More Force and Motion Fun -- Marble Races!

Have I mentioned that I *LOVE* teaching science?! We discussed velocity and how objects move faster down an inclined plane set at a greater angle. We did a little experiment to prove this using our marble race track! Got the idea HERE.

It took nearly 6 seconds for the marble to roll down the ramp at this incline!

It took 1.77 seconds for the marble to reach the finish line at this incline.

1.25 seconds....Faster!

And only .78 seconds at the greatest incline! FASTEST!

Force and Motion -- Marshmallow Shooters!

Whew! I needed a blogging break. Keeping up with this blog and my classroom blog for parents was stretching me thin. But I'm back with some fun science activities to teach force and motion!

This week we are learning about push and pull, friction, and how to measure movement. When I saw this idea from Real Simple magazine (my FAVE!), I knew it would be the perfect fun for this unit!

So after I had these made, I gave all of the students a few marshmallows to eat....just to get that out of the way! The rest were STRICTLY used for Science!

We discussed and demonstrated that little force won't move an object very far (or very fast), but if you use BIG force, it will move faster and travel farther. Wow, they had fun practicing that with their marshmallows!

We also discussed how we can measure how far things move. We went outside and each student had a turn to see how far they could launch their marshmallow. We used a tape measure to record the results.

Push and pull....force....measurement.....what a fun way to teach these concepts!!

A Pumpkin Experiment

We started this experiment a couple of weeks ago when we studied pumpkins. We wanted to know if we could grow a pumpkin plant inside of a pumpkin, if we took of the top and added soil and water. We wanted to grow a pumpkin in a pumpkin! Here's what we did:

Guess what! Yesterday, 9 days after we did our experiment, we saw this:

And today there are 4 sprouts! The kids were so excited to see that our hypothesis was correct! This is a fun activity to add to your pumpkin unit!

More and More Clouds

Well, wouldn't you know it?! It's been such a beautiful week that there has only been 1 day with clouds that we can observe! Just loving this awesome weather we are having in KS this week!

Just wanted to update with a couple more activities we are doing this week with clouds.

Yesterday, we made Cloud Dough.

*8 Cups of Flour
*1 Cup of Baby Oil

Mix with your hands until it has the texture of cornmeal.

We have a gluten-free kiddo -- but rice flour is a fine substitute for regular all-purpose flour!

 

Once you touch this stuff, you'll know why it's called Cloud Dough. OHMIGOODNESS, it's the softest stuff and so fun to play with. I put this in one of our centers for discovery. Big hit with the littles!

Today we read:

And then we made our very own cloud pictures based on the book. This activity was inspired by 

Mrs. Schmelzer. I just loved how creative the kids got with this!

Feel free to grab this printable I made for this. Happy Friday Eve everyone!

Spilt Milk

LOVE those Cloud Inspectors!

Well the cloud inspectors I made were a bit hit with my firsties! I wanted to use them yesterday, but it was such a beautiful day, not a cloud in the sky! We crossed our fingers this morning for afternoon clouds, and we got a few!

We ventured outside to inspect clouds with our official cloud inspectors! Yep, my kiddos know the 3 main types of clouds, but this inspector shows them all different types. The poem we added to our poetry journals this week (FOUND HERE) explains what Cirro, Alto, and Strato mean. The kids just loved observing the clouds and determining what kinds of clouds were in the sky. We saw a few cumulus clouds today, some cirrus, and some cirrostratus clouds!

To download my cloud inspector, click on the picture below:

And here they are in action!!

All About Clouds

This week is all about CLOUDS! So many fun things planned for my class this week.

Today we read:

Then, they students learned about 3 main types of clouds -- stratus, cumulus, and cirrus. By using gestures and the Whole Brain Teaching technique of Teach, Ok....my firsties were able to distinguish these 3 types of clouds.

We are working on this poem all week....I love how it introduces the other clouds as well because when we start cloud watching this week, they'll need this information! Our class motto is "We Can Do Hard Stuff!" If I teach the hard "college words", they just eat it up and love it!

Types of Clouds



Then we had a lot of fun painting puffy clouds! Combine equal parts of Elmers Glue and shaving cream.....use a spoon or popsicle stick to glob on the "paint" onto blue paper. This dries with a puffy texture and just looks too cool!

I have more cloud activities that I will post later this week! Happy Monday!

This and That in First Grade!

This post is going to be full of randomness!

Our author study for this month is David Shannon. We've been loving all of his books, especially the David books! The kids drew David. So cute, right?

During the Daily 5, we've been talking about how important it is to select books that are a good fit. We compared hard, easy and just right books to riding a bike. We also worked on retelling and what a good retelling sounds like. The retelling anchor chart I adapted from Hello Literacy.

we

In math, we've been working on Tally marks! This little poem helps the littles SO MUCH when figuring out when to cross the 5th mark.

Finally, in Science we are learning about weather and the water cycle. We made these super cute rainbow-clouds to hang from the ceiling. They took all of 10 minutes to make and really brighten up the room! I found this water cycle song on proteacher.net. We sing this to the tune of She'll be Coming 'Round The Mountain.

Enjoy the rest of your week!

Eight Planets Around the Sun...

Happy Monday, everyone! Hope everyone is having a great start to their work week!

Last week, I posted a poem titled Planet Roll Call. You can find that printable HERE. I decided this would make a super cute little Reader's Theater for my firsties. 9 different parts...I can get all of my students participating if we do it 2 times through. Perfect!

I made little planet hand puppets....I guess you can call them puppets, but they don't do anything but slide over the little hands of my firsties. :)

We will use these for our reader's theater. I think overall they turned out pretty cute! The kids love them and that's all that matters!

I modified the Planet Roll Call poem to be read as a reader's theater. Feel free to download! It messed up the original font I had, but it works. :) Enjoy!

Planet Readers Theater

We also read this book today:

And made this graphic organizer about astronauts -- inspired by Abby at The Inspired Apple!

Out Of This World Art Activity!

Sharing more of the space unit I've been teaching this week! Check out this fun planet art we made today:

Directions:

1) I traced different sized circles onto an 11x17 piece of paper. I ran this through the copier, and each student used watercolors to paint the planets. They tried to paint them how they were shown in our science text. Once dry, cut out the planets.

2) Take a 12x18 sheet of black construction paper, some watered down (washable!) white paint, and a toothbrush. This is the best part! Flick the toothbrush to spatter the 'stars' across the black sky!

3) Once dry, glue the planets on the black paper.

Star Walk App -- a Must!

We continue our study on space with stars. After learning about stars and constellations, the students made their own constellations. Super easy activity, but one that really made them remember that big "college" word -- constellation!

Then we set outside to see some real constellations! I am lucky to have an iPod touch in my room for class use. The Star Walk app is one of the best --- and for only $2.99, it's well worth the download! With this app, "users are able to easily locate and identify 20,000+ objects in the night sky. The 360-degree, touch control star map displays constellations, stars, planets, satellites, and galaxies currently overhead from anywhere on Earth." (vitotechnology.com) It uses the GPS in the iPod touch to show constellations that you should be able to see on a clear night from your exact location. SOOOOO cool!

This is an example of the on screen display:

"OOOOH There's Ursa Minor!"
"I see Mars!"

 "Cool! There's Pegasus!"

What are some of your favorite apps for school?

"When Can We Paint?!" :)

Pretty sure I've been asked this question a GAZILLION times since we unpacked those brand new vibrant watercolors on the first day of school. I decided today was the day.

We started our unit on the Sky and Space today. Today's focus was on the sun:

 

Then we FINALLY broke out those watercolors and got busy painting the sun. What wonderful artists I have this year! This really helps brighten up the dull wood paneling my room is rockin'! 

 

Tomorrow we move on to the moon and stars! I just LOVE teaching this unit!