Learning to write a hypothesis is always a challenge for my students.  I found these amazing color changing animals on Amazon and thought these may provide an engaging and fun way to learn more about writing a hypothesis!

I have created a pack using these color changing animals.  The pack has three posters:

What is a Hypothesis?

A Good Hypothesis...

Things to Think About...

They come in black and white and with a rainbow background color.

The color change animals come in a few different forms.  These include alligators, lizards, dinosaurs, and sea animals.  Our school mascot is an alligator, so that is the one I chose to use!  You can do these labs with just one box of 12 animals, or you can use a couple of boxes!  

Students begin by testing the animal in cold and warm water.

These animals are about 6 inches long and come in multiple colors!  

Heat, or warm water, makes them change color.  Holding them in your hand firmly for a few minutes will also cause them to change color.

The last lab in the pack has students try to figure out another way to change the color, like exposure to sunlight, etc.

They are really fun to play with in the classroom science class!

You can choose a lab for cold water and a lab for warm water OR one lab that let's each student group choose a water temperature (cold or warm).

The materials for these labs are really cheap and easy to find!  The color changing animals can be instantly reset to their original color in cold water and they can be reused!

You can purchase the pack in my tpt store or on my blog if you are interested!  Click here to check it out!

 

- Smart Chick

STEM Breaks are something I have been using in my own classroom for years!  These short STEM activities give my students the opportunity to practice skills they will use in our STEM challenges.

Often, I would look through my local dollar store for items to use in STEM Breaks.  I try to do one or two STEM Breaks each week in my own classroom.  We do these in those time periods of the day that occur between our specials classes and lunch or even during indoor recesses.  We often have these 15-20 minute sections of time that we need to fill with lessons, and these STEM Breaks work great.

I have started developing monthly STEM Breaks based on unusual holidays.  Students get to build, create, research, design, and present during these STEM Breaks.  I don't have the time to do all of them, so I just pick the ones I want to use.  The materials for these STEM Breaks should be easy to find and cheap, if you need to purchase them!

The August STEM Breaks pack is in my tpt store.  There is a page for each day of the month.  There is also a chart that tells the teacher what supplies are needed for each of the STEM Breaks!

Use the ones that work best in your classroom!  Kids will learn a lot about the STEM way of thinking with these.

Eventually, I will have the year complete and I plan on bundling them.  You can also buy each month separately, but the bundle will save money!

If you have purchased other months already, I can send months for free so you can also enjoy the bundle price.

I am working on finishing the rest of the months of STEM Breaks this summer so stay tuned!

Smart Chick