Hi everyone!
I’ve got a double post for you today (to make up from yesterday) so let’s jump right in!
Thursday | Is the Chemical Equation Balanced?
To get a better understanding of whether or not an equation is balanced, we used super awesome manipulative cards to recreate chemical equations. The link to the cards we used can be found below (side note: these are from the former middleschoolscience.com website circa 2007 from Sheryl S – thank you, wherever you are!)
Once students were able to see the different colors of each element and the realization that you cannot move/change subscripts and that a coefficient applies to the entire compound, their brain light bulbs lit up! Check out a mini hyperlapse below for what this looks like with my students!
Students used an application-based worksheet in conjunction with these cards that helped them complete this task. By the end of the class I was SO excited to see the difference between Wednesday (beginning of class) and Thursday (end of class). It was fantastic!
Friday | Review + Recap – Prepping for CFA #1
Our CFA is on Monday, October 6th! Students have been encouraged Wednesday night, Thursday night and tonight to take home their interactive notebooks and STUDY STUDY STUDY over the weekend! The test will cover the following areas:
- Atoms, elements, compounds and mixtures
- The periodic table of elements
- Physical & chemical properties & changes
- The law of conservation of mass – focusing on whether or not an equation is balanced and supports the law of conservation of mass.
In order to touch on each topic covered and learned during these last 6 weeks, we completed an in-depth stations activity. This is one of my favorite ways to do stations to keep my students collaboratively and efficiently working. Below are the directions my students used prior to beginning our stations:
I was very impressed by my students and their focus through this process! The short amount of time at each station, coupled with the amount of material they needed to complete really limited the number of “available distractions”, keeping my students working at a good clip. Now, they have a great booklet to use (in addition to their notebooks) to help them study for their CFA #1!
So, that brings us up to speed! Monday we will be taking our CFA and Tuesday we will begin our next unit “The Age & History of the Earth”. Want to get a head start on your homework for next week? Check out the weekly homework page and look for “Week # 7”.
I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend and I’ll see you back here on Monday!
