2020-21 Lesson 16: Five Senses

Our five senses include the sense of smell, sound, sight, taste, and touch. We use our five sense daily! We did some voting to see what students preferred to smell and taste. Sweet and spicy foods won for best tasting. Students like to smell good odors such as food baking and flowers. 

We learned some facts about our five senses from this Scholastic worksheet. 

We popped popcorn and used our sense of sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch! It was fun to eat it afterwards!

Finally we watched a video about our 5 senses on PBS.org. 

Here is the link if you'd like to watch it again! 

https://www.pbs.org/video/science-trek-five-senses/

2020-21 Lesson 15: Acid or Base?

Acids and bases are two special kinds of chemicals. Almost all liquids are either acids or bases to some degree. Whether a liquid is an acid or base depends on the type of ions in it. If it has a lot of hydrogen ions, then it is an acid. If it has a lot of hydroxide ions, then it is a base.

Some examples of acids include vinegar, soda, and citrus juices. Some examples of bases include baking soda, dish soap, and window cleaner. 

Today you can determine if a liquid is an acid or a base by measuring it's pH. There are different ways to do this including using acid base indicator papers (Litmus Strips) or by using a pH meter. 

Acids have a pH number less than 7. Bases have a pH number greater than 7. Water is neither and acid or a base but is neutral. 

Experiment!

We tested 8 liquids with Litmus paper strips to see if they were acids or bases. We tested: Orange Soda, Lemon Juice, Apple Juice, Vinegar, Dawn Dish Soap, Baking Soda, Hand Sanitizer, and Water. 

It was fun to see the paper turn red, orange, green, and blue. We compared the colors on our indicator chart and recorded our answers. 

 

2020-21 Lesson 14: Electrical Circuits

Electricity is a type of energy that can build up in one place or flow from one place to another. When electricity gathers in one place it is known as static electricity (the word static means something that does not move); electricity that moves from one place to another is called current electricity.

A circuit is a complete path around which electricity can flow. It must include a source of electricity, such as a battery. Materials that allow electric current to pass through them easily, called conductors, can be used to link the positive and negative ends of a battery, creating a circuit.

We had a great discussion on how we use electricity and depend on it in our everyday lives. We use it to light our houses, cook our food, power our electronics, and play our games. 

For our experiment we created circuits using aluminum foil, Christmas lights, electrical tape, and 9-volt batteries. It was so fun to see the lights turn on as the circuits were created!

 

2020-21 Lesson 13: Rainbows

Rainbows are formed when light shines through water, like when the sun shines through the rain. This light is bent and reflected, like a reflection in a mirror, and this causes all of the amazing colors that you see. 

The light that we see each day is sunlight, a white light that comes to us from the sun. White light is made up of the different colors that we see in the rainbow, but when the light is all traveling in one direction, it looks white. 

During the rains, however, millions of raindrops cause the colors in the white light to separate and refract through them. Each raindrop actually makes its own rainbow, but when there are so many raindrops at the same time, the rainbows become big enough for us to see with the naked eye.

Rainbows normally appear from the rain, but they can happen wherever light is being bent inside of water droplets. Rainbows can be seen in mist, fog, spray, and dew. 

Rainbows are made up of all seven colors that come from light. These colors are red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet.

A great way to remember these colors is the think of the acronym, which seems like a man’s name: ROY G BIV

There is no end to a rainbow. Even though they look like an arch to us, or an upside down letter U, rainbows are actually full circles. 

We saw beautiful pictures of rainbows and then created our own rainbows by dropping clear nail polish onto water and pulling out the film with our black paper squares.

2020-21 Lesson 12: Water Cycle and States of Matter

Water is pretty amazing! 

Water can be a solid, a liquid, or a gas. 

The recycling of water over and over again is called the Water Cycle. 

There are four main parts of the Water Cycle: Evaporation, Condensation, Precipitation, and Collection. 

We learned about each stage of the Water Cycle and then created a Water Cycle in a bag.

We played a water cycle game to learn more about the vocabulary.

And we danced to the Water Cycle Song!

2020-21 Lesson 11: Habitats and Ecosystems

A habitat is a place where an organism makes its home. A habitat meets all the environmental conditions an organism needs to survive. ... The main components of a habitat are shelter, water, food, and space.

An ecosystem is a community of interacting organisms and their environment. Living things interact with each other and also with non-living things like soil, water, and air. Ecosystems often contain many living things and can be as small as your backyard or as large as the ocean.

In every habitat and ecosystem food webs are created. As we discussed food webs we learned that in each food web there are producers, consumers, and decomposers. 

We played a card game where we sorted types of consumers into: 

herbivores, carnivores, and omnivores.

2020/21 Lesson 10: The Moon

What would it be like to live on the moon? Maybe one day that will be a reality! But for now it is fun to imagine what it would be like. 

Here are some facts we learned about the moon:

The earth and moon rotate together so we always see the same side of the moon. We looked at a model of this in class.

The first men to walk on the moon were Americans named Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin in 1969. 

No one has walked on the moon since 1972. 

It takes 27.3 days for the moon to orbit the earth. 

The phases of the Moon are the different ways the Moon looks from Earth over about a month. As the Moon orbits around the Earth, the half of the Moon that faces the Sun will be lit up. The different shapes of the lit portion of the Moon that can be seen from Earth are known as phases of the Moon.

"The lunar phase or Moon phase is the shape of the Moon's directly sunlit portion as viewed from Earth. The lunar phases gradually change over a synodic month as the Moon's orbital positions around Earth and Earth around the Sun shift." Wikipedia

We twisted open a cookie to see if the frosting looked like the phases of the moon!

We experimented with "Fizzing Moon Rocks"!

If you want to make some at home, just mix baking soda with water. Roll the mixture into a ball and let dry. Using a pipette, squirt some vinegar on the baking soda rock and see it bubble and fizz. 

Finally, we drew the phases of the moon on a cup. As you twist the cup, you can see the different phases. It was so fun to learn about the moon!