Liquids and Solids

What happens to a solid when you put it in water?  That is a question we set out to discover the answer to.  We began by taking a variety of solids and placing them in a baggie.  Then we added water to the baggie.

  We waited overnight to see what would happen...

We found out that many different things can happen when you put a solid in water!  The water might change colors, the solid might grow, it might soften, it might fall apart, it might dissolve, or it might not change at all!

We then set the items out for the water to evaporate.  Some of the solids, like rice, beans, and raisins, returned back to the same as before we added water.  Others changed completely - our candy and our cookie both turned in to a sticky, goopy mess that we would NOT want to eat!!

You can continue this experiment at home by putting different solids into water and then seeing what happens!

 

 

Durham Museum

What a fantastic group of 2nd graders I had at the Durham Museum on Friday.  It makes me smile when I take my kiddos out in public and they absolutely SHINE!!

The students had the opportunity to rotate between 3 different sessions at the museum.  During the first session we learned all about Native Americans and how they prospered on the prairie.

 

From there we moved to the Buffet Grocery Store.  Our guide there had worked at the store as a teenager and told fantastic stories.  The students were very observant and asked great questions like why everything only cost a few cents then and now it costs us lots of dollars! 

 

Our final station was life on the prairie for pioneers.  The students were shocked at some of the chores that kids had to do ... (Empty chamber pots??  Pick up buffalo chips??)  At the end they all decided they'd rather life in the present vs the past.

 

 

As you can see - we had a great day!!

 

 

Solids and Liquids in Science

Oh, how we love science!  The touching, the manipulating, the questioning....Science ROCKS!!

Our current science unit is about solids and liquids.  As part of this unit we have done many things including identifying the characteristics and properties of each.  As a fun lesson, I gathered 24 different items (thanks to the families that helped!) and placed them out for the children to investigate.  Their job was to determine if each item was a solid or a liquid, using the properties that they had learned.  The students were able to identify many of the items correctly.  A few tricky ones - toothpaste, peanut butter, and jelly.  Hmmm....What do you think?  Solid or Liquid????

At the end of our experiments we had one more question to answer.  What would happen if we took a solid powder and added a liquid?  Students made their predictions (that it would be chocolate milk) and were pleasantly surprised to find out that this particular solid and liquid, combined together, created a thick liquid known as chocolate pudding!!

Yearbook ipad Competition

Our 2nd grade friends had the opportunity to participate in an art contest for our Hickory Hill yearbook.  The students who were interested created an ipad depicting life in 2nd grade.  The following are our classroom entries.  While the overall 2nd grade winner was selected from an entry from a different classroom, our winner was Mya.  May's ipad will be featured on our classroom page in this year's yearbook.  Great job everyone!!