All you need is a plastic bottle and a balloon!
Insert the balloon into a clean empty plastic bottle and pull the mouth of the balloon over the mouth of the bottle.
Ask a volunteer to inflate the balloon. It’s impossible!
Cohesion is a property of liquids. Water is very cohesive, it sticks to itself.
I like using a cohesion activity when a group of students needs to learn to work in teams. This can lead to a discussion about being a cohesive group.
Click on the link for this post to read more and find a link to a free product at my TpT store that includes a take home activity and a dozen copyright free images you can use to introduce this topic.
Got two sharp pencils? That’s all this quick science activity requires.
A great option when you want to introduce perspective and how we see objects, have just a few minutes of class time, or would like to add an activity to your sub folder.
I’ve included resources for these additional options. Use clever images to show forced perspective. Start a discussion about perspective and seeing from another person’s viewpoint. Talk about adapting to vision loss in one eye.
An easy way for you and your students to create a simple snowflake that’s scientifically correct, it has six points!
Coffee filters are round so there’s no need to cut off extra paper. The paper is thin so it’s easier to cut several layers. Use clear tape in a few of the cutouts to attach the snowflake to the window where the translucent paper makes a lovely scene.
If you liked Where’s Your Blind Spot and Is There a Hole in my Hand? here’s another quick activity that demonstrates how our eyes can fool us.
Poetry can connect science and language arts. Consider these when you are planning your weather unit.
Do you need free clip art for decorating your classroom or messages you’re planning to send home?
I found black and white clip art at Pixabay that might be just what you need! If you can print in color, they also have winter vector graphics – lots of snowpeople and penguins!
In Where’s Your Blind Spot, students learned about spots in their retinas that don’t sense light and information is not sent to the brain.
What if you use two eyes to look across a room but one eye is looking through a cardboard tube?
How does the tube change what you see?
Here’s a wonderful collection of winter themed coloring pages, crafts, and puzzles to give to your students in class, share with families, or include in your sub folder.
Scrambles, puzzles, and mazes have several levels of difficulty so you can pick the ones that best fit your students.
Use these resources to challenge interested students to create more puzzles for classmates.
Are you teaching light or optics in your physics class or point of view and showing respect towards others during a class discussion? This activity may be just what you need!
What does it mean to have a blind spot?
Why is it important to be aware of your own blind spots?
This activity easily extends from primary grades to high school…
Enjoy free resources you can add to your Thanksgiving collection!
Share with a colleague, leave one or two in your sub folder, maybe have a few available for those extra minutes at the end of an activity or for the student who finishes early. This can be a busy time of year both professionally and personally and having optional activities (from many different levels) can take a lot of stress off teaching around the holiday…