Drippy the Raindrop

Teach the water cycle with the adventure story of Drippy! The story can be narrated by clicking a button. http://www.kimballmedia.com/Drippy/DrippysWorldTrialStories/ToMountainsAndBack/Entry.htm

Escaping from predators

A very simple, interactive way to show how pollution in a particular place affects the population of beetles. Can be used to illustrate why in different instances, different beetles will survive and use it to link to adaptations to escape from predators/ decline in population in a habitat
http://www.sciencenetlinks.com/interactives/evolution.html

One stop Science Resources

This site has curriculum guides that are useful for lesson planning. There is also a drop menu that links to other Science resources such as Brainpop.
http://classroom.jc-schools.net/sci-units/living-things.htm

Food Chain - Effects of Changes

Useful activity to help beginners to food chains and briefly explains to pupils what happens when a certain living organism is removed from the chain. Choose from forest or northern(with polar bear) food chain.
http://www.ecokidsonline.com/pub/eco_info/topics/frogs/chain_reaction/index.cfm

Simple Machines - Play it out!

Get pupils to play with ramps, some gears in a contraption to reinforce some concepts or use as lesson starter for physical science.
http://pbskids.org/zoom/games/goldburgertogo/index.html

Thimble magic

Use a thimble to teach materials! Children have little idea what a real thimble look like. It is cute and tiny enough to arouse interest.

• Arouse interest. Ask them what it is.
• Ask them for possible uses of the thimble (candle holder?pencil cap?cup for a fairy??)
• NE: Thimble is seldom used today or seen in homes today because few people stay home to sew these days as compared to years ago (Grandma's youth)
• Relate use of thimble to properties of metals.
• Usually shiny
  
• Strong- Need to push needles through thick cloth
• hard - withstand scratches by needles
• waterproof - prevent sweat from hands from wetting it

• Develop further by exploring Aluminium foil, wire other metals that have very different uses.
• Have fun!
  

Class Waves - Heat flow

I had the class do this to keep them on their toes and create a 'physical image' of the concept of how heat travels.
1) Do a wave from one end to another.Try out by starting from different sides(front, back, left right). Just get the pupils to stand quickly and sit down.
2) Then introduce a heat source such as a light bulb. Inform them that they are to do the wave starting from where you place the heat source. (If you can't get one, just make yourself the sun!)
3) Introduce pupils to how heat travels in waves through matter (solid), from a hotter area to a colder area. Tell them that they represent the molecules in a solid, the heat flows from a hotter region to a colder one.

You can continue to use this to highlight the flow of heat through good and poor conductors!

Have fun!

Oh dear! I'm the RECTUM!

This activity is a short one (25 mins) and was a follow-up for a Digestion Bingo game. (Basically, very few children would want to be the rectum...this helps them to remember)

1. Pupils choose randomly from a few pieces of paper with major parts of the digestive system written on them. Each gets a part.
2. Refer to the textbook for the functions of the different part and each step forward.
3. Say/act out the functions respectively.

Reasons why it is useful for the children:

• As they sequence the different parts according to the path taken by the food before presentation, they familiarise themselves with the parts of the system.
• The pressure of the simple presentation that follows forces the children to double check their understanding of the functions of the different parts.

Characteristics of materials

A fast way to revise materials. Note some concepts may not be in the local syllabus. Good for exposing kids to some not-in-textbook chracteristics.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/scienceclips/ages/7_8/characteristics_materials.shtml

Life Cycle of a chicken - Embryo Development

A website with pictures of stages of growth of a chick from egg. Useful if you want to show kids how a chick embryo grows in a fertilised egg, you may want to paste the pictures into a powerpoint presentation for easy viewing. (Warning: Some of the pictures may seem a little disturbing)

http://ag.ansc.purdue.edu/poultry/clipart.htm#Embryos

Plant Transport System - Background notes for teachers

A page to read up on transport system in plants for better understanding.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/biology/greenplantsasorganisms/1watertransportrev3.shtml

Online Biology Textbook (Content Knowledge)

Expand content knowledge with readings and information on topics related to biological sciences. Useful for pre-reading before giving lessons on respective topics.
http://www.estrellamountain.edu/faculty/farabee/biobk/biobooktoc.html