How can we describe our personal objects?
1. Ask the question
Have the children retrieve their personal objects and hold them up for all to see.
Students may need help estimating volumes. You can create reference volumes from the centimeter cubes and maple blocks in your kit. The volumes created above are 1 cubic centimeter (1 cube), 10 cubic centimeters (10 cubes taped together), and 100 cubic centimeters (5 maple “B” blocks taped together).
- What if you had to describe your object to someone far away who could not see it? How would you do it? How would a scientist do it?
As students share their ideas, recall some of the ways they have learned to describe objects in this unit, mentioning materials, weight, and volume.
- Can you estimate how much your object weighs?
- Can you estimate its volume?
- What can you say about the materials?
Have students review the data–recording sheet. Let them know they will spend the whole class recording information about their objects and then considering how they are all alike and different. Point out the pan balances, the blocks you've set up to help them estimate volumes, the weight line where they will array their objects, and the histograms where they will enter their data.
Finally, share the investigation question with the students:
