SuperScience STEM Instant Activities: Grades 4-6: 30 Hands-on Investigations With Anchor Texts and Videos

by Katherine Burkett

Overview

This comprehensive pack features 15 engaging topics—including animal senses, dinosaurs, wild weather, earthquakes, forces, and properties of matter—that support the Next Generation Science Standards. Each topic comes in a self-contained folder with an anchor text for building background knowledge, multiple copies of two hands-on investigations, companion reproducible recording sheets, management tips, plus links to an online video and bonus activities. A must-have resource for every classroom!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781338099010
Publisher:	Scholastic, Inc.
Publication date:	01/28/2017
Product dimensions:	18.00(w) x 10.00(h) x (d)
Age Range:	9 - 11 Years

About the Author

Katherine Burkett is a former editor of Scholastic’s SuperScience magazine. She has written 14 books for children, including 9 volumes of Scholastic’s Mad Science fiction series. She has covered a variety of science topics for children’s magazines and worked on projects for the National Science Foundation, the American Museum of Natural History, and the National Arbor Day Foundation.

Editorial Reviews

Great kit, appreciate the additional online resource, easy supplies to get for each kit. This is a great STEM set, very constructed. This set has 15 topics in physical, life and ear sciences that support the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) What is NGSS: These standards were created for the K-12 student in mind for science content standard that has a set of expectations from what students should know and be able to do.  The NGSS were developed by states to improve sciences education for students. Each topic comes in a self-contained folder that includes an Article, Task Cards (5 of them that are identical), a data sheet (two companion reproducible worksheets for students to record on) and Teaching Notes (background info.  on NGSS correlations and hints). There also is “Bonus” online Resources that include short videos related to the topics, digital version of the content to allow for projecting to a white board, additional printable activities, charts and patterns.  You have an access code that is provided in the Program Guide. The website is nicely laid out and easy to navigate.  There is a section for each of the sections: Life Science, Earth Since and Physical Science Earth Science: Earthquakes, Volcanoes, Wind Power, Weather and Client Change, Hurricane Damage, Physical Science: Energy, Light, Air, Forces, Properties of Matter, Life Science:  Fossils, Ice Age Adaptations, Sense of Smell, Food Webs, Hearing. Some examples of Supplies you need: Bubble Wrap, Tape, Toothpick, Flashlight, Whipped Cream, Wax Paper, Hole Punch, Straw, Permanent Marker, ruler, funnel, watch, 1-liter soda bottle, pipe cleaner, rubber band, clay, balloon, empty aluminum can, marble, masking tape, salt, pennies, magnet, play dough, Large Milk Container, measuring cups, thermometer, sandwich and gallon size plastic bags, dry pasta in various sizes/shapes and watch. All accessible, easy to find and inexpensive. My two kids enjoyed the few that we have done already (Air, Hearing and Food Webs) and would recommend.

-Nicole, via Amazon Vine

Wonderful Lessons for the Kiddo. If you are thinking about taking some home education to the next level, these STEM books are perfect for an additional foray into fun projects and activities for kids. My ten-year-old used them and enjoyed a few of the lessons, we haven’t gotten through them yet. They come in a folder, and they have cards along with codes for an online video that they can watch. If you have a child that is interested in learning different things about science, outside of the normal classroom, this would be a great purchase.

–Parajunkee, via Amazon Vine

Great resource. This is a really great, complete resources for the classroom or homeschool.  The pamphlets are full color and very well done.  They have complete activities, resources, and explanations.  The instructional tools say they are good for grades 4-6, I would say that 4th grade is a bit young, unless you have very good readers, otherwise, the language and content are more on the upper 5th-6th grade level.  Overall, great way to add STEM activities to your classroom without having to start from scratch with the lesson plans.

–Matt, via Amazon Vine

Wonderful content and presentation. This is a tremendous educational resource that is beautifully presented and definitely holds the interest of our granddaughter. There is some preparation involved, but the projects are fun, especially for a girl who adores science. Well done!

–J. Arena, via Amazon Vine

Nice Addition To Science Curriculum. This is a great science curriculum resource. It comes with 4 division of science. Color coded: Blue - physical science, Green - earth science, Purple - life science, You can write right on the package of each. It has a pocket on the inside that holds task cards that give more in depth information or experiment instructions. The task cards are laminated so they can be used with dry erase markers. The task cards are duplicated (4). The folders that encase the task cards are well made and should hold up even with heavy use. This set offers some interesting topics. I think this will be a nice addition to our homeschool studies this year.

–Belinda G., Amazon Vine

Excellent for Home and Classroom Use! As both a parent and former educator, this set gets a solid 5-stars from me. Please don't think that it is just for classroom use. It can easily be used at home with your children. It comes with great science activities and lessons for the kids. I also think these can be tweaked for use with the younger children. For example, the first one that I looked at was the topic of Hurricanes. You get the basic lesson, 2 activity cards and online videos that you are given a code to unlock. The activities were to simulate waves and erosion. Easily, a younger child could be included in this lesson with the activities.  They may not understand the entire lesson, but they will understand waves and erosion as you work with water and sand. Let's face it, who doesn't like water and sand?  All of the activities are set up in the same format. I found them to be engaging and age appropriate. Please note: If you are using these in a group or classroom setting, you will need to make copies for the number of children you will be teaching. Quite frankly, I found some of these activities fun to do on a play date!  Keep learning fun and hands on! Solid 5 Stars for home and classroom use! Excellent gift!

–MikesMom, Amazon Vine

From the Publisher