WELCOME BACK
I hope everyone had a restful and enjoyable Thanksgiving break. I loved seeing how many students took advantage of the opportunity to earn free homework coupons and/or extra credit points by teaching family members and friends some Thanksgiving science at home! The photos and videos of parents, brothers and sisters, and even grandmas and grandpas doing science experiments were wonderful. Thank you for sacrificing some time and maybe some baking soda and vinegar for the sake of science!
CHAPTER 3
This week, we started Chapter 3, which is all about the states of matter. Solids, liquids, and gases aren't all that exciting, but I've tried to spice it up the best I could. On Wednesday we watched ice melt (yes, I made them observe a melting ice cube and describe it with words and sketches), and today we had a phase change sing-a-long to "Snowman in Summer" with Olaf from the Disney movie Frozen.
This weekend, the students have 20 Phase Questions to try answer. These are open-ended, application-oriented questions, and some of them are tough. We're going to go over everything on Monday, but I need them to make their best effort to answer them before class, so that we have a starting point for our class conversations. They will be applying the properties of solids, liquids, and gases as well as the energy changes that happen during the six different phase changes (melting and freezing, vaporization and condensation, and sublimation and deposition). All of these are in their notes from Sections 3.1 and 3.3.
Next week, we'll wrap up with evaporation and boiling as well as the Gas Laws. I have links to helpful animations on Schoology, since we're talking about the behavior of atoms and molecules, which we can't see. As always, I have screencasts of notes as well as worksheets and answer keys on Schoology for students who miss class or want to use those resources to review.
Our Unit 2: Matter and Change exam will be on Monday, December 14. Students will have a Unit 2 review packet as well as two class days to review and work on their glossaries leading up to that test.
Thank you for your support at home, and thank you for sharing your children with me!
I hope everyone had a restful and enjoyable Thanksgiving break. I loved seeing how many students took advantage of the opportunity to earn free homework coupons and/or extra credit points by teaching family members and friends some Thanksgiving science at home! The photos and videos of parents, brothers and sisters, and even grandmas and grandpas doing science experiments were wonderful. Thank you for sacrificing some time and maybe some baking soda and vinegar for the sake of science!
CHAPTER 3
This week, we started Chapter 3, which is all about the states of matter. Solids, liquids, and gases aren't all that exciting, but I've tried to spice it up the best I could. On Wednesday we watched ice melt (yes, I made them observe a melting ice cube and describe it with words and sketches), and today we had a phase change sing-a-long to "Snowman in Summer" with Olaf from the Disney movie Frozen.
This weekend, the students have 20 Phase Questions to try answer. These are open-ended, application-oriented questions, and some of them are tough. We're going to go over everything on Monday, but I need them to make their best effort to answer them before class, so that we have a starting point for our class conversations. They will be applying the properties of solids, liquids, and gases as well as the energy changes that happen during the six different phase changes (melting and freezing, vaporization and condensation, and sublimation and deposition). All of these are in their notes from Sections 3.1 and 3.3.
Next week, we'll wrap up with evaporation and boiling as well as the Gas Laws. I have links to helpful animations on Schoology, since we're talking about the behavior of atoms and molecules, which we can't see. As always, I have screencasts of notes as well as worksheets and answer keys on Schoology for students who miss class or want to use those resources to review.
Our Unit 2: Matter and Change exam will be on Monday, December 14. Students will have a Unit 2 review packet as well as two class days to review and work on their glossaries leading up to that test.
Thank you for your support at home, and thank you for sharing your children with me!