Lessons
Balancing the Day Away in Grade 2
Can A Mouse Lift An Elephant?
Chalk Fizz
Chemiluminescence
Chemistry Day with Glitter Wands
Colors, Colors Everywhere
Commotion about Motion
Do Touch!
In Touch with Apples
Investigating the Mysteries of Third Grade
Iron For Breakfast
Lessons On Air
Lessons On Water
Magic Color
Nailing Rust
Pop Rocket—Trash to Treasure
Rubber Band Banza
Sink or Float
Snowflake Bentley
Sunrise/Sunset
The Magical Diving Sub
Twirly Whirly Milk
We’re Off to the Races!
What Goes Down Must Come Up
What’s the World Made Of?
Wild and Wonderful Weather
Lesson Descriptions |
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| Balancing the Day Away in Grade 2 |
Students spend the day learning about balance by playing with and making balancing toys. They discover how varying the amount and position of mass affects the toys´ balance. This second-grade lesson includes links to art, mathematics, and social studies.
Requires activities published in Teaching Physics with TOYS, Science Night Family Fun from A to Z and Teaching Physical Science through Children's Literature .
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Can A Mouse Lift An Elephant?
In this lesson, students use a board and a triangular piece of wood to make a seesaw (first-class lever). They use a 10-pound bag of potatoes for the load and textbooks for the effort. The students experiment with moving the fulcrum to see how it affects the effort needed to lift a load. Students record their results.
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Chalk Fizz
In this lesson students experiment with acids and their effects on the calcium carbonate in chalk. Cross-curricular activities in language arts, social studies, and math are included.
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Chemiluminescence
Our eyes allow us to see when there is light present. One of the things we can see is the light produced by fireflies (also called lightning bugs or glow worms). Fireflies,like all living things, need some basic things to survive, including air, water, and food. In this lesson students explore fireflies and many other things by listening to and reading stories. Cross-curricular links to math, social studies, and language arts are provided.
Requires activities published in Teaching Physical Science through Children’s Literature.
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Chemistry Day with Glitter Wands
The following activities were successfully presented to a combined group of students consisting of one first-grade class and kindergartners and first graders from the developmentally handicapped class. This lesson uses glitter wands to introduce the states of matter and provides links to mathematics, art, literature, social/multicultural studies and physical education.
Requires activities published in Teaching Physical Science through Children’s Literature.
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Colors, Colors Everywhere
In this lesson, students mix red, yellow, and blue frosting together to produce secondary colors. They discuss the color wheel and spread the "paint" icing on "canvas" (graham crackers) to enjoy for a snack.
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Commotion about Motion
This lesson involves a day of hands-on activities involving different kinds and sources of motion and the variables that affect moving objects. This second-grade science lesson includes cross-curricular activities in social studies and art.
Requires activities published in Science Projects for Holidays Throughout the Year and Teaching Physics with TOYS
Download 28K PDF* file.
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Do Touch!
In this lesson students explore the sense of touch. Cross-curricular activities in language arts, social studies, math, drama, and art are included.
Requires activities published in Exploring Matter with TOYS.
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In Touch with Apples
This lesson plan is for the second and third grade. The reading, science, and math activities could all be successfully used at this level. The book featured, How To Make an Apple Pie and See the World, is the story of a girl who traveled the world to find the ingredients to make her apple pie.
Requires activities published in Science Fare—Chemistry at the Table.
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Investigating the Mysteries of Third Grade
This four-day, cross-curricular project centers on the theme of mysteries. This lesson also includes activities that integrate mathematics, art, music, social studies, and multicultural and gender equity.
Requires activities published in Exploring Matter with TOYS, Just Add Water for Great Science Classroom Kit, and Family Science from A to Z .
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Iron For Breakfast
This third-grade physics lesson focuses on nutrition and the magnetic properties found in iron. This lesson includes cross-curricular ideas for mathematics, writing, art, and social studies.
Requires activities published in Teaching Physics with TOYS, Investigating Solids, Liquids, and Gases with TOYS, and Teaching Physical Science through Children’s Literature.
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Lessons On Air
In the study of air, students use the scientific processes of observing, predicting, hypothesizing, collecting data and drawing conclusions. These scientific processes are integrated into all subject areas, including literature, social studies, math, art, music and social science.
Requires activities published in Teaching Physics with TOYS, Investigating Solids, Liquids, and Gases with TOYS, and Teaching Physical Science through Children’s Literature.
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Lessons On Water
In the study of water, students use the scientific processes of observing, predicting, hypothesizing, collecting data and drawing conclusions. These scientific processes are integrated into all subject areas, including literature, social studies, math, art, music and social science.
Requires activities published in Investigating Solids, Liquids, and Gases with TOYS, Teaching Chemistry with TOYS, and Fun with Chemistry, Vol. 2 from the Institute for Chemical Education.
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Magic Color
Students experiment with Crayola® Color Wonder™ markers and paper. They discover that the Color Wonder markers only work with Color Wonder paper, not with regular paper. They learn that the Color Wonder markers work because of a chemical reaction between the markers and the paper. Students also do an art activity and read various stories about colors.
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Nailing Rust
The students are grouped in pairs and go on a walking tour of the school grounds. They look for evidence of physical and chemical changes and record their findings on a Change Chart.
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Pop Rocket—Trash to Treasure
Students design a paper rocket propelled by an effervescent antacid tablet and water in a film canister. They use scrap paper to construct the body of the rocket and observe how various designs affect the height the rocket reaches. The lesson demonstrates Newton’s third law of motion, with students observing an action creating an opposite reaction. Students theorize variables that might change the force or action.
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Rubber Band Banza
This lesson plan is for the third grade. The reading,science,and activities could all be successfully used at this level. This book featured,The Banza, is the story of two friends, a goat named Cabree and a tiger named Teegra. Teegra gives Cabree a special gift, a banza (banjo), for protection. Later, while alone, Cabree is faced with 10 hungry tigers. Using her banza she plays a ferocious song and frightens them away. Friendship and loyalty are two admired traits in these characters. During the science activity, each child makes a banza from a small plastic container and a variety of different rubber bands. The sound concepts of vibration, pitch, and volume are examined. The lesson includes cross-curricular activities in math,social studies, art, and language arts.
Requires activities published in Teaching Physical Science through Children’s Literature.
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Sink or Float
In this lesson, students explore floating and sinking and make predictions about whether certain objects are likely to sink or float. Cross-curricular links are provided for language arts, art, and social studies.
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Snowflake Bentley
Snowflake Bentley by Jacqueline Briggs Martin is a biography of Wilson Bentley, a Vermont farmer, who devoted his life to the study and photography of snowflakes. In his lifetime, Bentley developed a technique of microphotography that revealed to the world these truths about snowflakes: snowflakes are hexagonal crystals of ice,no two snowflakes are alike,and each snowflake is startlingly beautiful. In this lesson students are introduced to crystals through Snowflake Bentley and then create crystal pictures of their own. Cross-curricular activities in art, social studies, language arts, and math are also included.
Requires activities published in Teaching Chemistry with TOYS.
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Sunrise/Sunset
Students discover what causes the dramatic colors of a sunset by seeing the changing color of light as it passes through a clear container of water to which milk is gradually added. Students measure the liquids and observe what happens to the water and the color of light as it changes. They then analyze the results of the investigation and suggest explanations for the observed behavior of the light.
Requires activities published in Fun with Chemistry, Vol. 2 from the Institute for Chemical Education.
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The Magical Diving Sub
In this two-day exploration, students use their background knowledge of how scientists’ work to discuss and predict if a given object will sink or float.
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Twirly Whirly Milk
This science lesson is intended for use with beginning first-graders. It provides links to language arts, social studies, math, music, and art.
Requires activities published in Teaching Chemistry with TOYS and Exploring Matter with TOYS .
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We’re Off to the Races!
Students use a magnet to "race" objects from one side of a racing track to another. They predict what the results will be, then run the race. After sorting and graphing which items were successfully moved, they attempt the race again. However this time, they use their problem-solving skills by attaching the non-magnetic items to the magnetic items. Cross-curricular links are provided for math, literature, and art.
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What Goes Down Must Come Up
Students explore the capillary action of plants. Cross-curricular links are provided for language arts, social studies, mathematics, and art.
Requires activities published in Teaching Chemistry with TOYS, Classroom Science from A to Z: 26 Complete Classroom Lessons, Investigating Solids, Liquids, and Gases with TOYS, Science Night Family Fun from A to Z, and Science Projects for Holidays Throughout the Year.
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What’s the World Made Of?
Students practice identifying the states of matter by examining fishbowls with various contents. As a class, the students discuss their observations and the characteristics of matter in each state. Students listen to the story The Rainbow Fish and look for examples of solids, liquids, and gases in the Rainbow Fish’s environment.
Requires activities published in Teaching Physical Science through Children’s Literature.
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Wild and Wonderful Weather
In this lesson, students learn what clouds are, why rain comes from clouds, and other facts about weather. Students make cloud bottles and create rain gauges and other weather instruments. This lesson also includes numerous cross-curricular activities linking weather topics with art, citizenship, mathematics, reading, and writing. Students read Bring the Rain to Kapiti Plain, by Verna Aardema, and The Rains Are Coming, by Sanna Stanley.
Requires activities published in Teaching Physical Science through Children’s Literature.