After the holiday break I will be starting my Matter unit in science (2nd grade). After teaching Solids, Liquids, Gases, we focus on changes in the states of matter (ice - water - water vapor, etc.).
I already make butter (shake liquid cream to form solid butter) and "silly putty (liquid glue plus liquid starch = solid silly putty). Do any of you have any other easy experiments like this that you do with your students?
We have a STC kit we use from Carolina science so luckily we don't have to make up our own experiments.
Here are a couple we do...
We start by dropping an antacid tablet into 1/2cup of water to notice the changes. Before we do that we write the properties of the solid and of the liquid on a recording sheet and after we drop it in we draw what we saw. They get so excited to see the change.
Another experiment with the tablet is to use a zip lok bag instead of a cup so they can trap the gas it creates. They pour a very small amount of water in the bag then drop in the tablet and quickly zip the bag. The gas created by the tablet will fill the bag with air so they will be able to see that gas takes up space.
We do the chemical change of mixing solids and liquids by mixing water and baking soda and then vinegar with baking soda and record our observations of how different the mixtures were.
We also mix various solids with water and record any changes. gravel and water, tissue and water and kosher salt and water. (The salt will dissolve). After a day of letting each mixture sit in their cups we will try to separate our mixtures using funnels and coffee filters. The only mixture that it won't work on is the salt and water mixture. So we pour that into a petri dish and let it sit out for a few days. The water will evaporate (gas) and the salt will be left behind in the dish. After the salt crystals are left behind they will look different than the ones they started with. They are more of a larger square shape. So we make a venn diagram and compare the 2 solids salt before and after.
is a text that has a lot of great ideas for matter - my class was divided into groups to visit lab stations to observe and determine if a physical or chemical change took place...the culminating activity was making pancakes which we did as our celebration the last day before break.... definite chemical change (making something new = not just changing its appearance....) ...hope that helps!
I was at this website this morning and found these game cards. I hope you can make use of them, although you will probably have to add to them. Scroll down the right side and you will find Grade 3 Matter.
12-20-2007, 11:29 AM
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