I remember last year reading the standard about students using tools. I thought…”Ok, how can I make this fun?” I always catch myself brushing science and social studies to the side at times. I am trying reallllyyyy hard this year to make it an everyday occurrence because they love it! Most students tend to be drawn to science and bad teacher to me for giving it the stink eye in the past.
I started with what I had in my room which were magnifying glasses and a few balance scales. For the first magnifying match, I just had the students look for the object and then check it off on the box. One of the other K teachers and I both felt like they just blew through it. This year, I added numbers to the boxes and then they had to record the number next to the object. That seemed to work better and look at that….they were practicing writing their numbers during science.
Sometimes, I just can’t help myself.
When we used the balance scales, I had students partner up. They each picked an object. Some of the objects I had for the to pick from were a tennis ball, feather, shell, rock, marker, marble, glue bottle, pencil, play-doh…things of that nature.
They had to draw each object on the scale. Then they made a prediction of what they thought would be heavier before they went to their scales. They had to circle the object they thought would be heavier in red. After they weighed it, they circled the heavier object in blue. We talked about their observations and led to some really great science talk.
I know there are ways to get magnetic items and collect them yourself. I wish I were thrifty…but I’m just not. You all out there probably have a WAY easier and less inexpensive route for magnets. Thrifty really isn’t my strongest point so I’ll show you what we used for the magnet station and you can do what you want with it 🙂
Lakeshore is happy with teachers like me.
I know they are a little pricey but they are both all kinds of amazing.
I let the students explore and then illustrate {and label if they could} some of the objects that were magnetic.
The other station that we did was with the thermometers. I got these on Amazon and they worked great.
As I’m sure you know, there is a Harry Kindergarten song to go along with thermometers.
We put the thermometers in cold and hot water. They compared the differences in the two and then charted their findings on their pictures of the thermometers.
We have also done an emergent reader about science tools. Each student gets a reader and they highlight the picture word…which is also the science tool word.
I hope this helps! If you are like me and science isn’t your strong point…or you just happen to move it to the next day for a couple of days in a row….I hope this helps!
Here is the new and improved magnifying match activity. If you want to find the rest of the activities, you can find them in my Science unit!
Thanks Elizabeth! I need this!
Brenda