I hosted co-op on Tuesday at our house. We had a fall tree art project done by Sarah. I forgot to take the finished result pictures but they all turned out very nice. Ours are hanging in the dining room making it seem more like fall, when it feels like winter is approaching fast.
I did some science stations all about the law of conservation of mass called Scale Play.
Station 1: Measure two balls of play doh to be the exact same mass. Then make one a pancake and the other a doughnut. Weigh again and see if the mass changes. The kids used a digital scale for this station.
Station 2: Freeze 2 cups of water ahead of time. Then, have students measure out 2 cups of liquid water. Predict ahead of time which will weigh more or if they will weigh the same. I messed this one up because they should have weighed the same, but they did not. So, we used this as a chance to talk about precision in the scientific process and the importance of doing an experiment more than once.
We used a platform or kitchen scale for this experiment.
Station 3: The kids used a spring scale to compare mass of two items. They estimated which would weigh more/less then measured to check their estimates. There were 3 sets of item to measure. This station emphasized the point that although things are different shaped they can have similar mass.
Station 4: This station really cracked the moms up. Students had to weigh themselves in kg. and then drink 2 cups of water before weighing themselves again to see if their weight changed. Let's just say our bathroom got lots of visits after this experiment. Especially when the boys decided maybe they would weigh less after they went to the bathroom. There was lots of experimenting going on.
