Discovered one of my crayfish strolling across the floor when I walked into the lab this morning. He survived quite a fall! I wish there had been a camera on him! Mrs. Lilge’s class hypothesized why he might have wanted to leave his habitat.

King’s Ridge is on a beautiful campus. The trees around the property were recently pruned and the piles of branches were the perfect place to uncover science treasures to share with my classes. Look what I discovered! Fall is the ideal time to study trees.

First grade scientists began the year with a living and nonliving things unit. We have learned that plants and animals are living because they reproduce, react to changes around them, move on their own, grow and change, and need food, water, and air.

Are there other living things? Is yeast living? Does it need food and water? Can it reproduce (make more of its own kind)? YES! Yeast is a fungus and when it is in the package, it is in a dormant state, but if we add food and water, it will begin to reproduce. Yeast reproduce by budding. Click here to watch an animated video.

When we added warm water and sugar, the yeast in the bottle immediately began budding. Why did the balloon expand? Yeast release carbon dioxide as a waste product, just like us! Use what you’ve learned to explain why bread has holes in it. Click here to watch the experiment. In this video, a variable was changed. We changed some variables too. Some of my scientists used larger bottles and we added varying amounts of sugar, but we all poured in one cup of warm water and one tablespoon of yeast into our bottles.

Resurrection plants are found in the desert and have adapted to a habitat with little water. The plants drift into a dormant state and survive for years in this dry state. They looked dead when I pulled them out of the bag, but look what happened after we poured water on them!

The plant began to uncurl its dried branches almost immediately, but it will return to its dormant state if it dries out again. 

Water made the resurrection plant grow and the yeast reproduce. Can we make these animals grow if we place them in water? Are they alive?

Kindergarten scientists began lab with an optical illusion. Stare at this image for 30 seconds, look at the ceiling, and blink a couple of times. Who do you see?

Our physics investigations continued. Why does your image appear upside down on the concave side of the spoon and right side up on the other?

Mirascopes are a favorite of mine! Place the item inside the mirascope and it appears on top – a hologram. It looks like you can touch it, but it is just the illusion of the object. Click here and here to learn more about this fun physics toy. My students were amazed and perplexed!

The clip and the bell are inside the hole and they appear as if you could pick them up! There is actually nothing there!

My physicists couldn’t wait to touch the sphere inside the cups on their lab tables. Click here to learn more about water marbles. When I filled the cup with water, the sphere disappeared from sight. Why? When we looked through the water spheres, images were upside down, just like the spoon. They bounce too!

We recalled from last week that sound travels more easily through solids. We wrapped the string (tied around the spoon) around our fingers, stuck our fingers in our ears, and banged the spoons against the tables. Wow, it sounded like a bell was ringing! Try this at home with a metal hanger against a variety of surfaces!

Lots of thought-provoking observations and questions during this lab which is where all great learning begins!

Dissecting owl pellets is always a favorite lab! It’s a treasure hunt!

Owls eat their prey whole. Since birds don’t have teeth, they can’t chew their food. The owl slowly digests its meal by separating the softer materials (such as meat) from the harder materials (such as bones, claws, and teeth). It then regurgitates the indigestible items in a pellet. An owl pellet can provide important clues to how an owl lives and which rodents habitat an area.

We used forceps and probes and placed the bones we found in Petri dishes. We are learning to talk like scientists!

Example of rodents an owl might eat:

My third grade biologists used a bone identification key to identify the bones they discovered in their sterilized pellets. We noticed that the animal bones have the same names as the bones in our bodies.

Click here for an informative video about owl pellets.

Click here to learn how to dissect an owl pellet.

Click here to order owl pellets. Several students asked me to include this information.

Mrs. Dickey’s class made up a living things lab that focused on mealworms. These entomologists were able to investigate three stages of metamorphosis – larva (mealworm), pupa, and adult darkling beetle. When the beetles first emerge from the pupa stage, they are red, but they will gradually turn black. Click here to learn more about mealworms.

May we never lose our childlike wonder!

Abigail and her mom designed a science cooking experiment. Cooking is really just chemistry. Look at all the math too! Great job, scientist!