Bubble Day

Objective:
The students will identify the geometric three dimensional shapes of sphere, cone, cube, and cylinder.

Materials

• A collection of items representing a sphere, cone, cube, and cylinder.  (For example, a ball, a party hat, a block, and a paper towel tube.)
• Bubble solution and bubble blower
• Chart paper or blackboard
• Clay or Play Dough (just a small amount for each student)

Procedure

1. Blow a bubble and ask the students to name its shape.  Many may say round, ball, circle, etc.  Introduce the term "sphere".  Write the word on the chart paper, or blackboard, and have the students brainstorm other items which are spheres.
2. Go on to discuss the other three dimensional shapes of cone, cube, and cylinder and continue the same process of making lists.
3. Pass out the clay, or Play Dough, and have the students form each shape.

Other Lesson Ideas

1. Have the students make predictions on how many seconds a bubble will stay afloat before it pops.  (Either use the second hand on a clock, or have them count slowly.)  Then blow the actual bubble and have the students record the actual amount of time it stayed afloat.  Use the Bubble Prediction Worksheet.  They may then figure by how many seconds their prediction and the actual number differed.  This activity can be done as a whole class with just the teacher blowing the bubbles, or the students may be put in pairs for one to do the blowing while the other makes the prediction.
2. Write addition and subtraction story problems using blowing bubbles as the addition factor and popping bubbles as subtraction.
3. Have the students predict  how many bubbles can be blown from one bubble wand of solution.  Blow the wand and count the actual number.
4. Blow bubbles and have a lesson on size words, big, bigger, small, smaller, etc.