Teaching elementary-aged children is a rewarding experience, but as educators and parents, finding the time and resources to create engaging lessons can be a challenge. That's where this podcast comes in. Welcome to Naturally Teaching Elementary.

I'm Victoria Zablocki, a certified elementary teacher turned outdoor educator. With over a decade of experience coaching teachers on effective teaching methods, I'm passionate about teaching the whole child with authentic and place-based experiences in school and home settings. Join me as we explore strategies for teaching with practical teaching tips, insightful interviews, picture book reviews, and more. So let's grow together.

All right, everybody, welcome back to the Naturally Teaching Elementary podcast. My name is Victoria Zablocki and I'm your host. So with winter comes colder temperatures, fewer hours of daylight, and tired kids, teachers, and parents. But on a positive note, it's also a great time for learning about water. Teaching about water and matter during winter can turn an abstract concept into a hands-on experience for your early childhood learners. This is because winter provides those temperatures necessary to find water in three different states.

It also gives your upper elementary age students real world opportunities to experience their curriculum firsthand. And that's what this episode is going to be all about, learning about water in winter.

[1:20]

But before we get into some activities, my science snippet today is going to be about states of matter just to get everyone on the same page. So a scientific definition for matter is anything that has mass and volume. A more child-friendly definition, however, is anything that takes up space and has weight. With that being said, the states of matter are the different forms that matter can be found in.

And these forms are possible based on the arrangement of the particles and the amount of energy the particles have. You may have heard that there are up to seven different states of matter, but according to scientists there are only four naturally occurring states of matter that have been discovered so far. So what are these four states of matter?

The four naturally occurring states of matter are solid, liquid, gas, and plasma. So solids have their own characteristics, including being very tightly packed molecules, having a fixed shape, mass, and volume, and they don't conform to the shape of a container they're placed in.

Liquids have loosely packed molecules that flow around each other. They have an unchanging mass and volume, and they conform to the shape of a container that they're placed in.

Gases, however, have extremely loosely packed molecules that bounce off of each other. They do not have a definite shape, mass, or volume, and they do conform to the shape of a container that they're confined to, which is different than solids.

Plasma, on the other hand, has highly charged particles. Sometimes it's even defined as an electrically charged gas. Scientists have identified plasma as the most common state of matter in the universe, but the least common state of matter on Earth. And an example of plasma on our planet is the aurora borealis, just to give you an idea.

So although there are four naturally occurring states of matter on Earth, elementary schools tend to focus on three states of matter, solid, liquid, and gas. And in the lower elementary grades, many schools focus on solid and liquid, since they're concrete, and then they introduce the abstract concept of gas in the upper elementary grades.

So going back to water, by learning about water as your examples for solid, liquid, and gas, your students will have access to all three states during the winter season. Depending on the day, you may even be able to find examples of each state naturally occurring outside. More often, though, you'll need to bring liquid water outside, so your learners can see the properties of liquid versus gas and solid.

During the rest of the year, or if you're not in a region with cold enough temperatures to get snow naturally, you could bring ice outside to act as your example of a solid, but it often melts while the students are learning. While that's a good lesson in itself, it's valuable for your learners to have extended periods of time with the different states to observe and experiment with their characteristics. So in this episode, I'm going to describe activities for learning about water in winter for grades K through 5.

For each activity, I'll share the Next Generation Science Standard that inspired that activity as well as how it relates to learning about water. And make sure that you listen through to the end of the episode because even though I've paired these activities to particular standards, you may find yourself inspired to use a similar concept for your curriculum or even use the same activity for a different grade. Also, if you're new to taking your learners outside, check out episode 6: 5 Outdoor Education Safety Tips for Teaching Outside, for suggestions to make teaching outside easier.

[4:43]

Now let's get into these activities for learning about water in winter. So for kindergarten, the Next Generation Science Standard that I pulled was K-ESS2-1: Use and share observations of local weather conditions to describe patterns over time. So how does this relate to water?

If you're in an area that gets freezing temperatures, then you're able to harness the wonder of snow during winter. Snow is a unique and special weather phenomenon that most children look forward to, and is a mystery to many students as well. Is it solid water or is it liquid water?

So the activity for this standard would be taking snow depth data. This simple but powerful and enjoyable activity only requires rulers or another measuring tool, which is great. Fewer tools and more exploration.

You could run this activity in a couple of different ways. So, if you want to give your students time to explore measuring snow freely, you could provide your students with natural boundaries while you're outside, like fences, sidewalks, building walls, etc. And that could be your exploration space.

Then you could have them run around and find different depths of snow. This style of activity will give your students freedom to discover for themselves how snow can be found in different depths, as well as provide you the opportunity to check in on your students and their practice with measuring.

If you'd like a more structured version of this activity though, you could travel as a group to a section of grass in your school yard, a section of sidewalk near the building, and the outskirts of the playground. This will give you three different areas to collect data and have a conversation about how snow can be found in different depths, depending on what's around the area. It also gives you the chance to point out their surroundings in each location, so that they have similar experiences to draw upon for analysis and discussion.

Either way of doing this activity is great, and you could actually consider using both methods if you wanted, starting with exploration one day and moving to a more structured experience another day. Consider how familiar your students are with the measuring tools, though, and decide whether or not you need to instruct them on how to use them before either of these activities. If they don't know how to measure, it's going to be a flop.

And if you're looking for a made-for-you recording sheet to use for the more structured version of this activity, check out my Snow and Winter Weather Mini Unit for Kindergarten in my Teachers Pay Teachers Store. It has snow depth data collection as an activity, as well as ELA activities like retelling a snow story, an opinion writing about snow, using snow words to finish sentences, and some science activities like planning a winter weather forecast, designing a snowflake, building the snowflake on geoboards, and analyzing the snow depth data that you've taken. And I'll make sure to put a link for that mini unit in the show notes if you're interested.

[7:20]

So for first grade, the Next Generation Science Standard that I pulled was 1-PS4-3: Plan and conduct investigations to determine the effect of placing objects made with different materials in the path of a beam of light. So how does this relate to water? So this standard doesn't seem to connect directly to water, but icicles, which are frozen water, can refract or bend light when they're placed in the beam of light. So testing how light reacts when passing through icicles could be a lot of fun for your students.

So for this activity, you're going to create shimmers and maybe even colors with icicles, aka frozen water. So as light hits the icicles on a sunny day, the light slows down and bends. Depending on the icicles' thickness and clarity, your students could see some cool sparkling on the ground from the light that passes through, or they may even see some colors.

Sometimes icicles actually disperse the colors of light so they actually split them. Normally light is white, and the crystal structure of the solid water can actually cause that white light to split into its different colors, causing colors or even possibly a full rainbow on the ground. So to make this interactive, have your students harvest icicles in a safe way, whether that's grabbing from picnic tables or seeding your own before the lesson begins. Have your students gather icicles and find an area with a lot of light to see if they can get the light to split.

They can try different angles, heights, and even breaking the icicles to see if they can make it work. It'll be a lot of fun and could potentially yield some great conversations. This activity would be a great follow-up to the activity that I described in episode 35: 6 Groundhog Day Activities for Elementary Teachers and Homeschool Groups.

In that episode, I talked about bringing out a variety of recyclables that were transparent, translucent, and opaque to see what would happen if you place them in a beam of light. Since most or all of these objects don't disperse light into the different colors, the icicles hold a special power that would be enlightening to your students if done after that other activity that I described.

[9:22]

For second grade, the Next Generation Science Standard that I pulled was 2-ESS2-3: Obtain information to identify where water is found on earth and that it can be solid or liquid. So how does this relate to water? Winter is a great time to naturally find water as a solid and as a gas. And depending on the day in winter that you go out, you might even be lucky enough to find all three states of water.

So for this activity, you're going to go for a states of water hike. Start off in your classroom with a discussion about the different states of matter that you can find water in. The standard that I listed only requires you to teach about solid and liquid, but second graders, especially the second half of the year second graders, are old enough to be introduced to the idea of gas as well.

It may be an abstract concept, but they can handle it. So introduce solid, liquid and gas, and then tell them that you're going outside as a class for a hike to see if you can find examples of water in solid form, in liquid form, and in gas form. Then take your students for a short walk around your school yard or green space and look high and low for examples of water in the different forms.

The trickiest one to find will likely be liquid, which is the state they're actually most familiar with. So this activity will expose them to the other forms in an interactive way. As you move from area to area, consider playing States of Matter Red Light Green Light, as described by my guest Allie in Episode 36.

She shares a transition game of Red Light Green Light and how it can relate to the molecules of solids, liquids and gases, and also helps you transition from one activity or space to another. It's a whole lot of fun. After you've looked around your school yard or green space for the states, have a conversation about what they found as a class.

Did they find all three states? Why did they think that is? Do they think they could find all of them on a different day if they didn't find all three today? What would have to be different to be able to find all three states?

[11:13]

For third grade, the Next Generation Science Standard that I pulled was 3-ESS3-1: Make a claim about the merit of a design solution that reduces the impacts of a weather-related hazard. So how does this relate to water? Snow, frozen water, can be a real hazard for humans as far as travel, power outages, and livable conditions.

The vast majority of people in regions with freezing conditions have power and livable conditions, but travel is affected regularly by snowy weather. So for this activity, you're going to focus on the removal of snow from roads for better travel conditions. First, talk about snow and all the amazing things that people can do with it. You want to start on a positive note.

This will get them thinking about sledding, snowshoeing, looking for animal tracks, and more. Hopefully, someone will point out that snow can also bring snow days, a fun break from school. When someone brings them up, find out if your students know why school is canceled on snow days.

Do they realize it's a safety measure? Have a discussion about how sometimes school is canceled because the temperatures are too low and it's unsafe for students to wait outside for the bus. But a lot of the times, snow days happen because there's too much snow on the road and it makes it unsafe to drive.

Tell your students that today, they get to be engineers trying to solve the problem of unsafe roads due to snow. Let them know that you're going to provide them with recyclables to invent a solution that moves snow from one place to another. Take your students outside and bring along those recyclables that you collect beforehand and give them time to experiment with the recyclables to see if they can create an invention that moves snow around their schoolyard.

You may also want to bring masking tape, string, and some scissors so they can attach recyclables together and create something that's not just one piece. Inevitably, you'll end up with some kids making snow plows, but this is a great chance for them to be creative and find ways that snow could be moved. Have them test their inventions and make adjustments if they don't work the way they wanted them to.

And you could consider having them work in pairs or in groups of three. That way you don't need as many recyclables, and then they can also bounce ideas off of each other and work collaboratively.

[13:24]

The Next Generation Science Standard that I pulled for fourth grade was 4-ESS2-1: Make observations and or measurements to provide evidence of the effects of weathering or the rate of erosion by water, ice, wind, or vegetation.

So how does this relate to water? Ice erosion occurs in winter when freezing temperatures cause water in cracks to freeze to ice, and the expansion creates more breakage. So for this activity, take your students outside and look for cracks in the sidewalk.

Have them look closely to see if there's any ice stuck in the cracks. Bring paper and crayons with the labels peeled off to create a crack rubbing of each of the cracks with ice in them, like the age-old leaf rubbings. To do this, place the paper on the ground and then lay the crayon on its side, and rub it against the paper so it picks up the textures underneath of the paper.

This should give you a detailed record of the crack and the gap that has the ice. Find a way to label the crack rubbings so you can remember which one is which, so you can make comparison crack rubbings in the spring. Try to do this on a day when the sidewalks are mostly dry, though.

If the ground is wet, you probably won't be able to do the crack rubbings, since it will make your paper wet. As you move from crack to crack, you can have your students jump over the cracks like they're playing a game of “The Floor is Lava”. This will get them excited to find the next crack, get some wiggles out, and make their learning more active

Once all of the ice is melted in the spring, go outside and make new crack rubbings and compare them to the ice-filled crack rubbings to see if there's a difference in the width of the cracks. This will show your students in real-time how ice can erode away rock in nature since the sidewalk has expanded and has lost its structure.

[14:59]

The Next Generation Science Standard that I pulled for fifth grade was 5-ESS2-1: Develop a model using an example to describe ways the geosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere, and or atmosphere interact.

So how does this relate to water? Snow is an example of freshwater made in a complex way involving both the hydrosphere and the atmosphere. So for this activity, you're going to collect a bunch of snow in a clear container like a recyclable water bottle.

Try to make sure it is pure white. Show your students the nice white snow and ask them what they think it will look like after you leave it inside overnight. They'll probably tell you that it will be water since the snow will melt in the warm temperatures.

Let it sit overnight and then the next day, bring the bottle around for your students to see. It will have water, but it will also have bits of dirt in it. Pose the question, how did the dirt get in there?

Instead of having your students raise their hands to tell you, have them create either a recipe or a tall tale about how they think the dirt got into the snow. This is an opportunity for them to be creative, but also to think about plausible ways that the dirt may have entered the snow. After giving them a chance to write, have them share with a partner nearby.

You could then have learners share their ideas if you'd like and talk about their evidence for why they think the dirt entered the snow in that way. To help them understand how the hydrosphere and atmosphere work together to make snow, read the book The Story of Snow: The Science of Winter's Wonder by Mark Cassino and Jon Nelson, Ph.D. This book does a great job of explaining how snowflakes are made in the atmosphere when specks like particles of dirt, ash, salt, or more end up with water vapor sticking to them.

As more and more water vapor condenses and creates a water droplet, the water droplet freezes and then more water vapor sticks to the frozen droplet and grows a crystal. As the crystal falls towards the ground, it continues to collect more water vapor and becomes a snowflake. Once the snow comes into your classroom and melts, the speck is free to float in the water as the dirt that your class observed in the water bottle.

[17:04]

In a nutshell, we talked about six different activities for learning about water in winter. For kindergarten, we talked about measuring snow depths with measurement tools. For first grade, we talked about holding icicles in the way of sunlight to see how the light changes.

For second grade, we talked about going for a states of water hike, looking for water as a gas, as a liquid and as a solid. For third grade, we talked about engineering a solution for removing snow from roads to make travel safer. For fourth grade, we talked about taking crack rubbings in your sidewalk to see how ice can create erosion.

For fifth grade, we talked about letting snow melt in your classroom and then writing a recipe or tall tale about how the dirt got into the snow. If you'd like some more ideas for teaching about matter in winter, check out my article “Snowy Science: A Guide to Teaching About Matter in Winter.” And don't forget if you want to hear about how to play States of Matter, Red Light, Green Light, check out episode 36: Gamifying Learning for Elementary Aged Children with Allie Elliott.

And if you're looking for a made-for-you recording sheet for measuring snow depths, check out my Snow and Winter Weather Mini Unit for Kindergarten in my Teachers Pay Teacher Store. So thanks for taking time to listen today. I know you're super busy and I truly appreciate the time you take to tune in.

If you have any questions, wonderings, or activities for learning about water in winter that you use, get a hold of me on Instagram at naturally.teaching, or you can email me at victoria@naturallyteaching.com. And don't forget to check out the show notes for this episode at naturallyteaching.com/episode38, where I'll have all the links that I mentioned. So thanks again for joining me today. And until next time, keep exploring, keep learning, and keep naturally teaching.

Thank you so much for tuning in to today's episode of the Naturally Teaching Elementary Podcast. I hope you found it informative, inspiring, and full of actionable insights to enhance your teaching journey.

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Thank you again for listening, and until next time, keep exploring, keep learning, and keep naturally teaching.