Candy Heart Science Experiment

Valentine's conversation hearts have so many uses this time of year. We have used them in multiple ways over the years. This year we tried a candy hearts science experiment!

Materials:

• Conversation hearts
• Clear cups
• Various liquids 

For our liquids we used things we already had at home: water, Coke Zero, vinegar, and apple juice. Before we started, I asked the question, "Which liquid do you think will dissolve the candy heart the quickest?" We placed 5 conversation hearts in each cup and observed what happened immediately and over time. 

Immediately we noticed that the hearts sank in every substance, except the Coke Zero (actually 1 sank, 4 floated). They started fizzing in Coke Zero immediately. 

We checked the conversation hearts after one hour and again after two hours. Most had risen by that point! Such a fun way to discuss solubility! There's lots of printables online you can find to do this in your classroom and we could have used one at home. I chose not to for this activity since it was just me and my son doing it. We just talked about what we were observing throughout the process instead! 

Other ways we've used candy hearts in the past:

• Sorting by color
• Sorting by first letter
• Graphing 
• Fine motor skills

STEM Challenge

Last week we finished our monthly STEM challenge. My students LOVE these. They are from Smart Chick Teaching Resources on TPT.

This months challenge was to choose the liquid that will dissolve a peep in the fastest amount of time. We chose 5 liquids. We used water, hydrogen peroxide, Sprite, apple juice, and canola oil. Most of my students thought that hydrogen peroxide would dissolve a peep in the shortest time. 

We let them sit for 6 days and made daily observations during that time. We discovered that water dissolved the peep the fastest in the shortest amount of time. Here are pictures of our results. The first picture is the peep that was in water.

We actually had some mold growing the apple juice container. 

These monthly challenges have been so fun to do as part of our morning routine once a month!

Five for Friday {May 1st}

It's Friday and we are one week closer to summer! As much as I love teaching, I am ready to enjoy summer. We have 14 days left with students! Today I am linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for her Five for Friday linky party.

I got the BEST news this week!! I accepted a job at my dream school for next year! Praise the Lord! A couple months ago my son was accepted into a local Christian school. With this, I knew I would be leaving my current job. I knew there would be no way that I could get him to his school and be at my school on time. It was logistically impossible. So, I made the decision to leave my current teaching position at the end of this year. Bittersweet, but I knew in my heart it was the right choice for Easton and I've had no second thoughts.

During the touring and application process, I submitted my application to teach there. I just prayed that if God wanted me to teach there, he would help me. I had such a peace that if he did, it would work out. If he didn't, I'd help out in Easton's classroom as much as I could. I had two interviews and a mock lesson that went really well. I received a call this week and I was offered a contract for next year!! I'll be teaching 5th grade ELA and I could not be more EXCITED! God is so good!!

This week we began our monthly STEM challenge. This is from Smart Chick Teaching Resources. We LOVE these challenges!

The question is, "Can your group choose the liquid that will dissolve the peep in the fastest amount of time?" We are using canola oil, hydrogen peroxide, apple juice, Sprite, and water.

Out of 25 students, 21 thought that hydrogen peroxide would dissolve a peep in the shortest amount of time. 2 thought Sprite and 2 thought Canola oil. We shall see!

This week we have Book Fair so I purchased a few books to add to my classroom library. I'd never read any of them, but heard good things about them all. I just finished Rules today and LOVED it. I'll be reading Wonder next. 

I also just signed up this week to attend a Scholastic warehouse book sale. I hope it's good! Has anyone attended one before?

#5 is simple - We have 14 days of school left! Woohoo! :) Have a fabulous weekend, friends!

Five for Friday

Happy Saturday, friends! Even though Doodle Bugs Teaching is taking a little mini vacation, I still wanted to share 5 things from my week with you! 

{one}

A local high school reached out to our fifth grade team asking if we would partner with their Advanced Acting class. We shared a student's writing with them and they came and acted it out. Little did we know that we teachers were also acting! We didn't know anything about it, but it was really neat and so much fun! I was so proud that the student's writing was one of my homeroom students!

{two}

Yesterday we had a school-wide Polar Express/pajama day. It was so much fun! We started the day with the performance mentioned above. Then we made Christmas foam ornaments, had lunch, watched The Polar Express, and just enjoyed a fun day. AND...we had a visit from the conductor of The Polar Express!



{three}

Another fun activity we did was our December STEM challenge which was to make snow! It was really neat and the kids LOVED it.

{four}

We finished and assessed our novel, "Which Way to the Wild West". In the back of the novel there is a section called, "What Ever Happened To...?". We picked one person from that section and wrote letters to them. 

{five}

One more week, friends! We have lots of fun things coming up next week. We are reading the book "Prancer" and watching the movie to compare. We have our Christmas party and we have one full day of Christmas craft rotations! This will be my motto for next week!

Nature Scavenger Hunt

This past week we went on a fun nature scavenger hunt! I knew my son would love it - he loves to be outside and loves the woods. I found this free printable from Five Little Chef's.

We own woods right behind our house so that was the perfect setting for our scavenger hunt. 

I was thinking about how you could adapt this activity for the classroom - once a teacher, always a teacher. In my previous school, we had an amazing Nature Trail that would be great for an activity like this.

We found lots of items on our list - something rough (plant) and something smooth (rock).

We found different types of leaves, a Y-shaped and odd shaped twigs, and pinecones.

We also found something yucky....two ticks on my son at the end of the night. Eeeekkkk!

We had fun doing our nature scavenger hunt!

Lorax Stories

Before this blog turns into Pre-K activities, I plan on wrapping up a couple of posts about my time in 5th grade.  

In this post, I shared how my partner teacher and I were using The Lorax with our Landforms and Oceans unit.  

This photo came from Creating Lifelong Learners. If you wish to pin, please click here to go to the original post. 

The kids LOVED writing their own Lorax stories. I mean, LOVED. My partner teacher and I did ours a little different. Our Science classes were divided based on ability. Her class preferred doing things independently, while mine needed the assistance and guidance of peers and often preferred to work together.  So, her students shared ideas in a discussion, but wrote their own stories. My class split into 5 groups and wrote a Lorax story together. I'm sharing one sample from her class and one from mine. I wish I'd gotten more pictures. One student from my partner teacher's class was AMAZING, but she was still working on it when I left. 

I have one more post about my last day in 5th grade before I begin sharing Pre-K activities with my little one. I've had so much FUN planning activities today for us to use this week and cannot wait to share! 

The Lorax

I remember this past summer reading about how many of the Dr. Seuss has some type of political or environmental theme to them and I remember thinking, "What? Am I the ONLY person who never caught that?" I originally saw this on Brandee's blog, Creating Lifelong Learners. I was amazed and so glad I could incorporate Dr. Seuss into my 5th grade classroom. Yep, even 5th graders LOVE Dr. Seuss!

Original post from Creating Lifelong Learners - If you wish to PIN this item, please click here to go to the original source! 

My partner teacher plans Science and incorporated this Dr. Suess book into our Science plans. The unit we are currently studying is Landforms & Oceans. This week our focus has been on conservation and pollution.

Many of my students had read this book (or saw the movie!) and didn't know it had anything to do with the environment. Neither did I before now!

This page shows the "before" picture where all of the Truffula trees are standing, the grass is green, the air is clean, and the pond is thriving.

Here, the Lorax comes out and speaks for the trees.

A factory is built and many Truffula trees are being cut down.

The air begins to be polluted while more and more trees are being cut down.

The animals who once lived there must find another food source, since the Truffula trees no longer bear the fruits they eat.

The very last Truffula tree is cut down. 

After we read the story, I gave them their challenge: Write your own Lorax story with the setting being the ocean. I thought they may have a hard time getting started so we narrowed it down to 3 topics:

• Over-fishing
• Oil spills
• Trash 

    

They began brainstorming ideas today and were SO excited! I can't wait to read their final products!