Introduction

The purpose of this blog is to provide fun, engaging and educational lesson plans, science experiments and activities for students and teachers to use in their classrooms. This activities and experiments will cover a variety of science topics including, heat, space, geography, magnets, light, sound, and many other topics. Some of the lesson plans will be presented in the form of written plans, online lessons through sites like Nearpod and Playposit, as well as some demo videos and printable papers. Hope you enjoy learning about and teaching SCIENCE!!

*Some lesson plans and posts have information taken from the AIMS Education Foundation*

Color and Graphing - I Love Color

This lesson is designed for younger grades. The purpose of this lesson is to teach students about color, it is also an intro to ratios, and data gathering.

 I Love Color Here is the link for the worksheets

Background Information: 

Color is important in our world. We are delighted with the colors in flowers, in a sunset, in the leaves of autumn and in the brilliant colors of a rainbow.

Color is important in nature. The colors in flowers attract bees to help in pollination, color in fruit attracts fruit-eating animals, the color in some animals helps them attract mates.

Color also serves as a means of communication. For example, a red traffic light means stop, green for go. On the map, colors indicate certain things such as: blue indicates a body of water, black a highway or road.

A red object is red because it produces, reflects, or transmits only red light. White objects produce or reflect all colors; black objects absorb all colors. 

A rainbow is a spectrum formed as white sunlight is refracted by tiny drops of water falling through the air. Each color has a different wavelength. Violet has the shortest wavelength; red has the longest wavelength. They are at opposite ends of the spectrum.

On this printout page from the link  students will fill in the colors of the rainbow. Then they will fill out the rest of the paper.

Use this printout page to create a larger scale graph on the board, then give each student a sticky note, next one by one have them come up and place their sticky note in the column of their favorite color. Once that is done, give each student this printout and have them fill it out according to what the class put on the board.

Discussion Questions:

1. What was the favorite color of the class? How do you know?

2. Why do you think that color was the favorite?

3. Which was the least favorite? How do you know?

4. How many more students liked____than___? Explain how you know this.

5. Were there any tie votes?

Heat - Curly Cue, Balloon Bottle

This lesson is taught through Playposit, students need to have an account to be able to do this lesson. This lesson can be done individually or in groups at school or at home as homework. 

The purpose of this lesson is to teach students about heat currents and heat energy. It is meant to be an introduction to heat and an activity that they can do along with the video.

Sorting and Estimating - Candy Factory

The purpose of this lesson is to help students practice estimating and sorting out materials and objects. This lesson is done with M&M's but can be substituted for many things: Skittles, Lucky Charms, Jelly beans, etc. 

Link for the activity: Candy Factory

On the first page of the printout have the students make predictions for how many M&M's there will be in their package. 

After they have made their predictions, give them their bags of M&M's to sort through. They should sort them by color, then write the actual numbers in the chart next to their predictions.

        

When that is done, give them the last page of the printout for them to fill in the graph. This will help them see the different amounts next to each other and better see what amounts had more or less than the other colors. After that have them answer the questions next to the chart. You can then have them discuss their different answers and why some of the students got different answers than others.

Chemical Reaction - Elephant Toothpaste

Elephant Toothpaste is an easy, fun, entertaining and engaging lesson activity that shows students how a chemical reaction works. 

For this post I chose to use Animoto, which allowed me to document an experiment I did. Not only is this experiment fun, it shows children that learning about science can be fun, it's not all about numbers, and graphs, you can create things as well. This can be an easy activity to do in a classroom, the children can play with the finished product, and it can all go down the drain. The cons are that it can be hard to connect this to an actual scientific occurrence in nature, but you can also bring up volcanoes, or geysers like Yellowstone. You can ask the children if they have been to Yellowstone, then talk about why the geysers explode that way.

Materials: 

-Empty plastic bottle
-Dry yeast (found in the baking section of the grocery store)
-Warm water
-Liquid dish soap
-3% hydrogen peroxide
-Measuring cups 
-Measuring spoons
-Safety glasses
-Large tub or tray to catch the foam 
-Location for the activity that can tolerate spills (of hydrogen peroxide as well as possibly food coloring), such as a kitchen or bathroom—or an outdoor location 
-Liquid food coloring (optional)
-Different-shaped bottles or glasses (optional) 

Weather - Weather Wear

This lesson is intended for younger grades as it is a lesson to teach students what clothes are appropriate for each season: swimsuit in summer, coat in winter, etc.

Use this link: Weather Wear. Print it out and give one to each student. Let them draw what they are wearing that day, then talk to them about what different clothes should be worn in different months of the year. 

Discussion Questions:

1. What is the weather like today?

2. How does the weather influence what we wear?
3. What are some other factors besides weather that influence what we wear?

Weather - Cloudy Logic

The purpose of this lesson is to teach students the different cloud types and their purposes. 

Below is a link that contains two different activities that can be done to learn about clouds.

Cloudy Logic

The first 3 pages in the link are for the same activity, diagramming the clouds. Print out the page that has all the cloud types on it and make sure each student gets one set of cloud types

These cloud types include Nimbostratus, Stratus, Stratocumulus, Cumulonimbus, Cumulus, Altostratus, Altocumulus, Cirrocumulus, Cirrus, Cirrostratus.

You can choose to have the students guess what goes where, or you can teach about each type individually then see if the students can figure out which one you're describing. 

After you have discussed the types have the students cut out the papers and glue them next to their respective cloud on the next page.

Once they have finished gluing on their papers, you can have them either discuss who put which type where and if it is wrong or right. Or you can have them discuss if they have ever seen any of these cloud types before. 

You could also take them outside, if possible, and let them see what kind of clouds are in the sky at the time.

One thing that I have used to help me remember the basic cloud types is this little song/jingle whatever you want to call it:

"Stratus is the flattest in the cloud family.

 Cirrus is the highest it goes tickle tee-hee-hee.

 Cumulus is cauliflower yummy as can be.

 Nimbus is the rain cloud that rains on you and me."

Once they have finished with the other activities the last activity that is on the link above is a cloud book that they can cut out, fold, and color, then keep to help them remember, or to help them teach someone else.