5th - Building Atoms

Yes, you read correctly, we made atoms in class. To be precise, we constructed models of atoms: hydrogen, helium, lithium and beryllium.

The students are embarking on a chemistry unit where we scaffold onto their base knowledge of matter and delve into the building blocks of our world, atoms.

In this first lab, we learned how to interpret the individual boxes in a periodic table. We learned that each element has a one or two letter symbol and that the atomic number and mass tell us how many protons, neutrons and electrons compose each atom.

We are familiar with electrons from our study of electricity but protons are new to most of us and many of us thought that Neutron was just Jimmy's last name. :)

Ask your students which two particles combine to form the nucleus of an atom.

Hopefully your child brought home their atom model. If not, have a dig through their backpack.

Ask them what the beads represent.

Next up is a riddle-filled walk through the Periodic Table. Stay tuned!

3rd Grade - Food Chains

Mother Nature put on a glorious day for an outdoor 3rd grade lab last week. We took our lesson outside to model and learn about food chains.

Ask you student what the source of energy is for almost all living things on earth (the sun).

The students were divided into three groups: grasshoppers, hawks & lizards.

Plain popcorn was placed in feed stations around our "habitat". Grasshoppers could eat popcorn. Lizards could eat grasshoppers. Hawks could eat lizards.

If you were "eaten" (tagged), you had to hand over your collected food to your predator and go the graveyard.

The first iteration of our game had an equal number of grasshoppers, lizards and hawks. The supply of lizards was quickly exhausted and our food chain was broken. Few animals had a full enough "stomach" (sandwich bag) to be considered still alive.

The students suggested that we modify the balance of animals and reduce the number of Hawks. So we fortified the ranks of the grasshoppers and tried again. This time our little ecosystem lasted much longer before part of the food chain broke.

We attempted one more modification based on student feedback. We increased the size of the habitat and added some more foodstuff for the grasshoppers. Once again this resulted in better playing conditions.

Ask you student to explain what happens when humans or other factors reduce the size of an animal habitat.

Can you child explain what a good balance of animals would be for a simple food chain?

The kids were well behaved in our outdoor classroom and apart from a little too much sun on my face, it was a very fun day.