Matter

The students are learning about matter. We have learned that matter can be a solid, liquid or gas. We have done lots of investigations about matter and its changes. This week our focus was on water. Water is one of the few things that can be all three states of matter. The students were challenged to design a building for a city we were creating. They were not told what the buildings would be made of until they created a design. Then I told them they would be using ice and asked them if they would change their designs. There were lots of good design questions. Finally we assembled our building from ice. They found it was very difficult to do. We discussed their observations and what they would change in order to make this 'work'. Then we read our Scholastic News about an ice festival in China where they use ice to create a city. The students were impressed by this display.