Hi Everyone! I'm a pre-service teacher and am looking for some great STEM Lesson Plan ideas for a 3rd grade class. Anyone have any ideas they wouldn't mind passing on to a rookie? Thanks in advance; I appreciate all your help :)
Andrea, what strand of science are you wanting the lesson for? physical science, life science, etc. I have quite a few and I know there are so many located in Explore All Resouces and the NGSS@NSTA.
Hi Pamela! I'd like to find something in the physical science strand. Thanks!
There are some great ideas on NSTA using Explore All Resources and searching for what you want. I love doing this soap volume/density exploration. https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/blog-posts/alycia-zimmerman/experimenting-exploding-soap-volume-density-teamwork/ I used clear plastic containers for each group filled halfway with water. I went to a dollar store and got three different brands of soap, Ivory has to be one, and then two others. I make sure each group has 1 of each type of soap. Rulers, a digital scale and copies of the sheet for them to record their information. It's a great way to discuss volume. We measured the boxes the soap came in and that gives the volume of the box but not the volume of the soap. If you don't have a microwave in your room, borrow one. This takes about 45 minutes and can be broken up to doing the measuring and predictions on day one and then day two they can see which bars sink or float and what happens when you put them in the microwave. Microwave the Ivory soap last. It cools off pretty fast so that you can allow them to touch it. https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/blog-posts/alycia-zimmerman/experimenting-exploding-soap-volume-density-teamwork/
I would also look here for a great variety of resources and lessons. http://ngss.nsta.org/classroom-resources-results.aspx?CoreIdea=4
Thank you very much! I will be checking these out!
I appreciate you sharing your lesson with me. I will definitely be looking into it to put it into my unit plan!
I teach third grade and I do a lesson on force and motion creating puff mobiles! The students create a wind power car made out of straws, card stock, paper and mint lifesavors for the wheels. They have to create their sail so that it will move when they blow on it. We had to hot glue the straws on the card stock. It's interesting what they come up with! We then have a puff mobile race. We did make predictions to see what would happen and who might win. Here is a link to how to make a puff mobile. I did revamp mine a bit though. https://pbskids.org/zoom/printables/activities/pdfs/puffmobile.pdf
What a fun activity! I like that students are able to use their own ideas to create the sail and, since they're racing to see who may win, it becomes like a game. Thanks for sharing!
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