Kahoot and Classifying Matter

Yesterday, my kids worked so hard on our district unit assessment.  The students were tested on place value and decimals, and I am so proud of them!  Before I even passed out the assessment, I told them that they were going to do great!  At the beginning of this school year, my principal, Mrs. Smith, shared with us a quote.  It stated, "My teacher thought I was smarter than I was, so I was."  Our students must know, without a doubt, that we are in their corner.  

Part of our balanced math program in my district is Kim Sutton's 10-Block Program.  This program reinforces great practices in fact fluency.  It is a wonderful program, and I have seen, first-hand, the positive effects that is has had on my kids.  Today, the students ended our 10-Block on 5's by taking a quiz on those facts (multiplication and division). Before beginning the quiz, we reviewed those skills with Kahoot!  My students love this gaming tool!  It is fun and full of high energy! An alternative to this is Plickers.  Come back tomorrow to learn more about that!

The fun continued when we went to our science lab to complete two experiments related to classifying matter.  The students observed various materials and classified them based on mass, volume, buoyancy and whether or not the material was magnetic.  I think that their favorite part was the "splash zone" when they were determining the volume! It definitely was my favorite!

Lab groups hard at work!

Table 1 working on the volume of various materials including cotton and salt water!

The "Splash Zone"! The students are testing out the volume of cotton using water displacement!