Friday, December 7, 2012

Sensational Science Week

This week was sensational! We started our new units and had a great time learning new things!

First graders are geologists! They learned about rocks and the properties that they have. We learned that some rocks are soft and some are hard. We rubbed scoria, basalt, and tuff together and found that scoria is very soft. We also experimented with sorting and went on a rock hunt. They notices that rocks can be seperated or sorted in many different ways.



2nd graders are learning about the three states of matter: solids, liquids, and gases. They focused on the molecules and what makes each object act the way it does. We are learning about solids first. We sorted our solid baggies into different properties and then...we build towers. We learned what engineers need to do in order to make a strong structure. Take a look!










3rd graders are learning about water. They started off by learning about how water acts on different surfaces. We used waxed paper, white paper, aluminum foil, and paper towel to observe beads, absorption, and surface tension. We also experimented with salt water, soapy water, and tap water on the surface of a penny. Next week, we will discuss the different types of water and the results that we observed.

4th graders are working on a different type of science study...their first pre-med course. They learned that we have about 206 bones in our body. We counted the bones of our skull, torso, leg, and arm by studying posters that showed each bone. No bones about it, it wasn't the easiest job, but we did learn some great terminology.

Fifth graders are working on a chemistry unit, mixtures and solutions. We learned the difference between the two words and conducted some experiments to separate mixtures and solutions by strainer, filter, and evaporation. We will continue to develop our understanding of the vocabulary as we set up different chemistry experiments.

Sunday, November 25, 2012

Science Class DoJo

I am excited to share our new Science Star award, Class DoJo. It is a positive behavior program where each child is given an avatar that represents them during Science time. I can give positive and negative points for class noise level, participation, and even on task behaviors. By the end of the class our goal is to have 75% of the class at obtaining positive behavior points. For each 75%-94% the class will be awarded one Science Star. If the class has over 95% of the class getting positive points the class will earn 2 Science Stars. The goal is to get to 10 points for a fun Science reward such as an extra cool experiment or special activities. I can't wait to start it this week with our new units.

Poppin' Good Time In Science

For Science this week, we had only two days. I decided to use cranberries and popcorn to tie in Social Studies, Reading, and Writing with Science experiments. Here are some fun activities we tried...

Bouncing Berries For The
Freshness Test!

Fun with floating berries...


Using our 5 senses...


Happy Thanksgiving My Science Stars

Hope everyone enjoyed their time off. It is new unit time for many of my classes. First graders are starting a new unit on rocks this week. Hopefully, my first grade friends found rocks before the snow fell this week. Bring your treasures in this week.

Second graders are going to be starting their new unit this week as well. We are moving into Solids, Liquids, and Gases. How exciting! As a MATTER of fact is will be GREAT!

Third graders are also starting their Water unit. We will be focusing on the water cycle and other concepts of this wonderful liquid.

Fourth graders are just finishing up their magnet and electricity unit. We will be creating electromagnets after our quiz. Hope everyone studied. Next week, we will start our human body unit. No bone about it, we will learn about what makes us jump, sit, bend and more.

Fifth graders are finishing up their Variables unit and will be focusing on the Flipper Olympics. We will then start our Mixtures and Solutions unit. Yea, for Chemistry!

Thursday, November 15, 2012

4th Grade Quiz After Thanksgiving

Electricity Study Guide:

•Know the difference between a series and parallel circuit

Parallel circuits=a circuit with two or more pathways for current to flow

Series circuits= only one path for a current to flow

•Know the components of a closed circuit

Source= D-cell, energy provider

Receiver= light bulb or motor, what gets the energy to work

Pathway= wires that connect the source and the receiver


Wednesday, November 14, 2012

First Grade Thinkers

One of my wonderful first grade coworkers decided to teach her students how to take notes and share what they learned in Science. This week, they will be taking a test. They were so excited about teaching their teacher about animals that I needed to come down to their room to answer questions. How exciting! Thanks, Janet!

Flipper Olympics

We are creating games to finish up our variable unit. Each game is a different Olympic event. Next week, the fifth graders will be challenged to show distance, height, and accuracy using the variables we tested. Here are some of the games we are going to be plaing next week...




Sunday, November 11, 2012

New Units Coming Your Way

Next week, we will be finishing many of the FOSS units that we started at the beginning of the year. First graders, we are starting our Pebbles, Sand, and Silt Unit next week. Don't forget to find some rocks before it snows! You can bring them to school to share. An egg carton is a great way to story them!

2nd graders are you ready for our Water Unit? What a great connection after we finish our Air and Weather Unit next week. Remember, we have a test this week. Study...study...study.

3rd graders will be working on Solids and Liquids. What's the matter you might ask? We will be starting that Unit in two weeks. We are finishing our rock unit this week by finding out what is in granite. Rock on, 3rd graders!

4th graders are finishing their unit on Magnetism and Electricity in two weeks. We are creating series and parallel circuits this week and wrapping up our unit with a final test right before Thanksgiving break. Our next unit is the Human Body...no bones about it we will learn how we are put together.

5th graders will be ending our Variable Unit right before break as well. We are creating Olympic games to go along with our flipper experiments. We will be testing height and distance with a variety of events to test our variable skills. We will also be ending our unit with a test before we eat some turkey.


Thursday, November 1, 2012

First Quarter In Review

Wow, the first quarter is already come and gone. Many of our units are finishing up. So.... let's review what everyone has been learning in Science this quarter.

First grade- Animals, animals, animals. We have compared and contrasted different types of animals each week. We focused on mammals, amphibians, reptiles, and birds. We have used our writing skills and art smarts to connect the facts with fun activities. We have sung songs, and taken tests to remember each group of animals. First graders should remember which group is warm or cold blooded, which groups gives live birth or lays eggs, and what characteristics make each animal group unique. Our next unit will be pebbles, sand, and silt.

Second grade- Air and weather was our quarter one focus. Students should know that air is all around us, it takes up space, it comes in different forms (solid, liquid, gas), and that it moves things. We also focused on the weather making connections with the weather in our country, our state, our town. Students have used many tools to measure weather... from thermometers to anemometers. We will continue to study storms and the sky in the day and night.

Third grade- We have learned about Earth materials. We have used property words to describe the three types of rocks: metamorphic, sedimentary, and igneous. We observed the different rocks and have learned that minerals are found in rocks. We have tested minerals to see how hard they are. We used a paper clip, a penny, and our finger nail. We placed it on Moh's hardness scale. We tested to see if Calcite is present in rocks by using the vinegar test. We are finishing up by observing crystals from calcite present in our rocks. We will also be testing granite to see what minerals are present in that rock. We will take nothing for granite...

Fourth grade- Our fourth graders started off by learning about magnets. We tested magnetism, build temporary magnets, found which objects are used to find magnetic objects and hunted down objects that were and weren't magnetic. We transferred that information to our electricity unit. We found that objects are conductors and insulators. We created circuits and know that three components are the receiver, the source, and the pathway. We built circuits to test how to create a pathway. We will continue to build parallel and series circuits and test mystery objects to connect what we know.

Fifth grade- We are becoming pretty good scientists with this unit...variables. We have set up three experiments the pendulum, the life boat, and the flipper. We used our schema to make connections between real world experiences and the experiments that we test. We made relationships between what we learned and what we did to create a controlled experiment...only changing one thing in our experiment which is our variable. Everything else must stay the same. Now, we will see if what they know can transfer to other ideas.

Friday, October 19, 2012

This Week In Review...

First graders finished up their reptile activities this week. They listened to a story about Turtle's day and then worked on a writing activity to share what turtles have, are, and can... Many of their activities are kept in their Science notebooks for you to see later. It is a nice safe place for all of our thinking. We also made a crocodile to take home. We learned the difference between an alligator and crocodile and sang a song to share at home. We also finished up with a reptile quiz. Great job, first grade friends.

2nd graders worked on weather once again, but this time we focused on temperature. We came up with a great list of things that are hot and things that are cold. We then learned how to read a thermometer. We saw what happens when a thermometer goes in different temperatures of water. We recorded different temperatures in other parts of the country.

3rd graders are learning about the three types of rock: sedimentary, metamorphic, and igneous. We viewed a variety of great rocks and then worked on understanding the definitions. We will be categorizing rocks next week and checking for hardness.

4th graders continued to work on circuits. We experimented with opened and closed circuits and built schematics. We used our new vocabulary to understand the components and what every circuit needs to work.

5th graders floated their lifeboats this week. They tested their control boat the Titanic. Then they tested the other 4 boats they made to see the maximum capacity of each of their boats. Next week, they will compare the different boat sizes to the different boat companies to see if other groups were able to get similar results.

Thursday, October 11, 2012

This Week In Review....

First graders have been learning about Reptiles this week. They can tell you that reptiles are cold-blooded and even explain what that means. Reptiles lay eggs (almost all of them), are either turtles/tortoises, crocodilians, snakes and lizards, and tuartaras. Reptiles have dry, scaly skin and shed their skin as they grow. Our first graders got to see a molten snake skin and even a rattle snake rattler and head.

2nd graders just finished their air unit and took a quick quiz. We then started to focus on weather. We went outide and with our new meterology skills, we created a weather report. Each 2nd grader will be working on our weather calendar in class as we continue to study air in a new way.

3rd graders used their their geologist skills to observe their vials as well as crystal evaporation dishes. They were able to determine the ingredients of our mock rock. We learned a lot of new words to help us observe rock properties. Next week, a quick quiz on properties of rocks. Check out the study guide on the third grade link.

4th graders are focusing on electricity and circuits this week. We are connecting D-cells which is our source to the enery receiver, our lightbulb. We understood that a circuit is a pathway which electric current flows. We actually created that flow in class. We took a test on magnets to see what we remember about our magnet unit.

5th graders finished up their section on swinger/pendulum systems. We took a review quiz to see if we could transfer what we learned to a new experiment. We then created a fleet of ships based on the Titanics lifeboat disaster. We are testing a control, our 3cm boat and how many passengers, pennies it can hold. We made connections in history. Next week, we will test our fleet of 5 boats to see the carrying capacity of each boat.

Friday, September 28, 2012

Some of This Week's Science Highlights

This week, first graders are learning about amphibians. We read about frogs, played a game to recognize different amphibians called frog, toad, or salamander and we made life cycle wheels.
Third graders this week are geologists. They each got a mock rock to observe and next week they will be breaking their rocks down to see what minerals are present. 3rd graders are able to bring in rocks to share with our science class next week. They can bring them in an egg carton or shoe box for safe keeping. Rock on...3rd graders.

Fourth graders are learning how to set up a controlled experiement to answer the "big idea"...What happens to the strength of the attraction between two magnets as the distance between them increase? Ask your 4th grader what happened when we added spacer and washers to our scale.


Sunday, September 23, 2012

This Week In Review...

This week our first graders learned about another mammal...the bat. It is the only mammal that has wings and can fly. We read Stellaluna and learned the similarities and  differences between bats and birds. We created a poster to remind us. We labeled the different parts of a bat and learned that bats just like humans breath air, grow hair or fur, give live birth, feed their babies milk, and can eat plants and meat.

The 2nd graders conducted experiments to see that air is matter, takes up space, and can be captured. We finished making our books about air that reminded us that air is something real and is called matter, air takes up space, and air interacts with objects. We will continue to experiment with our vials and water as well as learn about air resistance. Parachutes, anyone?

3rd graders finished up our review of the metric system by participating in the Metric Olympics. They measured in centimeters by estimating and measuring their own feet in the Big Foot Race. They also measured using meter sticks with the plastic straw javelin throw. We also reviewed measuring in grams by measuring the right-handed marble grab again estimating what weight we thought it might be then measuring. Our final event was the left-handed sponge squeeze which had the students measuring in milliliters. Students were awarded ribbons by being the best estimators between the actual and estimated numbers. Next week... mock rocks.

4th graders learned that magnetism can be induced only if iron or steel created induced magnetism. We took our magnets and used our iron nail to show how our iron nail could be a temporary magnet and pick up other iron objects. We also tested the magnetic force as it acted through space and most materials. We will be conducting experiments to see how the force decreases as the distance increases.

5th graders continue to conduct controlled experiments with only one variable. We tested release point and number of pennies on our pendulum. We found that it really didn't change the results too much. We created new swinger systems at different lengths that we will test this next week. We will also use coordinate graphs to display our results.

Fifth Grade Variables Review

We will be taking a quiz the last week of September. Here is what you need to study for in order to be prepared...

Science quiz #1    Variables

 

What they need to study/know for the quiz:

 

Vocabulary:  variable, pendulum,  cycle, standard

 

What variables have we identified  that might affect the outcome of the number of cycles the pendulum makes in 15 sec. ?

 

Examples of a pendulum.  ( I want at least two)

 

Monday, September 10, 2012

This Week In Review...

First graders learned about mammals this week. They met Molly Mink. She has hair, eats meat and plants, is warm blooded, feeds her babies milk, and breaths air. We played a mammal game: guess the mammal and read a book called Is a Camel a Mammal. We finished up by creating our own paper plate mammals for display in our room. Reminding us that we too, are mammals.

2nd graders learned about air this week. They learned that air takes up space and can move things. We used balloons, feathers, balls, and straws to experiment with air.

3rd graders started learning about the metric system in order to know how to measure when we start our rock unit in two weeks. We learned how to use tools such as a meter stick and a scale to measure in centimeters and grams. Next week, we will be able to see what we remember as we participate in the metric olympics.

4th graders started their first unit by studying the magnet. They tested what objects in our bags attracted magnets. We determined that iron or steel were the only metals that magnets were attracted to. We hunted around the room to see if we could detect any objects that were made of iron or steel. We finished up our time with our talk of repelling and attracting.

5th graders learned about what a variable is. They created a swinger system or pendulum to see if we could determine what effects the number of swings in 15 seconds. We went through the scientific process to predict what will happen next week when we change the variables such as string length and weight.

Saturday, September 8, 2012

Science is Everywhere!

From dancing raisins to exploring the great outdoors, young scientists at Jefferson and Stettin were  hard at work during our Science time together. First and Second graders listened to the book What is Science, shared what science means to them in pictures and explored the world around them. Whether it be shells or pond water they certainly were excited to discover.

Our older scientists conducted their first experiment. We learned the scientific process as well. We learned we need to always ask a "big question" so that we know what we want to answer during our experiment. This week we asked the "big question": what will happen when raisins are dropped in a cup of Sierra Mist? We formed a hypothesis: from it will explode to it will sink or float, we even predicted it might be confused. We then conducted our experiment to find that CO2 molecules in the soda, attach to the raisins causing the raisin to be less dense than soda bringing the raisin to the top until the bubbles pop, causing the raisin to sink again. We drew  a picture and labeled what we saw as well as recorded our findings. We discussed how scientist must always take careful notes and even draw diagrams to help process their findings.

Next week, we start our first units for quarter one. I am looking forward to working with my young scientists as they discover that Science is all around them.

Friday, July 13, 2012

Can Mrs. Heinrich Do It? Yes She Can!

Preparing For A Stellar Year!

After 19 years of teaching in an elementary classroom, I am excited to try something new. Being a Science Specialist for 1st through 5th graders may pose its own challenges, but I am up to it. I have been very busy finding new picture books to use, creating activities for our interactive science notebooks, and preparing to unpack two different classrooms. One may be in a corner of the library, while the other is shared with the art teacher, but in both rooms Science will be out of this world! I can't wait to get started.

Saturday, June 16, 2012

Welcome to FOSS Science!

My name is Mrs. Heinrich and I am your new 1st- 5th grade Science teacher. I can't wait to get started. I will be updating this site regularly, so stay tuned to find out what is new in our Science class. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or would like to see something special posted: rheinric@wausauschools.org