Liquids and Solids!

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Exploring Water, Ice and Rock Salt!

The children took a couple of ice cubes and placed them in a dish.  Then we added rock salt to the ice.  Almost immediately we noticed how quickly the ice turned to water.  The water became blue because the rock salt was blue.  Be sure to ask your child about what happened and their ideas about why.

What Does Absorb Mean?

This afternoon we explored and experimented with the idea of absorption.  The children took private think time to think about what absorb means.  Afterwards we turned and talked with a partner about our ideas.  Then we worked in cooperative groups and discovered through experimentation what absorb means.
 

 Listen to some of our scientific ideas about what it means when something absorbs a liquid.

Sinking and Floating!

This afternoon the children made predictions about what objects on our SMARTboard would either sink or float.  After we sorted the objects the children took some private think time and then "turned and talked" with their partner about why they felt some objects would float and not others.  Then the children worked in small groups and explored the idea of what would float in a liquid, water and what would not.  The children each have their own scientific journal to write and illustrate their observations.

 After we had a conversation about what makes a liquid a solid, some of the children worked collaboratively together to create a "snowman" out of water and colored balloons!  We placed the "snowman" in a plastic tub outside where the air is really cold.  Then we created scientific journal pages about what we did and what our predictions are.  Lots of great scientific thinking happening!

We have started a new unit of study; Liquids and Solids.  The children took some private think time to think about what these words mean.  Afterwards everyone "turned and talked" to a partner then we had a large group share.  I have listed some of the ideas and understandings the children have of these 2 ideas.  "A liquid is something that you can put your hand through", "A liquid is like water", "The water flows over hands", "You can add something a little hard to it, then mix them together, so it's sort of hard"(a liquid to a solid), "A solid is like a solid color, solid", "It's a solid(the tub) because I can't put my hand through it", "You can't put your hand through the bottom, so it is solid, like hard."

Listen to some of our scientific ideas about our experiment! Then we were able to create our scientific journal pages about all of our observations and predictions!