Super Scientists

By now, your child has probably come home discussing our last inquiry unit of the year, physical science. The major concepts being explored are Matter, Gravity, Sound, Magnetism, and Light. We began with Matter, learning that all objects are composed of matter. Ask your child to name the three types of matter and see if they can describe some attributes of the properties of matter.

The most exciting part of watching the 1st and 2nd graders explore during science time is listening to their conversations. They are all so curious as to how things work, and some of them come up with some excellent hypotheses. The entire class has the scientific process mastered. For example, today we began to explore sound. The class brainstormed what they know about sound. These are the thirteen statements they came up with together:

It is something you can hear.
No sound is called silence.
Sounds come in waves.
The air carries the sound waves.
People can make sounds by hitting one object against another object.
Sounds are vibrating noises.
Humans and animals hear the sounds because their ear drums attract the vibrations.
People and animals can hear the vibrations.
An echo is a repeating sound.
An echo happens when there is a noise, it vibrates in the air, it hits a wall, or a mountain, and then it vibrates back.
There is something called the sound barrier.
The sound barrier is invisible and keeps the sound close to Earth.
Jets can break the sound barrier by creating sonic booms.

Today’s experiment was titled “What’s happening to my salt?” I’ll let your child fill you in on the specific details, but each child and/or group must form a daily hypothesis of what they predict will happen. The experiment is conducted, observations are noted, we discuss what we learned, and we work together to arrive at a conclusion.

Each student is keeping a science folder in which they record each experiment’s hypothesis, observation, and conclusion. The comments I hear during science time are filled with excitement and enthusiasm. My goal for our budding scientists is to have some mastery of basic scientific concepts. More importantly, my goals are to appeal to their sense of wonder and discovery, to show them how scientists work, and to help them to see their roles as scientists.

Thank you for all the RSVPs for our Family Festival of Science Evening. All students in grades 1 and 2 will be attending this event in Wilcox Dining Hall on May 1 from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. Bishop Museum will set up twelve stations featuring various experiments dealing with the physical sciences, botany, astronomy, archeology, and even a form of medical mystery testing! We teachers are just as excited as the children!

The form I sent home stated that our class potluck would be at 5:30, but let’s start at 5:15 instead. Please just join us whenever you finish work. However, I do need to request five helpers for the evening. Bishop Museum is requesting one dad per classroom to arrive at 4:30, help unload, and set up some of the heavy props. They ask for another dad to help from 8:00-8:30 with the breakdown and reloading (it can be the same dad). They would also like three moms or dads to be stationed at a certain experiment from 6:00-8:00. However, I’m thinking that’s a long shift; perhaps another parent could step in to relieve the first. Please e-mail me, or send a note if you are able to help us in any way that evening. However, since Bishop Museum is requesting that an adult supervise each child, our only volunteers can be from those families who have both parents in attendance.

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