Teaching Science Through Investigations

Kids naturally wonder about the world around us. They question why things are the way they are. As teachers we should embrace this excitement!
                                        
When teaching by investigation students begin with a "wonder" question. Many times I will prompt the kids with a question to get them thinking. This may be something we think is simple such as "why is the sky blue?" or "how does my Popsicle melt?" Although these concepts are easy to us, they are a natural curiosity to primary aged learners.

After questioning the children you should allow them to talk as a whole group. NEVER answer the question, only listen to their thinking on the subject. Next, let the kids write what they believe is the answer to the inquiry question.

After lots of open ended discussion on the topic it is time to investigate the phenomenon! Students should take part in an investigation following a procedure you have given them, or they can investigate without a set of steps to follow.

The investigation should open the floor to even more discussion amongst the class. This is a great time for the teacher to explicitly teach some content area vocabulary. For example, if you are teaching about the states of matter and the students have completed an investigation that changes a solid and liquid into a gas, the teacher can explicitly teach states of matter vocabulary when explaining the phenomenon.

Students should now elaborate on the investigation. Most of the time at this point I have the kids make a foldable. This is a fun way for them to show their learning and understanding of the new vocabulary.

If you think teaching science through investigations is right for you, be sure to follow my blog for more updates and check out my tpt store. 

Igloo Building STEM Challenge

One of my favorite winter activities ever is building a sugar cube igloo... it's a classic! This week my third graders took on the challenge.
We started with some conversation about igloos and their purpose. We did a little research and found out that the igloo must be made with ice bricks that lean in a little. This was important to our building.
Next, we prepared our materials. Each group was given one box of "ice blocks" (sugar cubes) and a cup of icing. We used Popsicle sticks as our tools.

Finally, the kids got to work! You would be shocked at how difficult this challenge really can be!
Next week we will continue with more winter themed STEM challenges!

SHARK!!!!

Da da... da da... da da da da... SHARK!
Is it just me or do second graders LOVE sharks? At the end of the school year, I love to learn about all sorts of aquatic creatures and the kids do too. I've just finished my nonfiction sharks unit and wanted to share my ideas.

To remind the students of the important features of a nonfiction text, I've created some pictures to teach the features. Here is one:

I've also included lots of graphic organizers to organize our thinking:

My favorite part of this unit is the 11 informational shark posters:

I've also included a nonfiction book title page, table of contents and lined paper.

I'm so excited about this unit! If you are interested, you can check out the unit in my TPT store. 

Engineering Anyone?

This year I have had the honor of teaching an advanced content group of second graders. Keeping them intrigued has been a challenge, but tons of fun! Last week I experimented with engineering in our space unit by challenging the kids to create a parachute with a slow fall time. The kids and I all had SO... MUCH... FUN and learned a lot! I really wish I had some pictures to add, but in all the excitement I forgot! The parachutes really got me thinking about STEM and how to incorporate engineering into the classroom more. Therefore, this week I have planned a "Tall Tales Engineering Challenge"! I'm pumped about this. I found the unit on TPT and if you are interested you can grab it here. Each day in reader's workshop, we are reading and story mapping a new tall tale then I'm challenging the kids with the engineering challenge. I'm really excited about this new endeavour and hope it is a success!
Pictures coming soon...

Nocturnal Animal Fun!

For the past 2 weeks we did a study of nocturnal animals! Here are some of our pics:

 When the kids got to school on Monday this was the door they approached. Not only did they have a simple, but fun door, but the lights were out and the kids were only allowed to use flashlights to learn!

We started the unit out with a cute and quick, "Do you think bats are cute or creepy" graph. As you can see, my class said CREEPY!

After reading aloud a book about bats for a mini lesson, the kids were able to add index cards to our bat tree map during their independent reading workshop time. While the kids were reading and adding to the chart, I was pulling guided reading groups.

Throughout the week, we kept "bat words" on this chart. These were interesting bat vocabulary that we thought we needed to know. Examples are: echolocation, colony, mammal...

We created these cute bats and hung them around our graph. Each wing has a bat fact in a complete sentence.

We incorporated fiction and nonfiction into this unit as well by reading the book, "Stellaluna". The kids got in pairs and created a venn diagram comparing birds and bats. Then they created these cute bat puppets with beginning, middle and end cards on them.

In the second week of nocturnal animals, we shifted gears to owls! It was soooooo much fun! We created an owl tree map, an owl shaped vocabulary book (forgot to take picture), used ipads to research owls, made owl pic collages and owl nonfiction books. We had so much owl fun I completely forgot to take very many pictures! Boo!

This is a predator/prey word sort we worked on.

On Friday we invited parents into our room to help us dissect owl pellets. It was amazing!

Roller Coaster Unit is in the Books...

After 3 weeks of hard work, our roller coaster learning unit is complete! If you LOVE thematic teaching as much as I do, you have to try this out. We used the theme of roller coasters to teach the scientific concept of speed, direction and motion of an object. In Georgia, our second graders must learn about the changes of speed on an object. Since this was our first science unit this year, I decided to use this opportunity to teach the features of nonfiction text as well. These are the features we learned:

The nonfiction features were taught daily during our reader's workshop minilesson. The kids then went to independent reading time and guided reading groups. In guided reading groups we read nonfiction books to practice the skills of using our nonfiction text features. 

To integrate the knowledge of roller coasters into our vocabulary instruction, the kids used pic collage to create posters that explained the meaning of our roller coaster science words. If you are interested in how you can use pic collage to integrate vocab instruction, click to read another blog post here.

Here are the science words we learned in this unit:

Each day we would learn a new science word and complete a science/math experiment to make meaning of the words. The math skill of measurement was used greatly during this unit. 

After learning all about roller coasters and nonfiction text features the kids created a nonfiction book all about roller coasters. The books were published and binded for our roller coaster presentations to our parents. 

On the last day of the unit, our parents came in to see our "roller coasters". We used insulation piping, tape and marbles to create roller coasters in groups of 2 kids. The students were required to use what they have learned to make a coaster that had enough speed and momentum to make 1 loop without the marble falling off. The nonfiction books were sitting out for parents to see and our pic collage vocabulary creations were on a slide show on the smartboard. To top it all off, I borrowed a cotton candy maker to really give off the Amusement Park feel! The Coaster unit was a huge success!

If you are interested in using this thematic unit, you can check it out here!

Teaching Nonfiction Text Features

As many of us know, nonfiction reading has become a significant part of the primary classroom. Students must learn to navigate through the features of nonfiction text to learn to comprehend their reading as well as broaden vocabulary and background knowledge about our world.

Using anchor charts and text features posters, I will tackle a new feature of nonfiction each day in my classroom. Here are a few examples of those posters:

Students will be given opportunities to read nonfiction text during reading workshop, but to ensure their understanding of the features of nonfiction, I will meet with each of them in guided reading groups based on their instructional reading level daily. 

To end the unit on nonfiction text features the children will create their very own nonfiction books using the features that were taught in the nonfiction unit. Since I choose to teach thematically, the students will make a nonfiction book all about roller coasters. 

I will post about our roller coaster unit this week, but in the meantime, if you are interested in a thematic unit that teaches nonfiction text features as well as the science standards of push/pull, then check out this unit: Coasting Through Nonfiction Text Features!

Movie Premier Success!

Today was our class movie premier to end our Hollywood thematic unit. We had an absolute blast! 

Our "stars" walked down the star walk of fame before entering the "theatre"!

They were happy to see the popcorn popped by the machine!

After watching our class created movies, we presented the actors and actresses with "Oscars"!

You can really see how much fun we had by the aftermath! Haha!

Our Hollywood themed unit was so much fun... I can't wait until next year to try it again!

Grab the unit here!