Comments on: Blogging in 5th Grade: Students Use Blog to Share Science Experiences

By: Alicia

Alicia — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 17:34:35 +0000

These things sound really cool. What grade do you teach? I am a 3rd year, 5th grade teacher and I am trying to spice up science. Do you think these things would above or below level for a 5th grade class?

By: LeElle

LeElle — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 22:34:44 +0000

One day we did an experiment we made ice cream it was a surpise we needed milk,ice, and vinilla exstraxt we need to put them in a bag and shook them hard and my fingers got pure red and cold more like freezing!!!! It tasted so good it was a very hot day last year it was 100 degrees outside. Please try it.

By: Taylor

Taylor — Thu, 15 May 2008 04:41:43 +0000

Today, Mr. Spangler taught us so much. I’ll write SOME of the many things he taught us. The tie dye shirts have to be 100% cotton, or you can buy P.F.D. shirts (prepared for dyeing) at the store without the trouble of soaking things and stuff. You have to soak it in washing soda, and in it is sodium carbonate. We also learned that you need to mix the primary colors together. Like red and yellow, red and blue, and yellow and blue make three new colors to add to out already colorful tie dye shirts. You also need to twist you’re shirt a certain way to get a certain kind of pattern in your shirt. Thanks so much, Mr. Spangler! I had an AWESOME time!

By: Tyler

Tyler — Thu, 15 May 2008 03:35:44 +0000

Mr. Spangler the experience of learning how to tie-die was sweet. My shirt is in the wash right this minute Logan, Dalton, Chase, and I were all at the same table and we were lucky that happend. In class, we sit on opposit sides because we talk a lot. The fifth grade thanks you for a fantastic day.

By: MIkaela

MIkaela — Wed, 14 May 2008 23:45:36 +0000

today i learned that to make a sertan design you you need to twist your shirt or fold then twist the shirt, ect. i had a fabulous time!

By: Dr BJ Gallagher

Dr BJ Gallagher — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 00:30:12 +0000

You all should be so proud of the work that you have presented here. I hope you had as much fun writing about your projects as I did reading about them. Keep blogging!

By: Brett

Brett — Tue, 22 May 2007 00:06:51 +0000

We come from willow creek. I missed this day but have done this experiment before. We have done a variey of experiments such as paper rockets, pump rockets, the sissy machine(a safe electric shock), engine powered rockets. Steve Spangler gave us an autographed copy of an experiment book. He is amazing and I will no longer see him in class because he could fit 4 two hour sessions in with us. I think that becoming a GT teacher would be a great idea. Your students will have fun and have a larger responsibility than the rest of the class. Thanks for blogging!!!

By: Victoria

Victoria — Mon, 21 May 2007 02:48:18 +0000

Hi, I’m just wondering which school you come from. You seem like a group that has a great deal of fun! I teach fourth grade and may eventually become a Gifted teacher (or stay in 4th and keep teaching the challenging material!). What are some other neat things you have done in your class?

By: Cassandra

Cassandra — Wed, 09 May 2007 13:41:44 +0000

Yesterday we launched homemade rockets! A few days ago we built our rockets out of paper, tape, cardboard, foam paper, stickers, and other materials. There were a lot of creative and beautifull rockets made. The only restrictions we had were that the rocket couldn’t be more than 3 feet long and couldn’t be less than 6 inches and the rocket had to be able to slide onto a special tube that we would use for launch or we couldn’t launch. My rocket’s nose cone blew of on the first launch. What I did to revise my rocket was that I taped the nose cone on really tight and I stabilized the fins with tape because they were very weak. The second launch worket a little better. The nose cone did not fly off and the fins stayed stable but my rocket still did not have a very successful launch.It was one of the shortest distances of the group. If I could do it again I would make my rocket smaller and tape everything on securely. This experiment was a good learning experiance for the whole class.We experianced how if something fails, you learn from that and fix whatever you did wrong. Just like Sonny and the Rocket Boys did.

By: Stefan

Stefan — Tue, 08 May 2007 21:55:24 +0000

Illiana, I just want to add something to Steven’s explanation. Because a penny is perfectly rounded, it just makes a whirring sound. However, a hex nut has grooves and points, so because it is switching sides as it rolls along, it makes that annoying noise!

By: Steven

Steven — Tue, 08 May 2007 01:43:57 +0000

When you put a hexnut in the baloon, it makes noise because it is not always touching. When it is touching it makes a small noise.

By: illiana

illiana — Thu, 03 May 2007 23:11:04 +0000

Wow! That was neat! But I really want to know why when you put a hex nut in the balloon it makes a noise, but when you put a penny in it doesn’t (scientific reason). If someone could write something with the answer I would really appreciate it!

By: Craig

Craig — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 00:03:27 +0000

When we learned about Isaac Newton’s first law part two we used a hex-nut and a penny in a balloon. We first put a penny in a balloon not used and then blew it up. Not blew it up like it expoded but blew it up with our mouths. The frist law part two is the tendancey for an object to keep moving until a force acts upon it. Spin the blown up balloon with the penny inside it and watch what happens. The force acting upon it is gravity. An expirement for the third law is have a rocket balloon and blow it wup with the pump or your mouth, don’t tie it. Let go of it and watch what happens. The third law is for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. We did all of this with Steve Spangler.

By: Mary

Mary — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 23:04:18 +0000

I’ve had an unusually experiance in this class, but at the same time an awesome one!Today we did an experiment with a balloon in class. Steve Spangler taught us to put a penny in a balloon then blow the balloon up (with air). then we circlred the Penny around in the balloon which kept spinning until gravity and friction acted upon it. Although this experiment was fun to do, it was the lesson about this that was important. This is called Centripetal Force – the tendancy of an object to stay in movement until a force acts upon it (part two of Newton’s 1 law). We did another experiment that was blowing air into a rocket balloon than letting go! The balloon flew everywhere because the air inside of it had pressure on it. Try this! It’s a fun way off learning.

By: Zoe

Zoe — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 17:58:36 +0000

I am a student from Mrs. Heaton’s 5th grade class. I’m telling you: try this experiment, it’s simple and fun. Though there is hardly anything to it (one balloon and a penny), it taught me about something called Centripetal Force. This is the tendency for an object to keep moving until a force acts upon it. I swear, this is the weirdest class I have ever been in because we are actually doing strange and different expreriments that actually work. But just because it is weird doesn’t mean that it isn’t fun. This is also the coolest class that I’ve been in because we’re not just reading from a text book, but we are really doing things to make us understand better…
We first put a penny in a balloon, and then blew the balloon up to a certain size. By first shaking the balloon and then spinning it in the same pattern over and over so that when finally you hold the ballon still, the penny keeps spinning. It looks like a planet going into orbit! It would keep spinning until the force of gravity finally pulled it back down to the bottom of the balloon. This is an awesome expreriment! So try it right now. All you need is a balloon and a penny. It’s as simple as that.
Good luck!
P.S. We also did another experiment with rocket balloons when we learned about Newton’s First Law.

By: SarahKate

SarahKate — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 17:57:46 +0000

The class that I am in is so cool!We do awesome experiments like blow stuff up! But thats another story.
Anywase, the experiment(explained above) is really easy. All you have to do is take a penny, a ballon, and blow it up. Not litteraly blow it up….use your mouth. Once you shake up the ballon you will have fun, but also realize that you are using Newton’s Third law. And let me guess… you don’t know what that is. Well, what it is, is centripitalforce which means an object that will stay in motion until another force acts upon it. Also you can try to do the world’s most annoying experiment with doing the same thing except for not using a penny. Use a hexnut and shake it around in the blown up ballon. The sound is loud and obnoxious. Oh, and by the way, after we did that experiment, we let loud rocket ballons go wild in the nurse’s office! She went crazy!!

By: Jared

Jared — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 17:54:55 +0000

During the penny expiriment, you stick a penny in a balloon, blow it up, then spin it. It sounds easy huh? Not really. Sometimes the balloon pops, (it’s happened to me) and other times the penny just won’t spin. But either way, the expiriment displays Newton’s first law part two law (the tendancy of an object to stay in motion until a force acts upon it). As you can see our class is wierd, but fun.

By: Michael B.

Michael B. — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 17:54:02 +0000

In Mrs. Heaton’s class we got to work with Newton’s first law part one. This is the tendency of an object to stay at rest until a force acts upon it. Well… we learned this in a way I don’t think any one else has. With a penny, a balloon, and centripetal force we did Steve Spangler’s science expirement. If you put a penny inside a balloon and blow it, and spin the penny around you see the reaactions of centripetal force. The penny rolls around the side of the balloon pulling towards the center. Newton’s third law applies, because the penny doesn’t stop unless a force acts upon it. The penny does stop though because gravity is pulling down which is the force.

By: Hannah

Hannah — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 17:53:42 +0000

The penny trick is easy and fun. This experiment taught us Newton’s 3rd law. The 3rd law is with every reaction theres an equal and opposite reaction. Put the penny in the the balloon and blow the balloon up(with your mouth) to about the size of your head. Next, spin the balloon holding the top and the penny will spin. After a while the penny will stop spinning because of gravity. By the way, we also used rocket balloons to learn the 3rd law. We let them go by the nurses office and watch them fly!

By: Renae

Renae — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 17:53:27 +0000

The penny experiment is really fun. It taught our class Newton’s 3rd law.Our class put a penny in a baloon and then blew up the baloon with air to a size of about your head. When the baloon was at the right size you would tie the baloon and start to spin it with your and around it. The penny would stay in movement until a force acts upon it. For every action there is an equal and an opposite reaction. That is the air of the baloon pushing out and the inside air pulling in. This is also a very easy experiment.