Category: Back-to-School

Kickstart Your School Year with These Hands-On Science Activities

Get to know your teacher!

Have students conduct a claim, evidence, and reasoning investigation about you. This is a great way for students to get to know you right off the bat and organically get to know one another. Before the students arrive, collect some of your personal belongings (car keys, coffee cup, photographs, hobby supplies, etc), sort them into bins, and place them around the room. Once the students arrive, place them in groups and have them collect observations about the items and record those observations as evidence. Next, the students will make claims about you based on that evidence. Finally, they will have to provide their reasoning for those claims.

Create a human sundial

A sundial works because as the Earth rotates, the sun appears to move across the sky. This marks the passage of the day. A sundial can be used to measure the passage of time. A sundial is made up a vertical object, or “gnomon,” and a flat surface, the “dial.” The length of the shadow is determined by the position of the sun on the horizon, the higher the sun, the shorter the shadow.

Group your students into pairs or small groups. Find a spot outdoors that receives sun all day long. Mark a spot where the student will stand. Trace their shadow with chalk. Return outdoors every hour, have the student stand in the same spot, and have the other students trace their shadow again. Bonus points if you have a compass. The sundial can be oriented so the 12th hour faces North.

Make a kaleidoscope

            Materials

  1. Empty toilet paper or paper towel roll tube
  2. Construction paper
  3. Hot glue gun and hot glue
  4. Mylar coated cardstock
  5. Transparent plastic
  6. Tape
  7. Clear, colored beads

Instructions

  1. Decorate the outside of the paper tube, if desired.
  2. Cut the mylar cardstock into a rectangle an inch shorter than the toilet paper tube.
  3. Fold the mylar cardstock into a triangle shape, with the mylar on the inside. You want the triangle to fit snugly inside the cardboard tube.
  4. Slide the triangle into the tube. One end should be flush against the edge of the tube. The other end should end approximately one inch before the end of the tube.
  1. Cut two circles out of the transparent plastic, one so that it fits just inside the tube. The other, so that it fits over the diameter of the tube
  2. Slide the smaller circle into the tube, up against the triangle. Secure the circle with hot glue applied around the edge
  3. Insert beads into the end of the tube on the side with the clear circle triangle.
  4. Tape the second piece of plastic down onto the end of the tube, trapping the beads in the gap.
  5. Cut a circle of construction paper a little bit larger than the diameter of the tube.
  6. Cut a small peephole in the the center of the circle.
  7. Tape the construction paper over the end of the tube opposite from the side with the clear plastic and beads.
  8. Look through the kaleidoscope. Rotate and see what happens!

Have you booked you hands-on FUN science programs with HTHT?

 

 

Can you believe Summer is almost over and it is almost time to go back to school? We know all you teachers are busy getting your classrooms ready, working on lesson plans and getting field trips set up for the year. Did you know that High Touch High Tech, Science Made Fun comes to your school? Yes, that is correct, we come to you for in-school field trips!

During an in-school field trip, students are given the opportunity to use the tools as a working scientist would use such as magnifying glasses, thermometers, graduated cylinders, scales & balances & more. Students are able to use these tools when experimenting to classify, measure, compare & hypothesize their observations. Access to these tools takes students beyond gathering data & helps to extend their senses. Your only job is to sit back and relax and let our Scientists do all the work!

Our programs are aligned with the North Carolina Essential Standards for Science (N.C.E.S). We offer many different science programs to meet your needs, all our programs are broken up into grade levels, and we offer many specials throughout the year!

Give us a try, You’re Going To Love Our Programs! We Look Forward To Visiting Your Classroom Soon!

Proudly celebrating 25 years of providing hands-on experiments to children!

Call us at 800.444.4968

or email us at info@ScienceMadeFun.net

Click here to check out our website!

6 Ideas for A Healthier School Year

Image Source: Pixabay.com

6 Ideas for a Healthier School Year

1. Walk to School

Set one day a month, weather permitting, as a day where students are encouraged to walk or bike to school.

2. Try-It Day

To encourage healthy eating habits, hold try-it days at school where kids are offered fruits, vegetables, and other healthy foods they may not have had before.

 

Fitness Challenge

Set up a challenge like taking a daily walk or bike ride. Ask parents to consider joining their kids, and offer small prizes to the classrooms with the most participation.

 

Nutrition Night

Hold an informational night for parents on food choices. Plan games and crafts for kids that teach about healthy food choices. Round out the event with a healthy potluck.

 

Cooking Club

Enlist a local chef or parent to teach students basic cooking skills. Children are more likely to eat healthily if the presentation is appetizing and if they can help prepare the food.

 

Family Fitness Night

Set up stations at your school’s gym with a broad range of activities. Enlist your school’s PE teacher for help planning the evening.

Classroom Management Resources

 

Classroom management and management of student conduct are skills that teachers acquire and hone over time. Fortunately, there are tons of resources on the Internet that can help teachers develop their classroom management skills!

Here is a link to some great classroom management techniques that might help you hone those skills! https://www.teachervision.com/back-to-school/classroom-management/53366.html?utm_source=TV_Great_Stuff_2015-09-08&utm_medium=e-newsletter&utm_campaign=TV_Great_Stuff

If you are a teacher, what is your best classroom management technique? Please make sure to comment below!

HTHT WNC Visits Claxton Elementary School in Asheville, NC!

HTHT WNC Engages Students at Claxton Elementary School on March 27, 2015!

The students in Ms. Sophia’s First grade class at Claxton Elementary in Asheville, North Carolina had the pleasure of doing hands – on science experiments with High Touch High Tech of Western North Carolina’s scientist, Asteroid Amber. Amber spent the morning in the classroom with this first grade class teaching them all about what plants need to survive. She helped them to explore the world’s ecosystems, the five laws of nature, different types of seeds and how they all play a part to nature’s delicate balance. The students got hands-on in this program as they extracted real chlorophyll!! They even got to build their very own greenhouses to keep! 

Look at all those Smarty Plants!!

Asteroid Amber WOWs the students as the balloon doesnt pop when she sticks a needle through it!

 

For more information on how to bring High Touch High Tech into your classroom, birthday party, or summer camp visit our website at https://sciencemadefun.net/index.cfm

Like us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/HTHTWNC OR you can now Follow us on Twitter at https://twitter.com/HTHTWNC

 

Incorporate a Science Night at your School this Year!


In September 2013, Sand Lake Elementary school in Orlando, Florida incorporated a Mystery Science Night for a few hours one evening after school. They invited teachers, parents and students to partake in a crime investigation and the students had to use what they have learned in science class to solve the crime.

The science concepts were kept to a broad level of understanding, so that all the children could participate equally. The goal for this event at Sand Lake Elementary was “for the families to explore the scientific method by conducting experiments, making observations, recording information, and predicting and outcome.” At this particular event at Sand Lake Elementary, students became crime scene investigators as they studied shoeprints, took fingerprints, and determined whether suspects’ alibis checked out.

According to the Sand Lake Elementary PTO, almost 250 people participated in their annual Mystery Science Night. Among those numbers were about 34 percent of the student body, 60 volunteers, parents, and teachers.  Mystery Science Night engages families in science and it shows students how to use science in a practical way.

Consider incorporating your own Mystery Science Night at your school this upcoming school year!

 

Learn how you can have Family Science Nights at your home or at your school by clicking here:

http://sciencemadefunwnc.net/contact_us.cfm

Create New Back-to-School Family Traditions

 

In a recent article written in Jump In! magazine produced by School Family.com, the article describes 6 ways to create new Back-to-School family traditions.

 “Establishing fun back-to-school traditions can help your kids feel more secure as they advance to the next grade. Traditions also strengthen family bonds and create fun memories.”

Creating new traditions with your family does not have to cost a ton, be overly time consuming or complicated! Here are some of the ideas for creating some new back-to-school traditions:

1. Capture a picture of your children on the first day of school and the last day. Then on their last day of high school, show them the pictures of how much they changed and grew up over the years!

 

2. Do a “last supper of summer” meal. Let them choose what will be for dinner, with an anything goes type of menu! Make it memorable and fun!

 

3. Read an inspiring book together and encourage your child that they will do well in the next new grade that they are moving on to!

 

4. Write a letter to give to your child to read on the bus or during lunch. Offer encouragement or point out specific moments where they made you proud. Save a copy of each letter and give them to your child the day they graduate high school.

 

5. After the first day of school is over, leave your children with a “first-day surprise” on their beds. Something small, like a stuffed animal, gift card, or fun game!

6. Lastly, some families have traditions of baking cookies for their children and having them just out of the warm oven when they get off the school bus! It gives them time to sit and enjoy and also allows for conversation about their first day back to school!

Whatever your family tradition is, cherish it and create lasting memories!