Write a letter similar to the one below and send it home with a different child each Monday. Create a backpack for the “Scientist of the Week” with a magnifying glass, magnet, field guide book, spiral notebook, pencil, safety goggles, lab coat, and a book of science experiments. (My website has some experiments you could copy.)
Dear Parents,
Your child has been selected as “Scientist of the Week.” Please help your child choose an experiment to present to the class on Thursday. You will find some science experiments in this bag, but it might be fun for you and your child to go to the library or search on the internet. Help your child practice the experiment several times so she’ll feel confident when she does it in front of her classmates. We will have “The Scientist of the Week” at 2:00 p.m. Thursday afternoon and we’d love for you to join us.
Hint! If you are in a school where family participation is a struggle, perhaps you could let a 4th or 5th grade student buddy help a different child each week.
*To encourage informative writing, have children make science journals where they draw pictures or write observations of the presentations.
Science at Home
Here's a fun experiment that you could send home in a bag for your students to do with their families.
Toothpick Trick
Materials: wooden toothpicks
cup of water
Dear Parents,
Your child has been selected as “Scientist of the Week.” Please help your child choose an experiment to present to the class on Thursday. You will find some science experiments in this bag, but it might be fun for you and your child to go to the library or search on the internet. Help your child practice the experiment several times so she’ll feel confident when she does it in front of her classmates. We will have “The Scientist of the Week” at 2:00 p.m. Thursday afternoon and we’d love for you to join us.
Hint! If you are in a school where family participation is a struggle, perhaps you could let a 4th or 5th grade student buddy help a different child each week.
*To encourage informative writing, have children make science journals where they draw pictures or write observations of the presentations.
Science at Home
Here's a fun experiment that you could send home in a bag for your students to do with their families.
Toothpick Trick
Materials: wooden toothpicks
cup of water
Directions: Take 5 toothpicks and bend them in the middle. Do not break them apart. Place the bent edges together in the middle to make a 10 pointed star. How can you turn it into a 5 pointed star without touching the toothpicks. (Let children brainstorm all the possibilities.) Dip your finger in the water and put a drop in the middle of the 10 pointed star. Observe as the toothpicks move to form a five pointed star. What made the toothpicks move?
Come back tomorrow for more of my favorite experiments you can do at school or you can send the directions home for families to have some STEM fun.
Come back tomorrow for more of my favorite experiments you can do at school or you can send the directions home for families to have some STEM fun.