Science Centers

So, for the first...oh...year and a half of teaching a split class (first a 3/4 split and then a 2/3 split), I completely failed at teaching science. For my first year, I had NO idea how to teach two science curriculums, so I didn't! I taught 3rd grade science to everybody since we had a new curriculum anyway.

My second year teaching, I had very high expectations. I WAS GOING TO TEACH TWO SEPARATE SCIENCE CURRICULUMS. Only problem was... HOW?! I had no independent work for either grade level, and to be totally honest, science is not my favorite subject anyway. So I started the year with something familiar: animals. We all did animals, second and third graders, for the first month or so of the year. Then I decided to sneakily teach states of matter to my second graders while the third graders continued with animals by completing a looooooong animal research project. It worked- but then I was stuck: What kind of independent project could I have my second-graders do on the states of matter while I taught light to the third-graders?

Well... Enter the absolutely amazing Science Penguin and her science centers! WHAT! I had never even THOUGHT about doing science centers. Like, not even the tiniest bit had centers even occurred to me. Which, when you think about it, is odd... I run centers for virtually every other subject in my room!

Anyways, here's how it works in my classroom. Science Penguin has 5 centers (which are all detailed in her completely awesome freebie, which you can snag here), which she runs for a week so the kids rotate through one station a day. Well, in my classroom, 5 days of science seemed like a bit of a stretch, so I shortened it to 4 centers - and some weeks, getting to science 4 days is a challenge!

I got rid of her Center 4, which is a thinking map center, because I don't focus on thinking maps in my classroom so I thought it might be an unnecessary challenge for my kids. Instead, I focused on her four other centers:

Station 1. Read and Comprehend: I use the (free!!) booklet that's part of her science center freebie, and write my own reading pieces for each week. The kids have to read the piece and respond to it by writing 3 sentences in their own words, and then using a sentence stem like "I'm surprised..." or "I find it interesting that..."

Station 2: Explore! This center takes place at my table, because it is definitely the hands-on center. Here I've had them sort materials, separate mixtures, do simple light experiments, and create the earth's crust with saltine crackers! The trickiest part of Station 2 for the kids is figuring out how to record their work in their science booklets. Some of the experiments don't lend themselves to diagrams very easily.

Station 3: Vocabulary. This is one of my favorites and the easiest to make! I give them four vocabulary words and definitions to match in their booklet, and then they make a vocabulary 4-square with the bold word.

Station 4: Center Activity. This is where I put any random things I want them to do. This has included acrostic poems, mazes, crafts, and a Venn diagram.

I love, love LOVE science centers and I am SO thankful to Science Penguin for her AMAZING freebie! This has absolutely saved my butt in my split class, and I'm still trying to figure out how I can continue to use them next year when I have a normal 3rd grade class :-)

To manage centers, I kept them in the same groups they use for math centers (more on that here), and posted this on our science board so they can easily refer to it. They LOVE science centers and so do I!