Five for Friday

This is the first time I've ever done Five for Friday...and it's Saturday night, but-oh well!

Four of my pictures actually focus on our Exploration Stations from Tuesday of this week. I used them to introduce the concept of force and motion. I usually like to introduce key vocabulary at the beginning of each unit, but I thought they could use some actual examples this time. That way-when I introduced the key word-I could connect it to one of the stations from Tuesday. It worked great! I will definitely do it again next year-and-I'm already trying to think of how I can do it before our next big unit-weather!

You can head on to my Teachers Pay Teachers Store and grab a free copy of the file I created for the stations by clicking the picture below. It's the first time I've ever uploaded something that used purchased images or fonts, so I was pretty nervous! Hopefully I'll get better at it. 

Quick note-I'm using Primary Graffiti's Interactive Science Journals this year. I am so excited to see how they fit in with our new writing expectations as I work to incorporate more writing in Science and Social Studies. I love the idea of them having an organized notebook to always be able to go back to. Not to mention they go crazy for scissors and glue. The kids will get their first taste of the notebooks with the new vocabulary introduction that will accompany the stations. You can check the journals out by clicking on the picture below.

 On to my 5...

This was the "Ping Pong Blow" station. They each had 2 ping pong balls, a regular straw, and a coffee stirrer. Their task was to decide which straw would make the ball go further. One of the follow up questions was to explain why they thought one straw worked better than the other. 

This was the spinning top station. They would place a top in each hand and then spin them. They had to determine why one would stop before the other one.

This was the Cars station (aptly named for the 4 Lightning McQueens they used). Their task was to test out 4 different surfaces (the tile, the regular carpet, the rugs, and the carpet squares) and see which surface the car traveled the furthest on. They had a hard time describing what was actually slowing down the cars, describing the carpets as bumpy and rocky and the tile as slippery, but they also said that the cars' wheels couldn't move on the carpet squares or that the bottom of the car dragged along the carpet, slowing it down. This will definitely be our connection to friction. 

This was the Marble Run Station. I had cut a pool noodle (the LAST one at the Dollar Tree...special thanks to my hubster who picked it up for me at the last minute!) in half down the middle, and then I cut one half into 2 different lengths. I ended up with 3 ramps. They had to race a marble down each one and determine why one went farther or not as far. Some of the groups got creative and started changing the heights of the ramps to see if it changed the results. Great thinkers in the making, I tell ya!

I just had to include this cutie pie...my sweet E! We taught her to do the "Dirty Bird" this past weekend to celebrate the Falcons touchdowns. RISE UP!

Have a great week!