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Worksheet Grade 2 Science

Melt and Dry at Larchgate School: A Grade 2 Change Sheet

Grade 2 students follow ice and a puddle across a school week, choose inches or feet for each measurement, and decide which changes can be undone.

Objectives

  1. Students will choose inches or feet as the better unit for four school yard objects.
  2. Students will tell which changes caused by cooling or heating can be undone.

Vocabulary

Key words: melt, freeze, undo, inches, feet

Teacher overview

One cold morning at the fictional Larchgate School supplies both halves of this sheet: ice on the steps that melts by lunch, and a puddle by the gate that is gone by Friday. Melting and burning can look like the same kind of event when every change a student watches is treated as permanent, so the sheet places the two side by side and asks the same question of each. The unit questions come first because inches are the default choice at this grade and deciding when a foot fits better takes practice. Set an ice cube on a plate at the front of the room before you hand the sheet out.

Melt and Dry at Larchgate School: A Grade 2 Change Sheet — Grade 2 Science
Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Student Worksheet

Monday was cold at Larchgate School. There was ice on the front steps. There was a puddle by the gate. By lunch the sun was out. Imagine you are checking the yard with your class.

Read each one. Circle inches or feet.

  1. The puddle by the gate is about as wide as a classroom door. Would you measure it in inches or in feet?
  2. The ice on one step is a thin sheet. Would you measure how thick it is in inches or in feet?
  3. A rain drop sits on the window. Would you measure it in inches or in feet?
  4. The wet mark on the door mat is about as long as a new crayon. Would you measure it in inches or in feet?

Now think about what changed.

  1. By lunch the ice on the steps melted into water. A cold night could freeze that water again. Can this change be undone? Write yes or no.
  2. The puddle by the gate dried up by Friday. The water went into the air in bits too small to see. Water in the air can cool and fall again as rain. Can this change be undone? Write yes or no.
  3. A cook in the school kitchen burned some toast. Can the burned toast turn back into fresh bread? Write yes or no.
  4. Which change can be undone: ice melting, or toast burning?

From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.

Answer Key
  1. Answer: Feet. A classroom door is about three feet wide, so feet fit the puddle better than inches.
  2. Answer: Inches. A thin sheet of ice is much smaller than one foot.
  3. Answer: Inches. A rain drop is far smaller than one foot.
  4. Answer: Inches. A new crayon is about four inches long.
  5. Answer: Yes. Heating turned the ice to water, and cooling can turn that water back to ice.
  6. Answer: Yes. Warming turned the puddle water into bits too small to see in the air, and cooling can turn those bits back into liquid water that falls as rain.
  7. Answer: No. Heating the bread until it burned made a change that cannot be turned back.
  8. Answer: Ice melting. Ice and water can trade places again and again, while burned toast stays burned.

Differentiation

Support

Hand these students a ruler and a one foot strip of paper to hold against a door and a crayon before they answer questions 1 through 4. Limit the sheet to questions 1, 2, 5, and 7, and read each one aloud.

Extension

Ask students to name one more change at school that can be undone and one that cannot, then write a sentence of evidence for each. Accept any pair backed by something the student has watched happen, such as water freezing in a tray or a candle burning down.

ELL supports

Point at the melting ice cube on the plate each time the word melt appears, and at the classroom door each time the word feet appears. Provide the sentence frames "I would use ___ because it is ___" and "This change can be undone because ___."