
shaken!

Looking at the level of the liquid when a bottle
is slowly turned upside down.

It can be tricky to get the angle right.

Once the levels are drawn, we looked at the levels to see if
we noticed anything surprising.

A big liquids memory game.

1st grade Investigates Properties of Solids

In our new unit 1st graders are exploring the properties of matter.  We are starting by observing and describing how 7 different objects look, feel and sound.

The block sounds loud when it's tapped on the table and the triangle
sounds "flicky".

The fabric is blue and soft.

The screw is hard and rough.

The popsicle stick is straight and so it the screw.

Next, we played a sorting game where partners choose two solids that share the same property - flexible, rigid, hard, soft, rough, smooth, transparent or opaque.

The triangle and the popsicle stick are both
both opaque.

The triangle and the wire are both flexible.

The fabric and the wire are both flexible and smooth.

Playing the sorting game.

Exploring River Rocks!

Second grade has been busy learning about properties and sizes of rocks.  They sorted river rocks by color, size, texture, luster and shape.

Sorting by color.

Sorting by color can be hard because each rock can have
so many colors in it!

We put the river rocks in water to see if it changed the way we
would sort our rocks.

Looking at a river rocks mixture.

So many different sizes and colors!

The rock mixture was harder to sort by hand, so we used three different sized mesh screens to help!

The medium sized rocks stay on the medium screen.

The large rocks stay on the large screen.

Four different sized rocks...all sorted!

Trying all three screens together.  As long as they
are stacked small, medium and large,
they still sort the rocks!

Writing down observations.

Some of the bigger rocks can slide through, depending on the
shape of the rock.

Rock get their name from what they are made of and by what size they are.
The river rock mixture was made up of pebbles, gravel and sand.