Bubbles!

LAST DAY, TIME TO PLAY!!

 Today we are looking at bubbles. What are they? How do they move? Why do they stick sometimes and why do they pop? What part does air and heat play in making and moving bubbles?

Soap bubble surfaces are made from thin layers of water trapped between two layers of soap film. We will make our own bubble soap, bubble wands, bubble blowers, and generally just play with bubbles! We will also blow some of my favorite bubbles -- chocolate milk bubbles with our snack!

It has been a true blessing teaching your children in Science Fun this year.  We are so grateful for having time with them and sharing in the wonder of God's glorious creation.  We hope you have a wonderful and memorable summer enjoying nature together with your family.  God bless your family as you begin the new season of elementary school. 

BOOKS WE READ:  The Nature and Science of Bubbles, by Jane Burton; Bubbles Float, Bubbles Pop, by Mark Weakland

We have learned a lot this year about many subjects and many creatures. This week we look at the
universal truth in nature - everyone has a Mother. We will learn how animal mothers in the wild, (mammals, birds, reptiles, etc.) care for their young. This will spark conversation in class as to how the children's moms care for them.  We will look at how human mammal moms differ from the rest of the animal kingdom.

Hope you have a wonderful Mother's Day and celebrate your beautiful, smart children!!!

Books we Read: Mother's Day Mice (Eve Bunting); Five Minutes' Peace (Jill Murphy); Animal Babies (harry McNaught)

At the Pond

The Woodlands has many ponds in our neighborhoods.  We will study the ecosystem of the pond and
the native creatures and plants in our local ponds.  We have recreated a pond ecosystem in a water table and filled it with minnows, crawfish, turtles and waterplants.  The children will have the opportunity to use small fish nets to scoop up the creatures and take a closer look at them.  We will explain the life cycle of the frog on a paper.    Time permitting we will play the Heron game where the Heron swoops down to scoop up a frog. We will eat a sweet pond snack to celebrate our new knowledge.

Various Science Books on Pond Life-Plants, Fish and Animals

Insects

Buzzzzzz!   We are studying insects this week. So, some of the children may decide they want to grow up to be entomologists! One reason Entomologists are important is that they help our farmers with growing crops and discovering which are "good insects", like ladybugs, that eat the eggs of plant-eating pests (aphids and weevils).

Our entomologists learn this week how to basically identify the insect. Insects have six legs and three body segments - Head, thorax and abdomen. Many have antennae, and some have wings. Insects have an exoskeleton (tough outer layer) instead of bones. We discussed the benefits of ladybugs in the garden to eat eggs of other pest insects. Crickets are used in apple orchards to eat the maggot worms of fruit flies that burrow into the apples.

We chose to have crickets this week as the "take home" insect. The Chinese thought the cricket was a lucky pet and kept them in golden cages. The song of a cricket is made by the male rubbing its wings back and forth against each other which is sometimes called "chirping." It was discovered by a scientist in 1897 that the snowy tree crickets "chirped"  faster on warmer nights, and counting the number of chirps in 15 seconds and then adding 40 would estimate the temperature. Amazing!

The children can keep their cricket as a pet for a while by putting an inch of soil in the bottom of a plastic jar, add a rock or wood for it to burrow under, put in a little lettuce for moisture and food, and punch holes in the jar lid. Observe for a day or two, but the cricket will be happiest if set free in your yard.

Fun and Art time - We did some fun experiments with our crickets, measuring how far they jumped and seeing if they can swim (they can!)  We painted beautiful dragonfly ornaments while observing the body parts. The dragonfly is our hero because it eats mosquitoes. Hurray for the dragonfly! Oh, and if your child tells you we ate insects for our snack, don't worry - they were tasty.

Books we read:  Cricketology (Michael Ross),  Crickets and Grasshoppers (Elaine Pascoe, Dwight Kuhn).

Next Week:  The Pond

The Human Body - Digestive System

Well I am excited to see what has been growing in those petri

dishes for a week. We usually get some really hairy looking results from the children collecting germs around the room and touching the dish. It is such a great visual for the children to realize the importance of hand washing and bathing. Now we will look at the food we eat with those clean hands, and what happens to it in our bodies.
Continuing our unit on the human body, we look at the digestive system this week.  We will start by reading, "What Happens to a Hamburger?"  This story traces the digestive events in your body from the first bite to the "finish line."

We will also play a fun game where the children become parts of the digestive system and "swallow" a classmate, digesting him or her through the tract.  We will trace the children on butcher paper, making a digestive system to take home today.  They will add the major parts of the digestive tract to their images using some everyday items to represent the parts.

For snack we will make mini "hamburgers" using crackers, pepperoni and cheese!

We look inside and out at the human body this week, focusing on our skeleton and skin. At the center
of our bodies is the skeleton which gives us shape and holds us erect. We will look at x-rays of bones and also create a paper plate skeleton which represents the major bones out of the 206 total bones in our bodies. (And it's fun to dance with, too!) We will have a "bones and marrow" snack (white bread with strawberry jam)--yum!

We discuss some of the functions of our skin, the largest organ of our bodies which serves as a protective germ barrier and assists in our sense of touch. To demonstrate the "super hero" property of skin, the children will touch objects around the room and then touch agar (gelatin mixture) set up in a petri dish. We will seal the dish and let it rest in the closet until next week when we will again observe the dish. We will see what grew in the dish from the germs transferred from our touch, and make observations and conclusions about the importance of bathing our bodies and washing our hands to remove unseen germs. The kids are usually "grossed out" and fascinated at the same time with this experiment :).

"Dem bones, dem bones are gonna walk around" this week!

Books we read: The Skeleton Inside You (Philip Balestrino); Germs Make Me Sick (Melvin Berger)

Next Week: The Digestive System

Scientists believe in God

We have spent this year observing,experimenting and drawing conclusions on chemicals, plants, animals, humans, the earth and its atmosphere.  And yet for all the knowledge learned, all the discoveries made, all the conclusions drawn, we take this week to remember all that we observe was first created by God.  Was he the original Scientist of the Universe?  Is he observing us still?

   Easter is a time of rebirth so we shall have fun this week doing some silly "Eggsperiments".  The egg is a phenomenally simplistic creation out of the back end of a chicken from which architectural genius was derived. If you hold a raw egg in your hand (make sure you have no rings on your finger) and make a fist and squeeze as hard as you can, you can not crack the shell.  If you empty out three eggshells and then cut them in half and then place the halved shells in a triangle shape, you can place heavy books on top of the shells and they won't crack.  We tested these theories in class.
   The strength of the egg lies in its shape.  Architects and engineers have used smooth curves to support the weight of structures for centuries.  They are called arches and are in buildings and bridges around the world.  An arch directs pressure so that it compresses the building material which makes it stronger.  Even a concrete block will break if you hit it on the side with a hammer.  But under compression from above, the concrete becomes incredibly strong.  So an egg is an amazing piece of natural engineering.  Once again, God created it first!  Also, look at the bottom of your foot and find the arch God gave you to sustain the weight of your whole body.
   We used an empty glass jar and a boiled egg to prove that things exist which we just can not see.  I placed three lighted matches in the bottom of the jar and put the boiled egg on top of the opening.  Within a minute the egg was magically pulled into the jar by an invisible hand.  What??? Ok, really the fire used up all the oxygen in the jar and heated the air, as it cooled it compressed, causing a vacuum thereby sucking the boiled egg into the jar.  The kids love this and it helps explain the importance of oxygen and the fact that it feeds the fire.  God has surely created things that we don't even see or that we take for granted each day.
   We tested our acid/bases lessons out on some hard boiled eggs and learned that acidic water makes a much brighter colored egg in much less time. We used beets for red dye, turmeric for gold, and grape juice for purple eggs and lemon juice for acid in the dye water.  God has provided all we need.

Happy Easter egg hunting this week and I hope you find everything that you are searching for in this blessed Easter Season.  Please save your Styrofoam egg cartons and donate them to SciFun for later use.

 
      Welcome back to Science Fun.  We hope your spring break was restful and filled with good family time.

      Last week we looked at our solar system, our place in space, how astronauts get from earth to space, and some of the things we might see in the night sky, such as meteors and comets.  We conclude our Space unit this week by discussing the moon and stars and how the night sky seems to change.

     We will take turns being planet earth as we rotate around our closest star, the sun ( a sun lamp), watching as the shadows change and how the light rises and sets as we spin in orbit.  We will use a balloon to represent the moon to see how its shape "changes" in the night sky over the course of a month.  We will make a moon and stars painting to  help us understand how we can see stars at night but not during the day.  And for our snack, Miss Debbie is making moon pies for us!

     Lots of star studded fun this week!


Next Week:  "Eggs-periments"

The Night Sky

This week we look at the night sky. We will discuss what we see there--the moon, stars, comets, meteors and asteroids.

Comets (made of ice, dirt and gas) and asteroids (large space rocks made of rock and metal) orbit the sun, just like the planets in our solar system, but they orbit in a long, narrow circle so we don't see them very often. Meteors are bits of rock, perhaps broken from an asteroid, that enter the earth's atmosphere. The friction of the meteor against the earth's atmosphere causes it to burn, which produces the glow we see in the sky (a "shooting star").

Scientists learn about space by studying the sky and by sending satellites and rocket ships into space to get a closer look and collect information. So, we are going to blast off "rockets" today in class (film canisters and alka seltzer tablets), and make our own comets and meteors to fly across the classroom. We will play with some "moon mud" and also have a "night sky" snack. Lots of fun!

Books We Read: The Cat in the Hat--No Place Like Space; The Golden Book of Comets, Meteors and Asteroids.

Rocks-Minerals

We finish our unit on geology this week, reviewing how rocks are formed. We discuss how rocks are made from minerals, which are the "ingredients" of rocks and are made from chemicals called elements. We talk about the difference between rare minerals such as diamonds, and common minerals such as quartz, and about how people use minerals. Most minerals grow by forming crystals, like snowflakes!

We talk about how minerals are important to our bodies and how we get them. Sodium and chlorine form the most important rock that humans need to ingest to maintain life - salt. We look at the process of creating rock salt with a sodium solution on a mirror. As the water is evaporated away, the sodium chloride crystals form on the mirror. We are creating an experiment in class to demonstrate crystal formation. We are filling a jar with a highly salted water solution and suspending a string in it so the crystals can attach as they dry. We hope to see real crystal growth over the next few weeks.

Rocks are used in everyday life.  

We will attempt to make homemade pretzels and sprinkle rock salt liberally on them for good taste!!
We will make treasure boxes to take home and go on a rock hunt on the playground to start our own collection.

Books: Let's Go Rock Collecting by Roma Gans; The Story of Salt by Mark Kurlansky

For the next two weeks we will be geologists! We learn that rocks are made of minerals, a solid substance that forms inside the earth. The earth's crust is made of rock, and most of the inside of Earth is made of rock too. This week we will discuss two types of rocks: igneous (melted rock that has cooled), and sedimentary (bits and pieces of rock and debris pressed together and formed under pressure over time). We examine some rock samples, and in the classroom we will "create" our own versions of igneous and sedimentary rocks.

For snack, we mix and eat "sedimentary rock" crispy rice treats, which somewhat illustrate the process through which sedimentary rock is formed. Delicious!

By the way, thank you so much for the Valentine's treats. Science Fun parents and kids are the most thoughtful, and we love you, too!

Books We Read: Rocks (Sally Walker); Rocks, Gems and Minerals (Trudi Strain Trueit)

Well, my fellow paleontologists, it is time to get back to work. This week we will talk about some scientific theories of how the dinosaurs died out or disappeared, and we will continue to learn how paleontologists have discovered so much about dinosaurs.

This week we will make fossil dinosaur soap eggs. We melt glycerin over a skillet, adding color and scent to make a mixture. We then pour it into a mold with a small dinosaur toy, cool and unmold our creations. The kids will "discover" their dinosaur as they use the soap over the weeks to come. We will also "excavate" chocolate chips from our cookie snack . What a fun way to excavate!

Books We Read: Oh Say Can You Say Dinosaur? (Dr. Suess) Archaeologists Dig for Clues (Kate Duke)

Next week we will begin a 2-week study of Geology. The children may bring in a rock for show and tell to the class. Nothing valuable, please!  We suggest it come in a zip-lock bag with their name on it.

We Dig Dinosaurs!

We focus this week on dinosaurs--how they lived, what they ate, and how big (or how little) they were. We learn that Paleontologists are the scientists who study the subject of dinosaurs and we learn a little about how the scientists do this by heading to the playground for our own "bone dig."  (We used bleached turkey and chicken leg bones.)

The children will learn first-hand how to cast a bone in the field before shipping it back to the museum. Scientists did this because the centuries-old bone fossils could break or crumble in route, but the cast would duplicate the details of the fossil so the scientists could study it without danger of harming the original bone. The children's "fossil" casts should be ready to bring home next week. We also discuss how paleontologists love a good puzzle and love to piece the fossils together to discover the animal's characteristics. We encourage the children to play with puzzles to discover this skill.

For snack we will have a dinosaur-snack excavation--digging them out of our brownies!

Books We Read: Dinosaurs (Gail Gibbons);  Dinosaurs Inside and Out (Sandra Markle)

Next Week: Conferences next week so no Science Fun classes on Tuesday or Thursday. On Friday we will talk about spiders and how they hunt. We will conclude our dinosaur unit the following week for all three Science Fun classes.

The Water Cycle

We looked at frozen precipitation last week--snow, sleet, and hail--and continue our unit on precipitation this week learning about the water cycle.  We discuss how the same water returns to earth over and over again, through God's creation of the water cycle.  We will make bracelets to help us remember:  "white" clouds form (condensation), 'blue" rain falls (precipitation), watering the "green" grass, warmed by the "yellow sun," which changes water into "clear" water vapor (evaporation) and back into "white" clouds again.  We learn the cycle--evaporation, condensation, precipitation--by singing a song to the tune of "Clementine."  Ask your child to sing it for you! 

Our class activity has the kids physically demonstrating the water cycle, and having great fun at the same time!  We toss ping pong balls up into a suspended umbrella (evaporation), the balls roll to the center of the umbrella and the kids gather together under it (condensation), then we turn over the umbrella and the balls bound all over the children and around the classroom (precipitation)!  We will pop paper bags to simulate the loud rushing sound of air that we call thunder, rub balloons on our hair to see the results of positive and negative charges present in lightning, and finish by acting out our own indoor "thunderstorm" using props. All in all, a very busy day.

Books We Read: Kids Book of Clouds and Sky (Frank Staub): Why Is It Raining? (Judith Williams)

Next Week:  Dinosaurs

Snow, Sleet and Hail

Snow days this week! (Please note: Snow days have been rescheduled to next week due to the rain.)This week we look at the properties of snow, sleet and hail. We explain the different climate conditions of each and how all three forms of this frozen water fall from the sky. The children had fun reenacting a snowstorm (cotton balls), sleet (pony beads) and a hail storm (ping pong balls)!

We learn the life story of Wilson Bentley who is famous for 5,000+ pictures of snowflakes. As a young boy he started examining and photographing individual snowflakes and turned that into a life-long scientific study. Most snowflakes are 6-sided (hexagonal). Snowflakes begin with a tiny particle of dust, ash or pollen in the air which is then surrounded by frozen moisture into complex shapes. The children made their own snowflakes and learned Bentley's quote, "No two snowflakes are alike." For a frosty treat, we made snow cones.

Books we Read: Snowflake Bentley (Jacqueline Martin);

Next Week: The Water Cycle

Happy New Year! We are back and starting 2013 with some "chilling" lessons. Thank you to all our Science Friends for the wonderful Christmas gifts. The break was nice but it is fun to get back in the classroom and back in action with our Science Friends.

Happy New  Year!  We are back and starting 2013 with some "chilling" lessons.  Thank you to all our Science Friends for the wonderful Christmas gifts. The break was nice but it is fun to get back in the classroom and back in action with our Science Friends.

This week we look at animals living in cold climates, focusing on the polar bear. We learn its physical characteristics that allow him to live in minus 30-degree temperatures. The children will discover the insulating properties of fat (blubber)--holding an ice cube with their bare hands, then slipping on a "blubber glove" to hold the ice. Polar bears have thick padded paws and lots of body fat to insulate. They also have black skin to absorb the sun's heat, along with thick underfur for warmth, and a top layer of hollow white guard hairs which trap air and make him "waterproof" when swimming in the Arctic Ocean.

We remember that many times scientists work together in partners or teams on a project.   Since it is winter, the season of ice, the kids work in "research teams" to collaborate their ideas and make ice castle creations using various shapes of colored ice. Team work!

Books we Read: Polar Bears (Gail Gibbons); Do Penguins Get Frostbite? (Scholastic)

Next Week: The Water Cycle--Evaporation, Condensation, Precipitation.

The Christmas Star! We talk about the miracle of the Christmas star, what scientists think about it, and how God used His beautiful creation to send a sign announcing the birth of our Saviour to the world. We will make an angel ornament (including a star!) to bring home. Singing Christmas carols, making Christmas star cookies, and reading "The Crippled Lamb", a beautiful story of how God has a special place and purpose for each one of us, will fill our last day of Science Fun for this year.

Here's hoping you have a joy-filled and peaceful Christmas and a blessed New Year. Thank you for sharing your precious children with us!

Books We Read: The Christmas Sky (Franklyn Mansfield Branley), The Crippled Lamb (Max Lucado)

Trees and Their Leaves

Children love trees. Their size and multitude of shapes are a wonder for them to explore (and climb when the opportunity presents itself!) Last week we learned how important trees are to us. This week we look at the life of a tree over the four seasons of a year. Chlorophyll is the pigment that keeps the leaves green in summer. It is important to the leaf’s production of sugars that are the tree's source of food. With autumn comes the flowing sap in Maples that makes maple syrup for pancakes. Also in the fall, the tree's leaves slowly stop making the chlorophyll and the natural yellow, orange and red pigments in the leaves begin to show.

In winter the leaves fall to the ground as the tree becomes nearly dormant, "sleeping" through the winter.

We also look at the difference between deciduous and evergreen trees. Perhaps there is a tree in your neighborhood that you can observe over the course of a year. It is interesting to see God's design for the different varieties of trees and how they adapt to the seasons.

We finish our woodworking projects this week by painting them. The kids have great fun with this, but are learning just the same. The projects will stay at school to dry and be ready to bring home next week.

Books we Read: Why Do Leaves Change Color by Betsy Maestro
Next Week: The Christmas Star

Trees

Joseph was a carpenter. He taught his son, Jesus, the art of making things with wood. In Science Fun this week we look at the source of wood, specifically trees, how they grow, how God uses them in His creation, and how important they are to us. Trees provide us with so much more than shade. So many living things, us included, depend on trees for food. Their roots help keep water filling our underground aquifers, and their leaves taking in carbon dioxide and giving out oxygen during their food making process give our world the oxygen we need to breathe.

We are exploring wood this week because we are creating with wood. Carpenters make things with wood and we will too. The kids will select several pieces to sand and then decide on a design. They will glue their projects together this week. Next week we will paint them! It's great to see the "gears" at work as they experiment with size, pattern, balance and color.  We will also have a "snow-covered log" snack to eat! 

Books we Read: "A Tree is Nice, by Janice May Udry; "The Secret Life of Trees", by Chiara Chevallier.  "Be a Friend to Trees", Patricia Lauber.

Next Week:  The four seasons of a tree.

Preparing for Winter -Migration/Hibernation

 

November brings changes in our weather and changes in the behavior
of animals. Some of our creatures migrate south like birds, humming
birds and butterflies and bats. Other animals stay put and hibernate
through the winter. Bears are light hibernators and wake occasionally
throughout winter. Others are true hibernators and reach the deep
sleep called "torpor". The groundhog slows his heartbeat from 80
to 4 beats per minute! Frogs bury in the mud and their liver produces
large amounts of sugar to change the viscosity of their blood and keep
their blood flowing and prevent freezing. We "froze" maple syrup as
an example to show the children how sugar in the fluid prevents a hard
freeze of the liquid.


We examine changes in our own heart rate by checking our pulse
resting and then again after running. This demonstrates how heart
rate increases with energy usage and decreases when we are
resting. Hibernators can survive without eating because they are
resting and not using much of their fat stores for energy.


We each made birdfeed garlands to take home so the backyard friends
can eat - whether they are staying for the winter or just passing
through our yards as they migrate south. The yarn will provide a nice
bit of nesting material after the feed is gone. We also made another
garland of "bird feed" for our own snack!

We are thankful for the opportunity to share the knowledge of God's
creation with these wonderful children.