Exploring Matter: Does Air Really Exist If We Cannot See It?

We began our new rotations for Science Magic this week in our very own classroom! During these Science Magic experiments we will be exploring all the different states of matter, so today we explored air with Ms. Riley. To begin our session, we talked about what we already knew about matter and what the three types of matter are (solids, liquids, and gas). Then, Ms. Riley asked us our question: does air exist if we cannot see it?Many of us hypothesized that it did because air is in the form of a gas, but we wanted to find proof of air. Ms. Riley set up four centers for us to explore and test our hypothesis!

At Center 1, there were two rubber ducks and a small tub filled with water. Ms. Riley told us to take turns racing the ducks across the tub, but we had to do so without touching the ducks. We discovered that we could use air to blow them across! We also discovered the baseball duck moved better across the water because it had no hole and was filled with air to help it stay on top of the surface, and the surfer duck was harder to move because it did have a hole and got weighed down a bit with water. 

At Center 2, we looked out of our classroom window to look for signs of air outside. We saw tree branches moving in the wind, clouds moving through the sky, and leaves being blown across the pavement. 

At Center 3, We put a tissue in the bottom of a cup and put the cup (open side down) straight down into a bowl of water. We expected to have a wet tissue when we lifted the cup up, but instead we found the tissue was completely dry! An air bubble that got trapped inside the cup when the lip hit the water protected the tissue from getting wet. We were amazed! 

At Center 4, we got to explore with one of our favorite forms of evidence for air: bubbles! We discovered that if we stuck our straws further down in the water, the bubbles that formed were bigger. If we took the straw out of the water and blew the surface of the water, it made a spray, and if we stuck our straw in and made a humming sound instead of blowing out air, there were no bubbles, just tiny waves from the vibrations. 

After we were finished exploring and recording our observations, we found all of our results showed evidence of air, so we concluded that air does indeed exist. Even if we cannot see the air itself, we can find evidence of it all around us! We can't wait to visit Mrs. Healey's class on Monday to do some more exploration of matter.

A Toast to 2018!

The Giraffes had a great start to the new year with a short but sweet week!

On Tuesday, we had some fun with the Elephant Class when we created New Year's Toasts during Safari Time! We talked about how people often toast to others in the new year who mean a lot to them and during the toast, they celebrate the things they love most about that person. 

Here are a few of the people we toasted to:

We also continued our work with borrowing and carrying in math this week, and we learned a new math game! Seventeen was so much fun to play, and it helped us practice our math facts as well as our carrying skills! Here are the directions so you can play at home:

Despite the frigid weather, we were able to get outside briefly to begin experimenting with States of Matter! We learned that everything in the world is made up of matter, including the air around us! Matter can be a solid, liquid, or gas, and matter can change its state.

When we were outside, we collected snow to explore and experiment with in the classroom. After we got inside, we explored the question "What will make snow melt the fastest?" 

After brainstorming a list of ideas, each table group worked together to explore a different method for melting the snow. Even though many people wanted to try the same method, the giraffes did a great job being flexible and working together to test all of our hypotheses! One table put the snow in warm water, another put theirs in cold water, one put theirs on the heater, one used plates to squish the snow, and one used bodies to melt the snow :)

We discovered that out of all the methods we tested, hot water was the fastest method for melting snow. But many of us were surprised to see that the cold water also worked very quickly along with squishing the snow! We were also shocked to see how long it took the snow to melt on the heater, and we discovered the fastest way to melt snow using our bodies was to hold small amounts of it in our hands. We can't wait to do some more exploring with matter in the weeks ahead, and we look forward to a new year of second grade adventures :)

Happy New Year! 

Does Air Exist if We Can't See It?

This week, we did some exploring with solids and liquids in order to learn about some gases. We were exploring the question: does air really exist if we cannot see it?

We set out to find some answers by looking for evidence of air at four different science stations:

At our first center, we had to race rubber duckies across a tub of water without touching them with any part of our body. We found we were able get them moving by taking a deep breath and using the air in our lungs to blow them across!

At our second center, we looked out our classroom window to look for evidence of air outside. We saw branches moving in the breeze, leaves blowing across the sidewalk, and some of us could even hear a strong gust of wind coming through the window!

At our third center, we felt like magicians when we put a tissue into a cup that we submerged in water. We thought the tissue would get soaked, but an air bubble got trapped in the cup when we stuck it in, protecting the tissue from the water!

Finally, we found a bit more evidence at our fourth center when we got to see air under water in the form of bubbles

After finding lots and lots of evidence, we concluded that air does indeed exist--while we can't exactly see it, we are certainly able to find evidence of it everywhere! 

Exploring Matter

Over the last few weeks, we began learning all about matter: solids, liquids, and gases! 

Last week we began our exploration with a Science Talk about Matter. After we talked about what we knew and came up with a list of questions we wanted to explore, we were able to do some exploring with shaving cream!

While we were having fun with our shaving cream, we were using our knowledge of matter to try and determine whether it was a solid, liquid, or a gas. 

Even though the shaving cream held its shape like a solid, we decided it was either a gas or a liquid because it disappeared after we worked with it for a while. It turns out both our liquid and gas guessers were correct: shaving cream is a liquid soap filled with lots and lots of tiny gas bubbles to help it hold its shape! 

This week, we had a science talk about another matter concept: dissolving vs. melting. We agreed that dissolving was when a solid became a liquid after being in a liquid, and melting happened when a solid was exposed to heat. We tried out a dissolving experiment with M & Ms, and we made predictions about how the M &M would dissolve in the water. 

We left our M & Ms in the water while we went out to recess and lunch, and when we returned we discovered the color was gone but the candy coating and chocolate were still there!

We chose 4 different colors to keep on the windowsill overnight to see if they would dissolve. When we checked them on Friday, the candy coating had dissolved but the chocolate was still a solid. We decided to leave the cups over the weekend to see what would happen with the chocolate. Do you think it will dissolve??

We will continue exploring matter over the next several weeks, and soon we will even have the opportunity to visit the other second grade classrooms for weekly matter experiments!