February 9, 2018 Room 16 came alive with plants during this Science Fridays. Students studied displays of examples of plant use by humans: perfume, grains, juices, teas, spices, oil, cork, fuel, wooden toys, furniture, and cotton. Students then studied parts
February 2, 2018 As we learn more about life and living organisms, we look into a complex interconnected dependence within an ecosystem. A life on the beach shore is a good example. Students happily recalled family trips to the beach
January 26, 2018 This Friday we talked about the life forms which lived on Earth a long time ago and how we know about them. Students put their paleontologist hats on and dug “fossil” eggs for toy dinosaurs. They also
January 19, 2018 We have switched our lab’s focus to life sciences. We will continue to introduce fundamentals of biology and the study’s fields in the next couple of months. This Friday students learned about DNA. They made a paper
December 15, 2017 Before heading out to celebrate winter holidays, we got a bit messy in our science lab during the general introduction to chemistry. First, some safety rules: it is essential to never touch or smell an unknown substance.
December 8, 2017 This Friday we played with magnets and explored the invisible force of a magnetic field. Students tested various materials’ response to magnets, sorting out those that can be picked up with a strong magnet and those that
December 1, 2017 All children had a chance to hold various rocks and minerals we are lucky to own at our school. From an amethyst to volcanic rock, lunchtime science visitors enjoyed our “museum” of rock collections. For a more
November 17, 2017 This week we taught erosion and the formation of caves, canyons and other landscape features created by water and wind. To demonstrate how rain creates canyons and landslides, we poured water on trays with mounds of dirt.
October 27, 2017 The best way to teach about Earth’s layers during recess? Bring out the colored play dough! We had a very large group of students this week, and they all diligently built a miniature Earth: a rock in
October 20, 2017 The events due to dry weather/lack of precipitation caused schools to cancel last Friday, but we are back this week with more exciting science experiments. We discussed properties of water, condensation, evaporation, convection and the water cycle
October 6, 2017 Ahoy! Coming down from space through exosphere, thermosphere, mesosphere, stratosphere and troposphere, we land on earth and… which way is the wind blowing? Today students put on their engineering hats to design toy sailboats and test the
September 29, 2017 We are on a roll in the Friday Science Lab! Every elementary school child needs to know the names of the planets in our Solar System, right? We are here to help! Students discussed the eight planets–and
September 22, 2017 Did your family have a chance to see the total solar eclipse this year? We focused this week’s science experiments on the light, heat and energy we receive from the Sun. We also created a scaled version
September 15, 2017 To the stars! This week our students learned about major stars and constellations, and then proceeded to create their own: a tube for viewing and constellation cards with punched holes. They can make their own at home
September 8, 2017 We start the year with one of the most exciting aspects of living in the 21st century—space travel. We talked about the timeline of space research, astronaut training, building and flying rockets, and our physical location in the universe.
June 9, 2017 Approaching the end of the school year, we put on our party hats and brought the best experiments from the year’s worth of Science Fridays. There were: stomp rockets, Zoomy digital microscope, MakeyMakey piano, Keva blocks, BlueOrange
June 2, 2017 In this Friday lab session we discussed the importance of our senses, primarily, the senses of touch, smell, taste, hearing and vision. For sense of touch experiment, we filled a box with similarly sized round objects: an
May 26, 2017 As the long weeks of state testing came to a close, we chose to provide lots of opportunities for the children to move during the lunchtime science session. First, we had the students propose a hypothesis about
May 19, 2017 We were thrilled to have the San Anselmo firefighters visit our Science Fridays this week! The men explained what they do in medical emergencies, demonstrated their first aid kits, tools and procedures and answered many questions. Students
May 11, 2017 What’s a better way to start an anatomy unit than to bring a life-size skeleton into the classroom? The elementary school students discussed the names of the bones and their placement and importance, learned the muscle group
May 5, 2017 To deepen the knowledge about our Earth, we continued with an exploration of geology. Our volunteer presented continent-shaped paper cutouts floating in a bucket of water to explain the continental drift. The students were asked to recite
April 28, 2017 We wrapped up the incredible Wade Thomas International Week by talking about geography. We had a table covered with library books about the world explorers and their adventures, world maps, continents and countries. As we discussed the
April 21, 2017 This week we switch gears to talk about our solar system and what lies beyond. We started from afar, and zoomed in toward the Earth. First, the stars. How did Moana navigate with her open hand? She
March 31, 2017 As our new school garden has begun to take shape—how exciting!—we turned our classroom into a lunchtime botanical laboratory. We had five different fun stations. As the children entered the room, they saw a large table filled
March 24, 2017 We have a box of Keva blocks at every science session, and this time, it was the highlight of the planned activities. Build a tower that is leaning, we asked the kids, as tall as you can.
March 11, 2017 The chemistry unit fell on St. Patrick’s Day, and, boy, did we use a lot of green food dye! Making a mess (and cleaning up afterwards) is part of hands-on chemistry activities. We had lots of towels
March 9, 2017 The Wade Thomas STEAM Team held a first annual Maker Night this week! This very special evening event brought together Cyber Garage, Play-Well, WPTA, volunteers and many families to Wade Thomas Elementary School. Among the amazing free
March 3, 2017 Switching to the field of physics, we got the kids talking about Isaac Newton this week. We had three stations labeled “Gravity”, “Newton’s Laws” and “Momentum”. At the first station, children played with a make-shift pendulum (tennis
February 17, 2017 “Why do magnets push each other apart?” This and many other great questions were overheard during the Magnets science hour this week. The children played with variety of magnets of different sizes, shapes and strength. They magnetized
February 10, 2017 The room’s atmosphere was charged with excitement during this February Science Fridays hour. We talked about sources of electricity, showed how to measure battery’s charge with voltmeter, explained how electricity produced a magnetic field, and tested which