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Excellent activity for grades five and up.  "Students work as teams in mission control and aboard a spacecraft as they test their decision making skills and solve problems during this innovative, inquiry based, space-themed science and math simulation." This activity could meet MANY science standards and math standards including the Design Process, The Nature of Science, and Reading for Literacy in Science.  For the purpose of this assignment, I am assigning it to: 6.2.4  With regard to their size, composition, distance from the sun, surface features and ability to support life, compare and contrast the planets of the solar system with one another and with asteroids and comets.  6-8.RS.1:  Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of science texts.   6-8 RS.3:  Follow precisely a multi-step procedure when carrying out experiments or taking measurements.

Roughly every other year, the Challenger Center in Brownsburg gets a grant and invites us to visit for free. Unfortunately for your cohort, we went last year, but I'll invite you back next year if they get another grant. We usually go on a Saturday morning and IT IS AWESOME! I love being in Indianapolis with these fabulous resources available.

In this activity, students will shake heavy cream in a jar to watch a liquid turn into a solid-butter!  This is a very simple, yet exciting project that can then be eaten later!

I remember doing this as a child in school. We spread it on saltine crackers because the teacher said that it needed a little salt to make it taste better.

This is a fun activity that gets students up and moving around and can show them how math is a part of the world in surprising ways.

This is a fun activity in which students must understand place value to the hundred millions.  In this activity students hide their recording sheets and draw a number.  The student who draws a number must announce which place value he or she put that digit.  Then, the other partner must copy that down.  Each partner alternates the plays until they have filled in each place value.  At the end, the teams must see if their numbers match and they will score accordingly. This game forces both partners to be working at all times so not just one person is doing all the work!

We live in a world of shapes. That window in the living room is also a square, that steaming bowl of chili is a circle, and the bed your son regularly refuses to sleep in at night is a rectangle. Learning to identify and categorize different geometric shapes is a big goal for early learners

Print all pages on cardstock and laminate. Students use pattern blocks to recreate the images. K.G.6: Compose simple shapes to form larger shapes. Sticky Note: This would be great to use in an ELL classroom as a way of using vocabulary such as "above", "below" etc and color so that it becomes a following the instructions game where the person is telling you where to put your pattern block. In this case the picture would be the key and the child could make the shape on a blank table.

Great activity to engage students in fossils. Students can create fossils and create a story to help demonstrate how fossils are good pieces of evidence that explain what happened in the past. 

4.2.2 Describe how wind, water and glacial ice shape and reshape earth's land surface by eroding rock and soil in some areas and depositing them in other areas in a process that occurs over a long period of time. Sticky Note: This would be great to add for ELL students as a preview for a unit on weather so they have a good foundation of the vocabulary needed to understand the upcoming unit.

Awesome activity to shows students about sound. This site has video tutorials and 3 links that provide a concept map, instructions to perform activity in class or in after school activities, and websites that allow students or educator go deeper in their understanding of sound. You can essentially make your own assessment for the activity. 

Crow Creativity: 5th Grade / Can you solve a problem as creatively as a crow?  Download PDF 1. Build a tricky tube puzzle to find out if your friends can solve a problem like a crow. A clear plastic tube is best, but a paper towel roll, cut down to about 8 inches, will work too. 2. Make a basket out of tin foil. The basket should be big enough to hold a small cookie. 3. Tear some strips off a roll of duct tape. Lay the roll of tape flat on a table and fit the tube inside the center of the duct tape roll. Then use the duct tape strips to tape the tube in place so that the tube stays upright. Tape along the side. Do not cover the openings of the tube in tape. 4. Put a cookie in your basket and drop the basket into the tube so it goes to the bottom of the tube with the handle facing up. 5. Place about 5 twist ties or a piece of long metal wire next to your tube. 6. Find a friend to solve this problem. Tell your friend that there is a cookie at the bottom of the tube. Your friend can have the cookie but has to get the cookie out of the tube first without lifting up the tube. If you are using a paper towel roll, let your friend look inside the tube to see how it's set up.  Supplies: See Downloadable PDF

Upper elementary students to middle school students could create a trick tube or similar experiment that a friend or critter (squirrel) has to solve.

Adaption: SEE "MOON PHASES ACTIVITY-PHRASES FOR PHASES: A MOON TUNE. Extensions: You can extend this activity for 6th grade my having them creat a model of the moon and it's phases and demonstrating their understanding through a presentations. ( I would group them and have each person write about their part of the demonstration and that it what they present) You can extend it you younger grades by having them draw the phases of the moon and with parents (as homework) go outside at night and dermine which phase the moon is in and drawing a picture of that phase on the claendar. 5.2.4 Use a calendar to record observations of the shape of the moon and the rising and setting times over the course of a month. Based on the observations, describe patterns in the moon cycle. 5.2.1 Recognize that our earth is part of the solar system in which the sun, an average star, is the central and largest body. Observe that our solar system includes the sun, moon, seven other planets and their moons, and many other smaller objects like asteroids and comets.

Students can watch and observe the growth of crystals in this experiment. This investigation can be done as whole class or in groups.

Earth Friendly Birdhouse: Design Process - choosing specific materials for the design in mind and function. You have also been talking about resources and know that conserving resources by recycling, reusing, and reducing waste is important. Now you will have a chance to put what you know to use. Design Challenge:Design and build a birdhouse that will attract a bird in your neighborhood. The bird you plan the house for should be about the size of a tennis ball. Criteria:Your birdhouse must have a door that is big enough for a golf ball to fit through. Have a perch inside. Have a perch outside the door. Be able to hang from a tree or other support for 5 minutes with a golf ball inside. Keep birds safe from rain and wind. Be squirrel and cat proof.

Multiple grade levels can do this project, but differentiation would be required for skill and developmental level. Younger grades would require more help and modeling of project.

From the DNR / State of Indiana, this website provides many links to educational programs offered by DNR and our State Forestries.  In particular, I like the free tree seedlings for Indiana third graders.  I could see this one "gift" developing into a unit on conservation of resources.  Specifically, standard 3.2.6:  Describe how the properties of earth materials make them useful to humans in different ways.  Describe ways that humans have altered these resources to meet their needs for survival.  We could discuss the lumber industry, and how it benefits human-kind.  Moving on from there, we can discuss how to replenish the supply.  

Have students look up a prototype online that mimics a human musculoskeletal system.  Have them share with the class the purpose and prototype. Next, as a class students will create a model hand using simple materials such as string, paper, and a pen or pencil.  Have the students create this hand and see how the "tendons" mimic the musculoskeletal system in a real human hand.

Easy experiment to do in class that requires some good record keeping and simple observation of what the worms will do. Easy pets to have in the room. 

Students work in pairs for this game. Each pair has a printed 100 chart. The students designate one color marker for the prime numbers, and another color marker for the composite numbers. Students take turns crossing out a composite number (1 point), circling a prime number (3 points), or passing. The player with the most points when all of the numbers are found, wins!

Children decide which number does not belong, in a group of four numbers. The goal is to find the three numbers that belong in the same fact family, and then state a division fact using the numbers in that fact family. 

Exploring fact families through a game of "which one does not belong?"

These family math facts are helpful and can be used for multiple grade levels including 3rd, 4th, and 5th grades. I think it will be good for the students to make their own tools for learning. They will be interested in using it more if they made it themselves.