Rocket science

My darling Monkey made a rocket at preschool. While we were playing it got me thinking.

When I was teaching I liked to begin the year in science class with a real fun experiment. I am thinking this would be great for introducing the scientific method.
The rockets are made out of a film canister (or a pill bottle that is not child safe). You put alka-seltzer and water, then put the cap on fast. Then launch it.

We could measure how far from the launching space it goes, measure the amount of water in Milliliters, measure the amount of alkaseltser with a scale.

We could vary the amount of water, and vary the amount of alkaseltser to see how far it goes.
I know my 5th graders would flip over this project. I am sure you could do it at anytime in the K-5 just varying the hypotheses.

Math Games

I found this terrific site. It is called Guided Math.

I plan on printing the following games to use in my Math Stations.

1 Coverall

2 Gain and Loss

3 Baby Snake

4 Snake

I am going to print the game boards so that when I go back to teaching I will have them ready to be copied. I am also going create rule cards for the games. Then I will print and laminate, that way they are ready to go. 

Edited to add: Actually if you download them from Teachers Pay Teachers, (they are free just click her download link) the instructions are already there…YAY)

Apple Eve, writing lesson

I saw this darling post on Little Family Fun. The post was about creating Apple Buddies. Here is a picture from the site.

Check out the link above to see the full post.
It got me thinking that this would be a cool writing activity for the students. I am gearing it toward 3rd through 5th. Students would create the apple person, then write a story about the night the Apple came to life.
Wouldn’t this be fun to have on the kids desks for Open House!