Water Walk Experiment FREEBIE and Bumblebees Close Read

I love bringing science into my classroom and this was an activity that I originally saw over at Coffee Cups and Crayons.  I used this activity to explain capillary action (Capillary action is the process that plants use to pull water up from the ground.)  I begin the activity by asking my students if they think I could make water move from one cup to the other, without touching them (I have the three cups on the table, with water in two of them).  Most students said no, but of course I  also had a couple of yes answers with some crazy explanations (like "magic").  

Let the experiment begin.

Method:

Fill two cups with water.  Add blue coloring to one, yellow to the other.  Place an empty cup in the middle and roll up two paper towels, dipping one end into each cup and the other ends into the empty cup (as seen in the drawing below).  Ask for predictions.  Have students fill out the first box on the recording page. Wait about 30 minutes and you will see the water "climb" over the paper towel and into the empty cup.  The colors mix and create green (a little art bonus)!  Make sure to explain that the coloring has no effect on the experiment, they are merely used to "show" the water as it "walks."

Get your Water Walk FREEBIE {HERE}

After the experiment, some of the kids got into a discussion about whether paper would soak up water the same way as the paper towel did.  Of course, this was something we could easily test:

They learned that although the paper did soak up some of the water, it was not nearly as much as the paper towels (Paper towels are permeable and porous, meaning that they contain small spaces that both liquid and air may pass through.) The picture above was after it sat over night.  There are some great videos on You Tube that demonstrate this activity and some variations with more cups on Pinterest that are amazing!

We also learned about Bumblebees this week and even went outside to see if we could see any...no luck!  But my kids learned SO much and although honey bees are the ones that make honey, bumblebees are still pretty interesting! You can see my Bumblebee Close Read {HERE}

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 AND YES, THIS IS IN THE WORKS:

 It may take me forever to finish (let's hope not!) but there will be a directed drawing activity for each week in school.  Does that sound like something you might be interested in?  Hope so!

And to celebrate spring, I'm having a sale!