Marbles!

Yikes! Thursday snuck up quickly on me this week!

Hope you're all having a wonderful week and have an even better weekend!

This week, let's consider the uses for a classic childhood toy.....

Marbles

And, don't forget to take a few seconds to vote in the poll!

Taking Care of Business...

I've been giving this site a lot of thought lately... Mostly I've been wondering if I should be posting new mystery objects more frequently. In some ways it seems like maybe a week is too long - not enough change to keep people interested and coming back. But, everyone is busy, and posting new objects too frequently might cause people to fall behind and give up. What do you think? There's a poll at the top of the left hand column - take a minute and let me know what would work best for you.

Also, I was thinking that some of you might like to know when and where people have added comments, to make it easier to find them. If you'd like notification when the site has been updated in any way, please send an email to adventures.in.science@gmail.com. You'll receive, at most, one email per day letting you know what's happened. If nothing's happened, you won't get an email that day. Fair enough?

Dried Beans

Am I the only one who regularly peruses the selection of dried beans at the grocery store?

I've found a variety of uses for them... not sure I can even remember them all of the top of my head, but I'll do my best.

If you teach science....

...you are a science teacher!

-New Jersey Middle School Science Teachers (NJMSST)

I just wanted to take a few moments to welcome all the new people who have been stopping by to check out this blog recently. I am so grateful to you for taking the time out of your day to come check things out. I hope you like what you see! If you do, I hope you'll do three things:

1. I hope you'll come back.
2. I hope you'll consider passing the address along to any other science teachers you know.
3. I hope at some point you'll feel comfortable sharing some of your best tricks with the rest of us. They needn't be fancy or complex, and you don't even have to reveal your true identity... any idea is welcome here.

The success of the site depends on you! (I know that sounds rather cliche, but it's not untrue... while it's fun to post and re-read my own ideas, it's probably not the *best* use of my time!)

If, on the other hand, you aren't so crazy about what you see, please send me an email and let me know what I can do better! This is a work in progress... just like me!

As for my posting compatriots, Sandy, Tracy, Annette, Shelly, and Anonymous :)... thank you, Thank You, THANK YOU! You have exponentially increased the value of this site. I am greatly enjoying everything you have to share - the wheels in my head are spinning into overdrive already! Imagine what will happen when more people join in the fun!

'Tis all for now. I'll be back with another mystery object on Thursday!

Sugar Cubes

Let's hear it... how do you/could you use sugar cubes to teach a science lesson?

Update and New Mystery Object

Okay... I know I was going to wait 3 weeks or some other crazy amount of time before posting a new mystery object because not too many people had checked out the site yet. But, why should I bore myself and the two other people who read this by waiting that long. So, I'm just going to reveal the next mystery object. Please feel welcome to continue to add your ideas to the earlier entry!

And now, may I present, the newest mystery object....

Play-Doh!

How do you use it to teach science in your classroom?

The Inaugural Mystery Object...

Pennies!

Let's hear all those labs, lessons, and activities you have that use pennies! Post your ideas as comments... look for a couple of my favorites to show up shortly.

We'll keep this object open for 3 weeks... I hope to shorten the time frame, but want to give people a chance to pass the word around and get as many people posting as possible.