Energy Balls Science Activity for Kids

One of the things I learned about at the NSTA (National Science Teachers' Association) were these amazing energy balls (you can buy them here).  I purchased a few for my classroom and decided to use them as an Engagement activity to introduce our FOSS energy unit.  I am so glad that I did, as my students were absolutely enthralled and engaged!

The Energy Ball is a fun, easy, and safe way to introduce students to the power of electricity!

On the outside of the Energy Ball are two metal strips.  If you touch these strips with your fingers, the ball will start buzzing and flashing a red light.  This happens because they have created a closed circuit when they touch the strips.

I handed out the energy balls to my students and let them try them out a bit (without telling them to much).  "What are these?" They wondered.

At first, nothing seemed to be happening.

But eventually, group by group, they discovered the magic and were able to light them up.

Then my little scientists started testing out theories about how to make it work.

If we touch hands it turns on, but if we let go...

the ball turns off.

At first they thought it only worked with their hands, but then a few tried some other places...

like their faces! LOL!

We discovered it even worked with more than two people.

They work with other items too!  Of course we had to test EVERYTHING!

Impromptu science "notebooks" even appeared on their desks without any teacher input!  I LOVE when they pay attention and transfer what they have learned!

This was hands down one of my best science lessons so far, and I can't wait to delve into the ideas I learned even more!  

Now the moment you have been waiting for.... my monthly TpT gift certificate giveaway!  Enter below!

This Giveaway is Over!  Please visit our Giveaway page to enter our current Teachers pay Teachers gift card giveaway.   Sign up HERE to be alerted about all of our future giveaways!

Time to enter my monthly $25 Teachers pay Teachers gift card giveaway!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Paper Folding Science Experiment

I was fortunate enough to be able to attend the NSTA (National Science Teacher's Association) conference held in Reno two weeks ago.  I learned sooo much and I am so excited to bring back some of the ideas to my students.  

One of the lessons demonstrated during the seminar was a great way to introduce scientific thinking and questioning to your students and could be used with a variety of grade levels.  I had my students try it out last week.

The project is essentially a physics experiment that asks how many times can you fold a piece of paper in half.

I had my students make predictions before they began folding, and they wrote their predictions on post-it notes.  We talked about how we could organize our data, and they suggested putting the estimations that were the same together.

Don't judge our dirty white board easel - it is well loved :)

Most students predicted around 7 folds.  Then, I had the students each fold a piece of paper counting how many times they folded it in half.  They then told me how many folds they had, and we collected that data.

We found that most students could fold their paper in half 6 to 7 times.  Then I asked them if they had any questions about what we had done.  One of them asked, "Would bigger paper make more folds?"  We voted to see what we thought.

"How could we test it?" I asked.

"Could we use one of the anchor chart papers?"  One of my students asked.

We tried it out.

With the big paper we were able to fold it 6 times.  "Any other questions?"

"Would it work with a smaller paper?" Someone asked as they were already folding a post-it.  6 times again.

"Does that always work?"

"Interesting that you ask... MythBusters checked this out."  I told them and then showed this video.

"Does the thickness of the paper matter?" Another student asked after watching the video.

"Again another great question!  Did you know a STUDENT actually asked this question and came up with a mathematical equation to figure that out?"  We then read this article about the high school student who did just that.

It was a great lesson that really got my students thinking like scientists, and was so inspiring for them to  see that they could make mathematical discoveries.

I will be sharing some other lessons soon, so stay tuned!

If you do this lesson with your students, I would love to hear how it goes!

5 For Friday - Oct. 30, 2015

It has been awhile since I've joined in with DoodleBugsTeaching for Five for Friday, but since I have the day off today in honor of Nevada Day, I really have no excuse not to!

In Nevada, we celebrate Nevada Day the Friday before the official Nevada Day (October 31st).  So, since today is a day off of school, we had our Halloween celebrations yesterday.  The kids had a blast!  I am not going to lie and say that Halloween is NOT my favorite day of the year as a teacher, but I do enjoy seeing them have a good time.

Because today is a holiday, we took our weekly math tests yesterday morning.  You could imagine my students' surprise when our principal (dressed as Sandra D), vice principal (dressed as a T-bird) , school secretaries (Pink Ladies), and school counselor (T-bird) burst into our room singing and dancing.

They had a little speaker with them that was playing You're The 

One I Want from Grease as they came in.  My students just sat there in shock.  As they walked out one of them said, "I think that song was from a movie." LOL!

I was able to attend the NSTA (National Science Teachers Association) conference last week and learned so much!  I can't wait to share the ideas with my students and also with you here on the blog. Stay tuned to Sunday's blog post for the science lesson I used with my students this week.

We have had a crazy few weeks as a family as well with Tyler's first Homecoming and Cody's first band concert.

In honor of Nevada Day, some of my fellow Nevada sellers have gotten together to throw a sale at our TPT stores.  My sale is running today and tomorrow.  You can visit my TpT store here.



Hope you have a great weekend and a Happy Halloween!

Reluctant Writers Lesson Idea and Giveaway!

We are using the Lucy Calkins Units of Study for our writing program, and she really encourages lots of free time for students to just write.  While I love this idea, some of my reluctant writers absolutely do not!  They spend the entire time hemming and hawing over not knowing what to write about, and end up with a sentence if I am lucky after 30 minutes of writing!  

I know that students become better writers by ACTUALLY WRITING, so I am constantly trying to think of ways to spur my reluctant writers on. 

One thing that I have been working on is giving my students mini-lessons with strategies for developing ideas to write about.  One strategy that we use often is the use of a mentor text.  I found this book, I Didn't Do My Homework Because... and I knew my students would LOVE it!

It looked like it might be a fun read, so, I purchased it, but when I read it, I knew I hit a writing mentor text gold mine.

When you open the text it begins with a teacher asking her student why he didn't do his homework.

He begins to list a variety of outrageous excuses.

My students roared with laughter as we read each of his reasons.  When we finished the book, I asked them to think of additional ideas they could add to the book if they were writing a sequel.  My students actually jumped at the chance.

Their ideas were hilarious!  Here a just a few examples...

And one of my favorite pics... look how proud of himself he is!  A full page of writing!  Woo Hoo!

And... before you go, make sure to head over to our giveaways page to enter our current giveaway!

This post contains affiliate links. I earn a small commission each time someone makes a purchase using one of my links, which helps to support the blog.  All opinions are my own and I only promote brands and products that I have used myself and truly love.  

Product Swap and Giveaway!

One of the best things about going to Vegas was getting to meet some of my blogging/TpT friends in real life!  We often collaborate and email each other and along the way become great friends.  One of the people that I got to meet this year in Vegas was Nichole who blogs at The Craft of Teaching.  You can find her store, The Craft of Teaching on TpT here.



While we were in Vegas we talked about a few of our products, and we decided to do a swap.  I tried out her Questions to Encourage Mathematical Thinking Posters, and she tried out my Math Journals for 5th grade.

For this swap, I am blogging about her product, she is blogging about mine, AND you have the opportunity to win them both along with a $10 TpT card! 

Do you ever find yourself struggling to ask students just the right math questions to get them thinking WITHOUT giving them the answer or telling them how to solve it?  Nichole has solved that problem with her questions to encourage mathematical thinking product.

I absolutely love that she has included both the posters for the wall and the small task card size ones!

I have the posters hanging on the wall that I can point to while teaching lessons, and I keep a set with me as I conference with students and work in small groups.  I have also given them to my students to help them coach each other. 

After using them for a few weeks, I have been amazed at how my students have started automatically using these questions not only with each other, but also in their written and verbal responses.  They are now saying things like "I know my answer makes sense because.." or "I solved this problem a different way by ..."

 

If you would like to try out this product for yourself, you can find it here, or enter to win using the Rafflecoptor below.  We are selecting two winners! 

a Rafflecopter giveaway