Gravel, Tissue, and Salt... Oh My!!

      

Wow this semester is flying by and I cannot believe
we just completed our fourth of seven lessons in our third grade science unit on Changes: Solids, Liquids, and Gases.  This week's lesson really made my anxiety levels rise upon preparation for the lesson.  The lesson was complex and required many materials and this made me sweat just a little.  But I am very excited to report that Debi and I ran a great lesson that I am very proud of.  Again, planning is definitely the key to success.  We knew going into this lesson that the key would be to monitor this experiment very closely and guide the students step by step through this lesson.  It was also very important to make sure they handled the materials very carefully.  Anticipating these issues was definitely our key to a great fourth lesson.  

After a great introduction and review of last weeks lesson by my partner Debi, we discussed our Science Question of the Day which was "What changes can occur when we mix solids and liquids?"  We also talked about our science process skill that we would be using throughout our lesson which was observation.  Our students really understand observation and how using our senses to describe our solids and liquids has become an important skill in all our experiments.  Today we also provided our students with a vocabulary glossary to help them keep track of all the important new science concepts they have learned during our science lessons.  We also introduced them to solutions which we would be working with in our experiment today.

We were now all set to get to our experiment for the day.   The materials were already carefully set up for all the students so we assigned one student from each group the task of picking up the materials from the distribution center we had set up.  We then showed the students how to set up all the materials on their desks as to make sure there would be no spilling of materials.  We then led the students step by step through this experiment of mixing solids with a liquid.  They carefully placed gravel in water and observed its reaction, placed tissue paper in water and observed this mixture, and did the same with salt.  Once they had mixed all three solids with the liquid, they got a chance to stir each of the liquids and observe any changes that occurred.  I was very impressed with how well the students listened and followed our directions carefully.  They made great observations and even thought more critically about the mixtures.  Using the "thumbs up mouths closed" method of classroom management allowed Debi and I to monitor closely the flow of the lesson and the timing of the experiment as well.  This made us aware of when students needed more time or when they were ready to move on to the next step.  Once the experiment had concluded we had an open discussion with the students about their observations.  We again were very impressed with their insightful observations and their knowledge of mixtures and solutions.      We revisited our science question of the day and the students were more than able to answer this question.  I  think they learned a lot from this lesson!  I think my partner Debi and I did a great job with the three criteria for the week flow of the lesson, vocabulary, and misconceptions and I think the students are really having a good time with this changes unit.   They were even able to make predictions of if we would be capable of separating these mixtures which prefaced our next lesson which is separating solids and liquids.  

I do feel as though we are getting stronger and stronger each week at anticipating the issues that students may have and the misconceptions they may face in doing these activities.  This is helping make our lessons run more smooth because we almost know what to expect.  Class management and materials management I have found to be especially important when executing a science lesson.  I will definitely keep this in mind for our future lessons!