Conference Special Lessons

Last week Thursday and Friday students participated in the year’s first student lead conferences with parents and grade level teachers.  While individual students were in conferences the other students rotated to specials classes.  In science, students were treated to experiments that sparked curiosity and fun.

In kindergarten, observation skills are a key skill. So students did Gummy Bear science. Here students predicted what would happen when gummy bears were put in different types of liquids. First graders were learning about heat energy so combined art and science.  Decorating a special plastic film, students then watched as the heat of the oven shrank their film th Second graders have been exploring how magnets work.  In their art/science activity students created floating magnets.

On Friday, the upper classes rotated to science.  In 3rd grade students tested if taco sauce made a dull penny shinny.  Students tried tomato paste, salt, vinegar and water to see which would clean the penny the best.  There were mixed results so students tried combining the ingredients: salt with vinegar, tomato paste with salt and tomato paste with vinegar . Students concluded that salt and vinegar was the best combination.

In fourth grade students tabbed in a little bit of chemistry by quickly learning about pH.  Students used cabbage indicator to test what substances were an acid, base or neutral.  Students tested soapy water, lemon juice, Sprite, salt and vinegar.

Finally the fifth graders had to solve the mystery of the marshmallow thief.  Students briefly learned about chromatography, which is the separation of a substance by passing it through a solution on a medium like filter paper.  Four suspects were found with black markers in the marshmallow isle.  These marker inks were test to see if it matched the thief’s ink . After comparing the ink samples, they concluded that the marshmallow theif was Darth Vader.