Earth Science Unit - playdough and more

We are in the middle of our earth science unit (pictures to come soon) and one of the things we did was use homemade playdough to model earth's layers. The kids wanted the recipe I used, so I am attaching it for use with adult supervision.

Here are some pictures of the labs and activities that we completed during the Earth Science unit. Our Earth Science TEST is on October 25. It will include earth layers, tectonic plates movement, and rocks and minerals.

We used mapping to prove the movement of the tectonic plates include create of earth's features (including ocean basins, mountains, and trenches).

Hot chocolate convection currents - we used heat to create convection currents to move the crust of the hot chocolate.

We also used heat with corn syrup to "move" the tectonic plates (lithospheric plates include oceanic and continental crust)

We used handmade playdough to create 3-D models of the earth layers.

Some classes created 3-D models of earth.

another 3-D model

Space and Safety Units Concluded

Welcome to 2013-2014. This blog will be updated randomly---basically, when I have time. All our vocabulary is posted in the top tabs and our expectations as well, so you can see what is coming or what is expected during each unit.

Our classroom is a hands-on environment when at all possible. We don't do a lot of teacher lecture and when we do, the kids "talk" to me and answer questions while we do it.  Science is a mix of all the subjects, so we include a lot of reading and math because most students need extra practice in that as well.

For the first day of school, we learned how each student learns by doing a multiple intelligences survey so that I knew how to help my students learn. Please ask your student his or her learning styles---they each have more than one.

In general, most of the students preferred art and music and verbal learning---which is great because I do too. We draw a lot of doodles in our journal, listen to music almost every day, and I like to talk---so do they. hehe

To keep track of everything, students are required to keep a composition journal with their notes and activities. They must write neatly and generate a table of contents and match my journal with page numbers and all that we do.

For the first 3.5 weeks of school, we covered Space and reviewed Safety. The journal looks a bit like this: 

SAFETY UNIT

SPACE

each section begins with the expectations that students will be required to know throughout the unit

each section has details on the tabs shown at right. Students had to know the physical properties, movement and location of each of these celestial (space) bodies.

we concluded our study with a timeline on space exploration.

Our next unit is the Layers of the Earth. Our students are making 2-D and 3-D models of earth layers and they will soon be simulating the movement and shaping of the Earth as well.