Miniature Science Fairs

This activity could have easily gone into student notebooks but I had students take them home to help them prepare for our science fair.

Students were involved in a classroom experiment and then had to create miniature science boards and lab books that mimicked what was being asked of them when they turned in their actual science fair boards (from what page contains what information in the lab book to the placement of pictures and graphs on the board).

It was really a fun project and the even though it took some prep work (making all those mini lab books) the students really got into it. It was a two day process. One for the experiment and recording some information in the lab book and the next day to finish the boards and lab book.

I am not a huge fan of science fairs in general but I really try and prepare my students and parents for what is expected. I have a "science fair center" on my website at http://www.mrsheatonsclass.com/ and anyone is welcome to view what I have posted online as far as science fair information and resources.

Comments

Robin said…

Hi, I love this idea for a take-home guide for kids to know and practice what their presentation board should look like. Could you give me more information on what they included in the mini-book?

March 18, 2015 at 5:43 PM

Nicky said…

You give me a brilliant idea to do with the Science club here in Mexico. Thx

September 20, 2015 at 12:52 AM

Secret Messages - How To (Light and Color)

This was fun activity that I got from Roper Mountain Science Institute. They suggested red theater gel to reveal the message, which can get pricy. Another idea I heard was to ask movie theaters to donate left over 3D glasses, which also have a red filter. A guest speaker we had last year said red jello would work. Tried it this week and it worked like a charm. The students thought it was very cool. I found my "attention challenged" students had trouble focusing on making their own secret messages so I was very glad that I had made extra copies of the sheets from the GEMS Color Analyzer book that they could color and then check under the jello.

Picture of the Day - Activity

I attended a training class and a science coach shared an activity that he does with his students to help them differentiate between observations, inferences, and predictions. He puts a picture on the interactive white board as a warm up (he gets the pictures from a variety of sources but uses National Geographic's Picture of the Day a lot). The picture above is from the National Geographic site. He has the students make five observations. Then he makes the students make five inferences. Finally he has the students make five predictions. He does this every day and it really drives home the difference between those three key inquiry vocabulary terms. I've done this activity with both my sixth and fourth grade science classes and the students really got into it and became proficient at telling me the difference between those terms.

QR Project - Open House

Twitter Post Link - https://bit.ly/3Umic7r I saw this adorable QR code project on Twitter and decided to try it out with a couple of third grade classes. We have several schools in our district who are "Leader in Me" schools and I asked a teacher if I could come in and make them for her open house (you don't need to be a "Leader in Me" school but I know they do a lot of goal setting and mission statements). She loved the idea! I decided to use Flip (formally Flipgrid) to do the recording. The web based program is free for educators and automatically generates the needed QR code. We started on a Thursday. I pulled students into the hall to get a picture of them holding a square piece of paper prior to an ELA block. The paper acted as a place holder for the QR code (which is square) and ensured I got the correct hand spacing so the students looked like they were holding the QR code. I found a spot that didn't have anything in the background. The background...

Notebooking, Teaching, and Technology

Search This Blog