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An inquiry based learning activity that we have enjoyed in my classroom is based on materials and change.
Strand: Materials
Strand Unit: Materials and change
Curriculum Objective: Explore the effects of heating and cooling on everyday items.
Engage:
The Trigger: Have the children arrive in after break to fine some toys from our classroom frozen in a block on ice on the tuff tray.
Wondering: I wonder how we could melt the ice quickly so we can play with our toys again…
Exploring: Brainstorming or Think/Pair/Share-have children come up with some ideas as to how to could do this.
Investigate:
Starter Question: Which material will speed up the ice melting?
Children will have water, tin foil and salt available to them.
Predicting: By drawing a smiley face on a worksheet children will use predict which material they think will speed up the melting process.
Conducting the investigation: In this experiment children will test 4 different items to see if any of them affect how fast ice melts. We will use sand, salt, tin foil and baking soda.
The children will work in small groups. They will place an equal number of ice cubes in bowls and sprinkle them with each substance. We will have one bowl with nothing sprinkled on it to act as a control.
Sharing: Using iPads the children will take pictures every 10 minutes to record the process so that the children can share their results with the other groups in the class. They will record their final results on the same worksheet they made their predictions on.
Taking the next steps:
Applying Learning: Chat about why we salt the roads during the winter time.
During playtime have the children free polar animals from ice.
Challenge the children to construct containers that would stop the ice cubes from melting for the longest time.
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