Science Snippets
MPS Elementary Science for February 2024
Timelines
Timelines have some wonderful benefits in the classroom!
1. Timelines help students organize and process information.
2. Timelines are flexible - paper/pencil or using technology
3. Timelines are visual. - pictures and graphics are memorable
4. Timelines are planning tools.
5. Timelines help students reflect.
Want more details about using timelines?
Totality
A total eclipse of the Sun is the most awesome sight in the heavens. Totality: Eclipses of the Sun takes you to eclipses of the past, present, and future, and lets you see - and feel - why people travel to the ends of the Earth to observe them. - ;A total eclipse of the Sun is the most awesome sight in the heavens. Totality: Eclipses of the Sun takes you to eclipses of the past, present, and future, and lets you see - and feel - why people travel to the ends of the Earth to observe them. ​
The Big Eclipse
The Big Eclipse, by acclaimed children's illustrator and author, Nancy Coffelt, introduces a cast of charming animal characters as they follow the path of the 2017 eclipse across America, capturing their sense of wonder and excitement. Readers will learn what causes eclipses, about strange eclipse effects, eclipse myths and even learn what hippos do when day turns to night.
A Few Beautiful Minutes
What happens during a solar eclipse? The sun vanishes. Light becomes dark. Day animals sleep, and night animals wake. The moon takes over the sky. People stop what they’re doing and together, they look up. The whole world changes for a few beautiful minutes.
Celebrating a favorite wonder of the universe, A Few Beautiful Minutes encourages young readers to (safely) discover each stage of a solar eclipse, and to experience how this incredible phenomenon can connect us to one another.
International Women's Day - March 8
This collection include projects, facts, images, posters, resources, strategies, books, and links to museum resources.
Severe Weather Awareness Week - March 4th - 8th
National Learn about Butterflies Day - March 14th
The deadline to order butterflies is on March 15th. Let's start the learning about them before they arrive.
Butterflies!
Kinder, first, and third grade teachers can reserve your butterfly larvae for the spring! . The orders are due BEFORE spring break - March 15th.
If you teacher PK or 2nd, you can complete the form to request the butterfly larvae, but but K, 1st, and 3rd will get preference if funds run out. This is due to the fact that K, 1, and 3 have science standards that link to this activity.
If you have not received a habitat in the past few years and need a new one, please complete the form. If you have received a habitat in the past two year, please it for as long as possible. We need to be good stewards of our funds.
What to do with crosscutting concepts
Perhaps the least understood part of the NGSS is the crosscutting concepts. Cary Sneider will discuss why they are important, when they should be brought into the curriculum, and what we should expect students to do with them.
Making a difference for your struggling students
Why do some students struggle with learning and reading in spite of all your best efforts? Join us to learn about some of the underlying causes of reading issues and learn strategies you can incorporate to make a difference this semester.
Storytelling in a science class
This webinar is designed to help teachers improve story telling skills in science class and explains how ideas and technology can be used to contextualize key scientific concepts for today’s digital natives and better connect with students to improve understanding.
On the Same Day in March
In this poetic exploration of longitude and weather, with bright and detailed paintings of seventeen different places, Marilyn Singer and Frané Lessac show us what's happening from the poles to the equator--all on the same day in March. This beautiful and accessible picture book explores how on the same day that it's icy cold in the Artic, it's foggy in Louisiana, sunny in Barbados, and blowing wild winds called willy-willies in Australia...
Kobee Manatee: A Wild Weather Adventure
Loaded with surprises and exciting facts about weather, this thrilling tale follows Kobee Manatee as he travels across the mighty Atlantic Ocean into the strong Gulf Stream current . . . during hurricane season! His daring adventure begins when Kobee decides that he wants to surprise his sister Kim, who lives in the Bahamas, on her birthday. Will Kobee and his friends, Tess and Pablo, be able to travel safely from their home in Key West, Florida, through all of the wild tropical weather coming their way? Each page includes in-depth, scientific details titled "Kobee's Fun Facts," which expand on the weather events that the characters encounter along the way.
Like a Hundred Drums
It started quietly, with a small flutter of leaves on the old oak tree. No one noticed at first: not the wren or crow, not the cow or pig, dog or cat, not the children playing in the shade. But when the first gust of wind--full of that storm-fresh scent--reaches them, the quiet comfort of a soft summer day is about to turn into a day of wind, darkness, and loud noises from the sky. Crack! Boom! Quick, hide! Beautifully written and illustrated with radiant paintings, this spare story captures the drama, fun, and thrill of a summer thunderstorm.
May I Come In?
Thunderstorms can be scary! Racoon searches for a friend’s company in this fun rhyming read aloud. The sweet ending has a perfect message for your classroom community.
Thundercake
Patricia Polacco shows how to turn weather events into personal memoirs like no one else. This story of a childhood thunderstorm tradition is a worth a read every year.
I Am the Storm
When there is bad weather like a tornado, a blizzard, a forest fire, and a hurricane happen, the girl shares what she does with her family that feels safe and comforting. Then, after it stops, as it always does, the girl and her family do something helpful like pick up or fix things The predictable text structure also feels reassuring. The book ends with children finding similarities between themselves and the weather.
Snow
Just a few flakes are falling and no one thinks it will amount to much, except a small boy with a dog who is overjoyed when a blanket of white covers his small town. The excitement of a child’s first snow is beautifully captured and young readers will want to get up and dance and play just like the boy and his dog and some very special characters the snow brings to lif
I Face the Wind
Just like kids, this nonfiction book has lots of questions about wind. It also has lots of answers — plus suggestions for activities and experiments to help kids explore and prove those answers. Don’t hesitate to put down the book as you read to try out whatever experiments pique kid interest!
This Beautiful Day
Filled with motion and rhythm, this celebration of rain follows three children as they start a gray day happily playing indoors, then head outside with umbrellas and boots, joyfully jumping and stomping through puddles. When the sky lightens and it becomes sunny, the friends continue to have fun together and they rejoice in how beautiful their day has been.
Extreme Weather
Do Tornadoes Really Twist?
From simple questions like "What color are tornado funnels?" to more complex ones like "How is a hurricane born?" this book delivers the answers kids want.
Whether children hear about tornadoes and hurricanes on television, live in vulnerable areas or learn about severe weather at school, they are fascinated with and terrified by powerful storms. Kids want to know more about them, both to satisfy their curiosity and to ease their fears. This book explains everything about these storms, from how hurricanes get their names to what a tornado looks like from a distance.
Water Cycle Bag
- Sealable Baggie
- Sharpie
- Water
- Blue food coloring
How to Make a Water Cycle Bag
1. Take your baggie and draw a cloud at the top. Add a sun up there too. Then draw some lines to represent water towards the bottom of the bag, about an inch high. (The picture shows what I mean.)
2. Fill your baggie with water up to the water line you drew. You can add a couple of drops of blue food coloring at this point. It just looks cool and makes the water easier to see.
3. Seal up the baggie well and tape it to a sunny window. Now you wait.
4. This is an activity you set up and leave for a bit. It takes a little time for the water to evaporate, but you can check back on it throughout the day and see the different parts of the cycle.
5. The sun will cause the water to evaporate. You can see it start to condense in the clouds you drew. As the condensation builds up it will slide down the sides of the bag back to the water at the bottom. You made rain!
Make Rain Clouds
Supplies:
- A glass Jar
- Shaving Cream
- Water
- Food Coloring
- Dropper or straw
How to make shaving Cream Rain Clouds
1. Fill your glass or jar 3/4 of the way full with water. 2. Add shaving cream to the top. This is our fluffy cloud.
3. Mix a little blue food coloring with some water. Again, this is option, but it makes the rain much easier to see.
4. Have your child add drops of the blue water to the cloud. As the water gets heavier and heavier it will start to fall out of the cloud and make rain!
5. This is what happens with real clouds. The water droplets get heavier and heavier until they fall down as rain. Fun fact: The average cumulus cloud weighs 1.1 million pounds!)
Cloud Viewer
Make your very own cloud viewer and take it outside for a fun cloud identification activity. You can even keep a cloud journal!
YOU WILL NEED:
- Jumbo craft sticks
- Light blue or blue craft paint
- Cloud Chart Printable
- Scissors
- Paintbrush
- Hot glue/hot glue gun
2. Glue the fifth stick at the bottom center to form a handle.
3. Cut out and glue the different types of clouds
Drawing
To be entered into the drawing, tell me if this statement is fact or fiction:
Last month: There is a leap year every four years. Fact or fiction? Fiction!
Some simple math will show that over four years the difference between the calendar years and the sidereal year is not exactly 24 hours. Instead, it’s 23.262222 hours. Rounding strikes again! By adding a leap day every four years, we actually make the calendar longer by over 44 minutes. Over time, these extra 44+ minutes would also cause the seasons to drift in our calendar. For this reason, not every four years is a leap year. The rule is that if the year is divisible by 100 and not divisible by 400, leap year is skipped. The year 2000 was a leap year, for example, but the years 1700, 1800, and 1900 were not. The next time a leap year will be skipped is the year 2100.
February: One million tons of water falls every minute. Fact or Fiction?