November 3rd: Test Day!!! The tests are not graded yet, but I will have them on Monday for the kids. The quick overview showed that the kids who were following the labs, taking notes, and participating... did well. Some kids struggled, and there is a silver lining. They may realize that what they are doing in class is not working and will make changes.
November 2nd: The kids love to play Kahoot! and it is a great way to review material. We will have our test tomorrow, Friday. They were allowed to take their notebooks home. They don't need to study them or memorize definitions. They could look over the experiments. Most important... they need to bring the notebooks back to school.
November 1st: We made it! Today was our final investigation, and we closed the unit with a bang. Literally... a bang. We captured the carbon dioxide from a chemical reaction in a Ziploc bag. We will start reviewing tomorrow, and depending on how that goes... we may have our test on Friday. If the review does not go as well as expected... we will take the test next week. Don't worry about studying. The kids will use their notebooks for the test, and all the questions come from the experiments/investigations. It will be OK.
October 31st: Happy Halloween. The kids' minds were on the enormous amount of candy waiting for them to collect, but they could still get their schoolwork done and done well. The kids mixed two substances with 50mL of water today. The difference this time was what happened... a chemical reaction. The kids recorded what they observed from each of the three mixtures. It could be temperature change, gasses formed, or precipitate settling out. Sometimes, it was all of them in one cup!
Something new! A precipitate was formed when we added 50mL of water to calcium chloride and baking soda. The precipitate is the white layer on the bottom.
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Students mixing different substances and recording observations.
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October 30th: Chemical reactions are our final area to cover. We had shortened classes today because of extra gym, but we got some excellent work done and will be ready to hit the ground running with our lab work tomorrow.
October 27th: The kids have reached saturation of the study of saturations. We learned that the mass could identify soluble substances in 50mL of water that has been saturated. They finished the unit by identifying a mystery substance using this method. It turns out the 67g of mystery substance saturates 50mL of water, so of course, it must be citric acid. Next week, we will be investigating chemical reactions and closing the week with a test (it might carry over to the following Monday). We will review prior to the test and the kids will use their notebooks. The answers to all the questions should be in their notebooks. Fingers crossed!
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October 26th: We know that it takes about 15g of NaCl to saturate 50 mL of water. Is that true for all soluble substances? Epsom salt or magnesium sulfate heptahydrate was today's solute. The groups add one scoop of Epsom salt at a time to 50 mL. They were not surprised that it dissolved in the water. They were surprised at how much was needed to get the solution saturated. The picture to the right shows the saturated solution. You can see the solute that could not dissolve in the solvent and fell to the bottom. The top of the little Post-It Note marked the volume of just 50 mL of water. The Epsom salt added a great deal of volume to the solution.
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October 25th: How much salt can be dissolved in 50mL of water. That was our project to explore today. The kids used past labs to assist in getting to about 15g by using filters, digital scales, logic, math, and a whole lot of shaking.
Can you see the four layers? Blue, Yellow, Green, and Red.
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October 24th: We completed the investigation about concentrations. The final lab was the Liquid Layers. The kids were given four different concentrations of salt solutions. They know that density is based on the mass per unit volume, which means that the greater the concentration, the greater the density. They had to stack the liquids in the correct order or the column would mix. It took a bit of work and logic, but they got there.
Can you see the different density layers? Blue is the most dense, so it is on the bottom. That is followed by yellow and green. Finally, the least dense is the red sitting on top. |
One group showed their work with a balance and laid out their work in a bracket.
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October 20th: We finished the week with mystery solutions. The kids had to work out a procedure to find the most concentrated solution. They had to get the answer from what they learned over the last week. They used balances to get their results and then checked their work on the scales. They did it perfectly!
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This was one of the students recorded data for how they found the density levels using a balance.
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October 19th: We finished our investigation into salt solutions. After much hands-on work, the kids understood the concept that we could determine the more concentrated salt solution by comparing the mass of equal volume. The heavier being the more concentrated. We also went to the Iris Gardens and painted pumpkins.
new concept understood + got out of school and painted pumpkins = a great day!
new concept understood + got out of school and painted pumpkins = a great day!
October 17th: Concentration. Not the game, but the ratio of solvent to solute. Your kid can tell you what those two words mean. Ok, we did have Kool-Aid today, but it was for science. The Kool-Aid or solute was used in different ratios to the water or solvent. We created both dilute and concentrated solutions. The solutions helped them understand the concept and it is Kool-Aid, so they enjoyed the experiment. Today was the exception to the tasting in labs rule. They did not have to drink the Kool-Aid or taste it if they did not want to. If they did, I am sure they would not go wild with sugar, because they had maybe an ounce or two.
Different concentrations of Kool-Aid.
October 16th: The kids got more information about what was in the black boxes. They still could not open their original boxes, but they were able to improve their models. They even got all the possible pieces in their black box to make a model. They did a pretty good job, but because of the nature of the black box... they could not be 100% sure of their work (we can not open the black boxes).
Are one of these black boxes correct?
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How about one of these?
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We will never know... that is why it is called a black box.
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October 13th: Black boxes. That was our topic today. We discussed what is meant by a black box (explanations of objects, events, or systems that cannot be observed directly) and examples (Atomic structure, Earth’s core, Magnetism, and Origin of the universe). Our work centered around a literal black box with something going on inside. The kids did their best to make models of what was in the black box. They made changes as information was shared and ended up with pretty accurate models. It killed them that they could not open the boxes to find out if they were correct... and I didn't tell them. That is what makes them a black box. It was frustrating, but the kids had fun and did some learning.
October 12th: Separating a dry mix was today's lesson. The kids used everything they had done over the last week or so and had to devise a way to completely separate a cup of salt, powder, and gravel. They started by agreeing on a procedure and recording that in their notebook. I checked to see if they had a procedure, not if it would work. Failure is okay in our labs. Quitting is not. The kids couldn't get a new cup of salt, powder, and gravel. They had to figure out how to make it work with what they had... and they did!
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October 11th: The water evaporated out the salt water solution and the kids were left with just the salt. However, it didn't look like the salt they originally added. The crystal structures created were pretty fascinating...
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Are those pyramids or squares with an "X"?
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October 10th: How do you separate a salt solution? I told the kids that the salt disappears when you mix salt and water. That must be true because I can't see salt in the solution. The kids came up with procedures to prove that the salt was still in the solution by finding the mass of the water and salt and comparing that to the mass of the saltwater solution. Boom! The weights were equal. The solutions are evaporating as we speak, and I hope for much progress tonight. I am working on the students using the correct terminology (solute, solvent, solution, mixture, dissolve...). Tomorrow, we will discuss how the lesson demonstrates the idea of the conservation of matter.
October 6th: The kids finished their first investigation of matter by making and separating mixtures. They had to make observations of their substances, which were Kosher salt, diatomaceous earth, and gravel. The different materials were mixed with water, and the kids had to separate them back out. It was interesting to see their thought processes on what would not work and why and what would work and why. The tricky part was separating the salt that had dissolved (not disappeared) in the water.
October 4th: Today is the beginning of science for the 5th grade. We spent time setting up our notebooks, discussing procedures for lab work, and started to get into the work of understanding matter. I am so excited to open up your children to the wonderful world of science through hands-on experiments.
Check out the tab under Science 2023-2024 called Science World. We have a subscription that comes with online resources. There is a lot there. The articles are excellent, relevant, and tailored to a middle school audience. When you click on the tab you will given the link, username, and password. Take it for a spin. It is awesome.
Check out the tab under Science 2023-2024 called Science World. We have a subscription that comes with online resources. There is a lot there. The articles are excellent, relevant, and tailored to a middle school audience. When you click on the tab you will given the link, username, and password. Take it for a spin. It is awesome.
