The Magical Product Swap

Hi Everyone!

I am so excited to be participating in my first ever product swap!

If you haven't stopped by Heather's blog Kickin It With Class.  You must!

I LOVE her polka dot and owl theme.  Heather is a  third grade teacher and shares

many fabulous ideas on her blog.  My favorite is the interactive notebook.

I have been using interactive math notebooks with my 3rd graders this year and love it!  So when I saw that Heather had a Scientific Tools interactive notebook  kit, I just had to use this with my third graders.

 I used this activity as an introduction into science.  I began by telling my students that scientists make many observations and use many tools to make these observations.  We talked about some of the different types of activities and observations they would be making throughout the year in science.  My students would be using many of these scientific tools.
To begin, my students created their science notebooks that they will use throughout the year.  These will be used to record the things they learn throughout science.  I began by having my students label the first page with a Table of Contents.  They had to leave 2 pages open for this.  I also gave each student the label shown below to place on their science notebooks.  Simply click on the picture to download this item from Google Docs.

Heather's science tool kit comes with several different suggestions for using this kit in your classroom.  It can be used in stations also.  I began by using this tool kit as a method of exploration and discovery for my students.  We discussed that often scientists  search for information and answers through observations and exploration.  Students were placed in groups of 5 and given the set of scientific tool cards . Each group was given the directions to explore and match the name of the scientific tool and its definition as best as they could.  I was quite impressed!  My students did so well with this.  They had some trouble with only a few the graduated cylinder, beaker, and spring scale.  I even scanned a copy of the scientific tools to put on my Promethean board.  It was a great way to go over the names of each scientific tool and their description after my students completed their exploration activity. Here are some pictures of this exploration activity in action:

The following day we created our scientific tool kit for our interactive science journals.  Heather has very specific and easy to follow directions on how to create these tool kits with your students.  My students had so much fun with this.  These tool kits will be a great resource to use with my students throughout the year in science.  Here's a little peek:

We spent about 3 days on this activity, but I could have easily used more ideas included in this kit to last the whole week.  This is such a perfect kit to start out the year in science .  We begin our unit on plants next week, and will be doing a pumpkin observation activity that will include several of the scientific tools mentioned in this kit. 

 I had so much fun sharing this with my students!
If you would like to learn more about Heather's fabulous scientific tools interactive notebook activity just click on the picture below to be taken to Heather's TPT store.

Don't forget to check out more fabulous product swaps by clicking on the link below.

 I'm celebrating my first ever product swap with a sale in my TPT stores this weekend. Everything in my store is 20% off. 
Have a great weekend!