This was quite a busy day so that, I'm sure, is what made it seem to go by in the blink of an eye so-to-speak. Today's science lesson consisted of three parts: 1) Warm-up 2) Review 3) Hands-on activity   As you can see, the warm-up was focused on the previous part of the unit that covered minerals. There are two reasons for it. The first reason is that I wanted to keep this content fresh in their minds and second, the whole hands-on focus was on rocks as well as the review. The review consisted of going over the vocabulary and then the review quiz. This quiz was not for a grade but just for the students to see for themselves what they know and what they need to review. There were ten multiple choice questions, one at a time, followed by the answers. Below is the review quiz in document form along with the answer key. 
The main activity was to use the crayons and pencil sharpeners for the rock cycle simulation activity. Each student got 10 crayons of varying colors, a sheet of wax paper, a zip lock bag, and a sharpener. The first step was to sharpen the crayons to make a small pile of wax shavings. This represented the process of weathering in which rocks are broken down into smaller pieces due to water and other factors. The wax shavings represented sediment. The second step was to pick up a handful of the shavings and hold them above the wax paper. This represents erosion. Dropping the shavings back onto the wax paper represents deposition. The third step was to collect the shavings into one area of the wax paper, fold the other side over and press down firmly. This represents the process of cementation that forms sedimentary rock. The fourth step was to fold over the more solid mass of wax shavings and press down even harder. This changes what it looks like to represent metamorphic rock. The fifth and final step was to gather all of the wax and pour it into an inexpensive nonstick skillet to melt. I added a scented wax cube to make the room smell better. I then poured the melted wax onto wax paper. As it hardened, it represented igneous rock forming from lava. For my last class I changed it up by pouring the melted wax into cool water. I also made one more change. The pencil sharpeners started getting too gunked up so I had the students use plastic knives to shave the crayons and remove the paper. That worked much better. Now I have a lot of work to do cleaning up. Lastly, I would like to thank all of the parents who have sent in crayons and sharpeners. I could not have done it without you! Below is a slideshow of the activity....... The homework is still due on Friday. I did set it up so that students can take this multiple times to achieve mastery so I encourage your child to take advantage of this.
We will continue with social studies tomorrow after the quiz. The project is going to be assigned tomorrow as well and the information will be sent home with the student. I will be posting information in the social studies part of the Weebly as it becomes available.
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