Science Sounds Good!

We are in our FOSS Sound Unit right now. This is probably one of my favorites because it is more hands on fun for my students! We use this kit in 3rd grade. Not sure if you use FOSS as well, but there are some great additional activities that I add to make it even more spectacular!

FOSS fun with additional ohhhh...yea!

1. sound discrimination...learn about sign language and Morse code.

2. sound discrimination...make fun sound containers for your students to try to match up to see how good they are at discriminating sound

3. telephone...you are grounded and need to talk to your best friend who is your neighbor. There is a window directly across from you. How can you communicate without getting caught? What could you create or build...STEM!

Here is the typical telephone that is made, however....

Here a group thinks outside the box and makes a conveyor belt system to pass notes along!

4. Xylophone, kalimba, and water bottles...make your own instrument for our rock band! Ask your music teacher to share fun instruments that integrate little=high pitch...big=low pitch. We use boomwhackers and xylophones as well as guitars!

Here is a great link that has a huge amount of sound activities for kids...called Chrome Music Lab. It is a great station activity to extend your sound unit!

Here is a great video to show musical instruments and Rube Goldberg fun, too!

And a great book tie with tons of facts...

Here is a freebie for you! Time to Form a Rock Band! Next week, that is what we will be doing! Can't wait to rock on!

Hope this sounds like fun!

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FOSS Morse Code Connections

This week in 3rd grade science, we are working with sound discrimination. We are learning that sounds can be identified by their characteristics. To make connections, we are suppose to use the items in our bags and our sound chambers to associate the sound with a letter. What better way to connect history in science! No student so far knew what morse code was. We watched a small video...I am sharing it here...

Then, we looked at dashes and dots... We projected this image on our smartboard and had the kids write their names.  Here is the Morse Code Link we used. Next, the FOSS connection lesson... This is a great way to make FOSS fun and connect it with other subjects.

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Sounds Good!

I like FOSS and all, but the sound kit needed to be consolidated and added to a bit. I wanted to add some writing, vocabulary activities, and STEM. A conference I went to with other elementary science teachers and loved the engineering activity that our teacher had us do, so I tweaked it and I had my students engineer a communication tool as if they were grounded from all electronics and their best friend...who is their neighbor need to "talk" without getting caught. It was great.Forgot my camera at school, soooooo...I can post pics tomorrow. Hope this sounds good!

Sound Unit

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Sun, Moon, and Earth...Sound Good?

Just a quick post on a quiz that I am giving this week to my fourth graders. We have been creating models and using some great sheets that I got from the science penguin. So, with that let's see what they remember...formative assessment...Earth, Moon, and Sun Quiz

Sound good? Well, onto the third graders. They are using the FOSS sound kit and it is time to see if they remember their vocabulary and some key understandings. Here is this week's quiz for them...

Sound Quiz

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Getting Ready for Spring

This week, we are getting ready for spring...right? I am sitting here in a conference and it is snowing outside. We are focusing today on STEM and the new NGSS science standards. We are going to be focusing on 2nd grade with the FOSS air kit. We will be working to add a wind energy activity. With our 3rd grade water unit we will be focusing on hydroelectric energy and as we look to the new standards, we look to add solar energy at the 4th and 5th grade levels to tie in the planets and space focus.

Here is one thing that we will look at for solar power as well as solar cooking.


As for another activity with solar energy...cooking. We will be building these type of boxes this summer to figure out a lesson that we can use in our one hour class period.


On to hydroelectric power...
This kit is expensive, so how can we make our own water power model? 

Now, for that wind energy to get me ready for this summer's institute... we are each building one of these this summer for our rooms. Ours will be out of PVC pipes. I have been given inspiration for an energy unit.

Here is a link to what we worked on with sound creating a stem lesson to go with FOSS.
A Sound Bite mini-unit

Happy Monday!

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