Soil Scientists
Okay…I have a confession. Science is not my favorite subject to teach. I know, I know, shocking right?! My hubby would totally tell you that he is not at all shocked by this, and it’s probably for the best. 🙂 The other night, we were watching science (blag!) and I got super tired. I decided to go to bed (even though it was like maybe 8:00). About 30 minutes later, I was still wresting around in bed and it hit me…
So, the first half of first grade can be kind of a beating for me. We do force, matter, and energy pretty much the entire first semester. The more ideas I get from YOU, the more fun it is becoming. But, you still won’t see my begging for an extra science block. 🙂 With all of that said, we are entering my FAV part of 1st grade Science. The Earth! I seriously like count the days until we get to start studying organisms, but the Earth is close enough to make my happy. 🙂
The first thing we little Earthlings study is soil, rocks, and water. Nothing too fancy, but it does get pretty fun! We spent about 4 days exploring, sorting, comparing, talking about, writing about, and unfortunately, making a mess (HA!) with soil. I’m lucky because we have a Science Lab kept pretty full of everything we could need. (Like 5 different types of soil!) But, I hear Nurseries will give it to teachers for super cheap if you aren’t so lucky! Here are some of the highlights.
Did you know Soil sticks on paper just like glitter?!! I definitely did not. I had an epiphany and we just tried it, haha. It worked! First, put some glue on the paper and use your finger to flatten it out into a little circle. Then, sprinkle the soil on, and pat it. Voila! Now, I’m not hanging this from my wall, because you will get a few pieces of soil trying to jump off. BUT, it totally sticks enough to complete the project, and display it somewhere flat.
Then, we chose two types of soil and compared them on our Double Bubbles. My firsties totally drew those circles on their own. Haha…right…I used a red solo cup to trace them. Classy, right?! For some reason the words aren’t really showing up, but they did things like “brown/tan, find on a beach/find in a garden, has rocks/doesn’t have rocks,” and they all put “has worms” in the middle even though we didn’t find any worms! I was so disappointed!
Well, it’s late and I will be kicking myself in the morning if I stay up. How do you study soil in your classroom? I’d love to hear about it! 🙂
