Meet my newest science obsession Mystery Science! This website provides science teachers with interactive science lessons complete with an experiment! They are presented as "mysteries" I love this because it really encourages the students to delve deeper and use higher order thinking skills.

Mystery Science is currently developing a K-5 Science curriculum. Right now they have 2nd-5th grade curriculum. Users have access to ALL grades activities. This is nice because it provides a bigger range of topics. I found myself using a 4th grade Rock experiment for our first "mystery" THE STUDENTS LOVED IT! I LOVED IT! It was a complete win win. The program does the majority of the teaching! I led discussions and monitored the activity.

The lesson is broken down into exploration and activity. Mystery Science also provides additional activities to extend thinking. The first activity we completed was "Will A Mountain Last Forever" The exploration provided great video clips and graphics to explain ways a mountain can change over time. There were discussion questions every few slides, providing the students an opportunity to share their ideas. I liked this much more than a 20 minute video because they were able to frequently stop and discuss their ideas.

After the exploration we moved into the activity. It involved sugar cubes. The instructions go STEP by STEP with pictures and demonstrations, and they continue playing over and over until you go to the next slide. If a student asks what they are supposed to be doing, you can simply point to the board. As a teacher this is a GOD SEND! 

The students had a BLAST, and the experiment was the perfect amount of hands on. The students were able to see how a rock rolling down a mountain would change in size and shape. We have done one other "mystery" since then, and it involved coordinate graphing volcanoes. The mystery was "can a volcano pop up in my backyard?" Talk about a catchy hook! 

Have any of you tried Mystery Science? I am BEGGING my principal to buy a subscription for our school!!!! 

Research in Second Grade

Our school is slowly but surely making its way towards Common Core. I have found myself really enjoying this transition (minus the countless trainings). It focuses a lot on writing which has always been my favorite subject.

This year my fellow second grade teacher and I have been planning Science and Social Studies in accordance with our reading series. This has provided us with little units each week. The students have been loving them!

One of the skills for second graders is learning how to research...Now, I am not quite ready to unleash my second graders wild on the internet, but I am ready to give them some safe opportunities to gather information and use that as their research.

Our first mini unit was on Space. The students had the opportunity to research their assigned planet using a SAFE website (kidastronomy.com) They were instructed to write down FIVE facts about their planet. The students each got a turn on the computer during our weekly ELA rotations. Students then met with the others who had the same planets, shared information and planned out their project.

The assignment? Convince us to live on your planet. The students had to create a poster and write a short paper. Sounds tough for second graders, but WOW! They BLEW me away! The students had some of the most interesting facts to share with their classmates.

One problem we encountered several times was not working nicely as a group...we modeled good group behavior, and surprisingly by the end of the project everyone was getting along fine!

The next research unit we completed was on Ellis Island and immigration to the United States...pretty tough stuff for second graders! We found an AMAZING webquest on TPT FOR FREEEEEE! that went along with a virtual field trip. We spent several days working our way through the Virtual Field Trip together with the interwrite board. During the "field trip" the students had to answer the webquest questions. This project could have been done independently by older grades, but working together worked fabulous for second grade. At the end of the unit my kiddos were EXPERTS on all things Ellis Island. They each wrote a story from the perspective of an immigrant, and oh my goodness I have never been prouder! They included such detail in their writing! One of my students (who usually HATES writing) wrote over three pages!!!


We are extremely lucky to not only have an entire computer lab we can visit, but also a set of ipads that can be checked out. Having these resources helps make researching in the classroom a little easier. I prefer using the computer because I am able to create a folder of the websites I want the students visiting, vs me telling them the site to type on the ipad.