Excerpt from 365 Teacher Secrets for Parents: What's the Matter? (Cindy McKinley & Patti Trombly)

Exceptional teachers Cindy McKinley and Patti Trombly have put together a book that can help any parent through this extended period of sheltering in place. Packed with home activities for learning, readers can pick any number that appeal to them or fit their personal family circumstances.

Here is one example that is bound to make the time spent in lockdown more fun:

#231
What’s the Matter?

Matter is everywhere, but what exactly is it, anyway? Matter is something that is observable with some of our five senses. Matter has weight and takes up space. It is all around us. To help your child understand the concept of matter, as well as its various phases, here are some facts to share and activities you can try:

(1) Discuss what is and is not matter. (For instance rocks, milk, and air are matter; ideas, words, and feelings are not.) 

(2) Make a chart of what you come up with. Look around your home, even take a walk or a drive to find examples around you. 

(3) Further organize the chart into the various phases of matter such as solids, liquids, and gases. Work together as a family on this activity. As a reminder, here are definitions of the three states of matter: 

• Solid matter keeps its shape. Examples: table, computer, and book. 

• Liquid matter has no distinct shape of its own but rather takes on the shape of the container it’s in. Examples: water, juice, pop. 

• Gases have no particular shape at all and spread out to fill the containers they are in. Examples: air, helium, vapors. A filled balloon helps to show children that gas is actually a form of matter because they can see the balloon expanding. 

• Water is the perfect example to use for many of these experiments. It is easy to change so that you can see all three states. 

(4) Conduct experiments to change states of matter. (Note: Matter changes states when heat energy is added or removed from the object.) 

• Melting means changing from a solid to a liquid. A fun experiment is to have a race to melt two ice cubes. Place each on a plate. Have your child decide how she will make her ice cube melt the fastest, and you do the same. Predict what will happen, and watch the ice melt. 

• Freezing or solidifying means changing from a liquid back to a solid. Try freezing juice in your ice cube tray. Once juice begins to freeze, stick a toothpick in the center of each. You will have a fun experiment to eat in a few hours. 

• Evaporating means changing from a liquid to a gas. Boil some water in a pan. Watch the steam coming up. Discuss where it is coming from and why.

• Condensing means changing from a gas back to a liquid. Now, put a dry lid on the boiling pan of water for a few minutes. Take it off. Shake it, turn it. Discuss how the droplets got there. Another great experiment to show condensation is to fill a glass of colored water with many ice cubes. (Making colored cubes is a good idea, or use juice and your juicy cubes!) Place the filled glass in a warm place and watch what happens. Discuss why and how water is forming on the outside of the glass. (Having colored water on the inside helps to prove to kids that the water isn’t just seeping through the glass to the outside because the water on the outside is clear.) This experiment helps kids see, too, that there is water in the air. (The scientific explanation: The air is cooled as it passes by the glass so it condenses on the outside.) 

• Remember that not all matter responds the same way to changes.

(See Idea #233 in the book for more experiments.) 

Cindy and Patti have written a workbook; it contains an organizer for this activity and can be found on the authors' website.

For other examples, check our earlier blog posts:
Thinking Out Loud as a Teaching Technique.
Steal the Beat
Bug Off!


Meet Cindy

Cindy McKinley is a parent, a teacher, and a writer.  She grew up in Milford, Michigan, and has lived there for about 40 years, attending Huron Valley Schools.  Cindy has a Bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education and a Master’s degree in the Teaching of Reading from Eastern Michigan University.  She taught lower elementary for seven years, also in Huron Valley Schools, both at Kurtz Elementary and Country Oaks Elementary.  Her children attended the very same elementary, middle school, and high school as she did!
She now tutors children of all ages in the community and teaches English at Oakland Community College in Royal Oak.  She’s been teaching for over 25 years.

In 2002 her first book, a children’s book called One Smile, was published.  It won the Benjamin Franklin award that year.  In 2013 her second children’s book, One Voice, came out. It immediately won the Preferred Choice Award and the Carol Reiser Award.  Both books show how simple random acts of kindness can change the world.

That same year, 365 Teacher Secrets for Parents: Fun Ways to Help Your Child Succeed in Elementary School came out, a book she co-wrote with teacher and long-time friend Patti Trombly.  This book is full of fun and easy ways parents can work with their young kids on all academic subjects and more!

Visit her website.

&

Meet Patti

Patti Trombly has a Bachelor’s Degree in Elementary Education and a Master’s Degree in the Teaching of Reading.  Even after 20 years of teaching in elementary school, middle school and college, she still looks for teachable moments in everyday life and for new ways to help children learn. She is a parent of two, a teacher and a business owner — and the co-author of 365 Teacher Secrets for Parents: Fun Ways to Help Your Child Succeed in Elementary School.


Other posts about and by these authors and this book can be found by clicking here -- helpful posts for parents.