Science & Social Studies Ideas

  The Voyage of Christopher Columbs

I got this idea from Enchanted Learning.  Students create a map on blue paper, and then glue egg cartons in between the continents to show the path of Christopher Columbus. The egg cartons should be turned upside down, with a toothpick stuck inside with a little piece of tape at the top to make a sail.

Edible Rocks

Igneous Rocks:
For this activity, you'll need wax paper and chocolate chips. Melt the chocolate chips, and put a dollop on wax paper for each child. Have the children fold the wax paper over the chocolate and smooth it out. Write their name on the wax paper, and put it in the freezer for about half an hour, while you're doing the other two experiments. When you take it out, the chocolate will have hardened...thus, showing the representation of hot lava into rocks!

Metamorphic Rocks:
To show how different rocks end up combining together to form one rock, due to heat and pressure, we use wheat and white bread. You will also need a few rolling pins. Give each student a piece of wheat, and a piece of white. Allow them to smash the two breads together by pounding them with their hands, or by rolling a rolling pin over top of them.

Sedimentary Rocks:
This is the most fun of all! You'll need raw cookie dough, m&ms, sprinkles, raisins, white chocolate chips, and anything else you'd care to sweeten this activity up with! Smooth the raw cookie dough into a pan (spray it with PAM first). Have the students come up one at a time, to sprinkle on some "sediment" (all the yummy m&ms, sprinkles, etc...) Then, put a piece of wax paper over top of the cookie dough and "sediment" and have students press down on the wax paper. This gives the representation of how sediment such as sand, dirt, and rocks all pile up, and as pressure and heat applies to them over the years, they become one layer. I always have parent volunteers who are on hand during this project, and go home to bake this for us, and then bring it back later for a treat, and this year, our school cafeteria was nice enough to bake it for us! Warning...the Sedimentary Cookie is REALLY YUMMY!!!! The more you add, the better!

Erupting Volcanoes

We took a paper plate and taped a paper bathroom cup to it (open side facing up). We then covered it with tin foil, and made a hole right where the top of the hole in the cup was. We poured 1 tablespoon of baking soda into the cup, and about 1/4 of a cup of vinegar into the cup on top of the baking soda and POW! It erupted!!! It was a lot of fun for the kids!

Edible Plants

To culminate our study of plants, we celebrated in a very healthy way! Students were given the names of many different types of vegetables. They had to decide if these vegetables were roots, stems, leaves, seeds, fruits, or whole plants. Afterwards, each student got a salad, and we ate it together as I called out..."Everyone eat a stem....everyone eat a root, everyone eat a fruit, etc..." It was a lot of fun! Here are some examples for you to use:

Stems: asparagus, celery

Leaves: lettuce, spinach, cabbage

Roots: onion, carrot, potato, radish

Fruits: tomato, cucumber, peppers, green beans

Seeds: peas, corn

Whole plant: broccoli, mushroom

Graphics by Snowgirl and Susie's Graphics