Here are some weekly science activities parents and teachers can do during Covid 19:
Week One:
Activity for Children 9.1: This activity is actually a collection of activities that can comprise a unit of instruction. Materials needed include the following whitish powders: sugar, flour, baking soda, corn starch, and plaster of Paris. In addition, you may need coffee stirrers and one magnifying hand lens per child as well as one small medicine dropper per powder for children in grades 2 and 3. I originally recommended these activities for grades 2 and 3 but capable 1st graders and, of course, 4th and 5th graders will be interested in them as well..
Safety Precautions: Be sure to supervise the children while they are using vinegar and iodine! It’s best to have them wear glasses or safety goggles. Also, I usually recommend that the adult do the heating of these chemicals over a flame while children only observe.
Each activity period should last 30-50 minutes. It’s easiest to arrange these activities by setting up large containers of each powder at an unoccupied table in the classroom. Label each powder with a number (for example, #1, #2, etc.). Do not tell them what the powders actually are. Instead, they should be called “mystery powders.” It will be each child’s task to try to figure out what the powders actually are.
Distribute to each child 5 small paper soufflé cups such as those used for individual samples of nuts and raisins at a party. Children should be told to put one spoonful of each powder in their cups. During the first day (first activity), children should observe the powders for 15-20 minutes. You can provide magnifiers to aid their observation. They should be warned against tasting chemicals when they don’t know what they are but you can tell them to trust you that each of these powders is safe to taste in small amounts.[1] After they have had the opportunity to observe the powders for a while, tell them to mix some water in with each of these five powders and to observe what happens. Provide them with a worksheet like Figure 9.1 so they can record their observations. Children who can’t write much should be encouraged to use invented spellings or draw a small picture of their results.
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Powder It looks like? It tastes like? What happens with water?
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#2
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Figure 9.1 Children’s Observations of Mystery Powders
Children in grades 2-3 may carry out further experiments. For example, each child can add a couple of drops of iodine to the powders to see what happens. Likewise, the child can add a few drops of vinegar to each of the powders and observe the results. Each experiment–with water, with iodine, and with heat–must have a pure sample of powders; that is, they cannot add iodine to a powder that has already been mixed with water nor can they add vinegar to the powder that has been combined with iodine. You might provide the children with a worksheet like Figure 9.2 to have them record their results for the iodine and vinegar tests.
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Powder What happens with iodine? What happens with vinegar?
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Figure 9.2 Children’s Observations for Iodine and Vinegar
Finally, you can demonstrate what happens when you heat each of these five powders. We recommend making five, simple “trays” with aluminum foil and a clothespin. You can hold put small amounts of each of the powders in these trays and hold them over a candle flame for a few minutes. Children can compare the odors of each chemical when it is combined with heat. You might also allow them to taste bits of the flour and sugar after they have been “cooked.”
[1] Some children may taste too much of the sugar or flour. They will develop stomach aches if they do this!
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Week Two:
Activity for Future Teachers 7.1: (With live organisms) Acquire a small collection of live organisms such as mealworms, wax moths, or fruit flies. Mealworms can typically be purchased at a pet store. Depending on the season, wax moths can be found at a bait shop. Fruit flies can sometimes be captured from your kitchen and placed in clear vials . Place appropriate “food” in the container that you keep them in; for example, cereal along with pieces of apple or banana for the mealworms, or honey for the fruit flies. Clear plastic containers used to sell small portions of food (such as pies, berries, or sandwiches) are ideal for mealworms or wax moths. Be sure to punch holes in the tops of the containers so the organisms can breathe (You can put porous tape over the top of the containers for fruit flies). Observe your collection of organisms for a few weeks (That’s how long it takes for a larva to reach the adult stage).
Use a magnifying glass as well as your naked eye. You should eventually be able to observe examples of the following stages within the life cycle of your organism: an egg, a larva (worm), a pupa, and an adult. In the case of the fruit flies, the eggs are extremely small . They look a bit like a grain of sugar–only more oval–and can often be observed on the walls of your vials. The adult wax moths can fly. The adult mealworms can jump and can sometimes fly for short distances. Pupa are inactive and usually have a coating and coloration to help protect them and hide them from predators. Although they are typically dormant, you can touch the pupa of a mealworm and it will shake violently before it goes back to its inactive state. Have the children record their daily observations of these organisms in a journal. Have the children observe these organisms each day for at least 10 minutes.
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Week 3:
Activity for Children 7.2: Distribute a variety of either white or black rocks to groups composed of 4 children (approximate ages 8 and higher); for example, white rocks such as kaolinite, quartz, calcite, feldspar and marble or black rocks such as anthracite coal, magnetite, graphite, and galena. Make sure that each group has only white rocks or only black rocks. Tell the children to figure out how to tell each of the rocks apart. Color won’t be much help to them since all the rocks for their group will be of one color. Have them show their rocks to the rest of your class of children and communicate to the other children their ideas about how to tell these rocks apart.
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Week 4:
Activity for Children 7.4 (Clay Boats, ages 6-8): Give each child a ball of oil-based clay (Play-Doh, won’t work. It falls apart in water) and a container of water. Tell them to see if they can make it float. In other words, their task is to make a “clay boat.” Children will explore ways to shape the clay and then test its “floatability” in the water. Within 20-40 minutes, some children will be successful. Repeat the activity for 2-3 days, allowing 30-60 minutes for the activity plus clean-up time. When individual children have succeeded in making a boat that floats, ask them how many pennies it holds. Challenge them to see who can make the boat that holds the most pennies. This activity combines the need to count with the task of making a good boat, which requires them to develop understandings related to density, specific gravity, and boat construction.
Week 5:
Activity for Children 9.8: (Electric Circuit, grades 2 and up) Purchase one size D battery for each child who will be doing this lesson. Also purchase some #22 gauge wire at a hardware store or an auto parts store–enough to cut it into strips that are each at least 12 inches long. Also, purchase about 2 flashlight bulbs per child.
Give each child a battery, a bulb, and a wire. Tell the children “See if you can figure out how to get your bulb to light.” Encourage them to look at each others attempts to solve this problem.
When children have figured out a way to light the bulb, let them combine their bulbs and batteries to devise experiments together (You can collaborate with them, if there is only one child participating). Facilitate this with questions like “How many bulbs can you light while using only one battery?” or “How many batteries does it take to burn out a bulb?”
Have them make drawings of different arrangements that will light the bulbs.
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