Long Term Science Investigations

Hi Friends! It's Kristen from Loving Teaching Inspiring. I can't believe my birthday month is almost over?!? I'm seriously wondering how this happen?

I'm currently browsing through TPT and adding a ridiculous number of products to my wish list! I'm sure you've already heard BUT today is the big site-wide sale on TPT. Don't forget the promo code HEROES to snag that additional 10% off.

All the authors here at The Primary Pack are participating & I've added direct links to their stores at the bottom of the post. These ladies are seriously talented & I'm so blessed to be a part of their 'pack'!

Now for science investigations. Do you have a group of kiddos who LOVE science? I know I sure do! However, sometimes it's hard to fit in the science everyday but we try! The easiest way I learned to do this is with a long term investigation.

A long term investigation is just that...an investigation held over a long period of time. Our most recent investigation was created because of the HUGE misconception my class has about the moon. During the day we ONLY see the sun....NOT TRUE! But for these kiddos they need to see it to believe it. And so the investigation began!

Every student gets there very own data log! We start by discussing the purpose of the investigation and everyone makes their own hypothesis.

I try to keep an anchor chart to track our data as well as their individual books.

Next-up it's time to go outside!!! It's almost like an extra brain break too---get up and move!

Afterwards we all get back to work logging our new data. First, we write the date at the top. Then we either cross it out (if we didn't see the moon) or color the moon to match the phase its in! Last we color the thumb to match our picture. This makes it easy for the class to easily count how many times we observed the moon during the day.

Here's where it can get a little tricky...would you believe it that our first week of this investigation we didn't see the moon once! UGHH of course! I found a wonderful resource online to help with "moon hunting" check it out here.

Look how this little boy color coded his thumbs. Adorable. Simply Adorable.

After we finished collecting our data it was time to analyze. We looked back at our class chart and talked about our findings. Then we filled in our conclusion statement and checked our hypothesis. This little girls hypothesis was correct!

My class loves these little investigations. So far this year we've done a decomposing pumpkin, grapes to raisins and now the moon! You can click on the pictures below to grab your own copy of these investigations today for only $2.10 each!

 

Don't forget to shop through all The Primary Pack's store for some fabulous resources!!

 

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