Bridge12

Ask children to brainstorm other ways that would make the ice melt faster or slower. Then show them what happens when salt is put on the ice. Make the connection to the salt trucks on the roads in winter.

This activity can be used for older grade levels by having students first try the experiment and then having them find answers as to why different substances cause different tastes. This activity could also be connected to math by graphing the results of what student liked what taste the best or the worst.

More advanced students can make a detailed book with observations of what they see happening everyday with the worms. Students who are farther behind can create a book with pictures of what they see happening. This activity could be connected to language arts by having students write an essay about the steps of the metamorphosis process.

ELL and special ed students can be paired with another student to help create a journal of observations with pictures and words dealing with the states of matter. This activity can be used for older grades too. The students could find the densities of the solids and liquids. They could even go so far as to cook a breakfast and discuss liquids to solids as they are cooked.

Have students make different shapes and try to create the biggest bubble. Answer questions like "Does a bubble last longer if it is smaller or larger? "Will a bubble get bigger if you blow fast or slow? " Have them draw the different shapes, sizes and colors in their science notebooks.

Have students take home feeders and hang them outside homes. Then have them make predictions about activity level and write down observations every evening for a week. Hang a feeder outside of the school and compare results.

Pair students up based on ability levels. Have an advanced student work with another to create the telescope. They will get to be the "teacher" without having to single anyone out.

This activity can be used in older grade levels. In the older levels students could work with other materials besides corks and toothpicks. ELLs can be paired with native English speakers to help design their boat. The ELL could put the boat together while the native English speaker writes down the steps to making the boat.

Students can plant all different types of plants. This project could be used for older students who are learning more details about plants or who are trying to do experiments on what makes plants grow best. ELL and special needs students could help by planting the seeds in the box when first constructing the garden. Advanced students could draw and label the parts of the plants that were planted.

Have students brainstrom other ways to create electricity and then make connections to things they do everyday, like turning on a light switch or plugging in the toaster.

Have students write what they found about one leaf and take or draw a picture of the leaf before the color change occurs. Then put all the artifacts in a scrap book for the class library.

This activity can be connected to other forms of weather such as temperature or rain fall. Students can also look up information about how people measure the weather using scientific tools. This activity can be connected to language arts by having students write about the weather.

To extend this project, have students add and subtract rolls to come to a final answer. ie: the first roll is a quarter, the second roll is a dime, the total would be $0.35

Have students graph their measurements on a large collective classroom visual and make connections to the different objects. They could then remeasure the objects with either a different non-standard tool or a ruler and see if the same connections can be made. ie: The pencil is always twice as much as the crayon.

By playing with simple math addition and subtraction problems, this game could be used for lower grade levels. And "higher" and "lower" level bingo cards could be made to differentiate between math abilities. A helper or even another student could run the "higher" group.

Students can design a water wheel in groups and see how the wheel works. To extend this experiment students could then work together to make improvements to their wheel. This activity could also be connected to social studies. Students could see how water wheels have evolved over the years and what their uses were and are.

Make a connection to Writing by having the children come up with thier own tangram shape and write a story about it.