Weather Detectives
Warm winter winds, the hottest spot in the schoolyard and the last frost of spring. Students measure weather fairly and find out why farmers care so much about it.
Fieldbook Learning · United States
Grade 5 science and math lessons
Every unit and lesson for Grade 5, each a real question your class tests with everyday materials. Same class as Year 6 in the UK, Year 5 in Australia, Fifth Class in Ireland, Year 6 in New Zealand, Grade 5 in South Africa, Class 5 in India.
Science
Solids, Liquids and Gases
Where does a puddle go? Why does ice float? A first look at the tiny particles that explain the stuff around us.
Winter Science: Ice, Snow and Staying Warm
Why roads get salted, which mitten really works, how a seal stays warm in icy water, and why a mouse is cosier under the snow than on top of it. Four hands-on lessons on ice, heat and insulation.
Test the Claim: Science Facts, Myths and AI Answers
Sayings, ads, forum posts and AI chatbot answers all sound sure of themselves. Students put popular claims to a real hands-on test, grade the answers, and learn how to decide which sources deserve their trust.
Food Webs: Who Eats Whom?
Where a plant's food comes from, what happens when the wolves disappear, who cleans up, and how much life hides under a log. Four lessons on how energy and matter move through living things.
Earth Day Investigations: Make Your School Better
Four hands-on investigations into the school's own garbage, shade, water and electricity. Each one ends with students taking a real, evidence-based recommendation to the principal or caretaker.
Sun, Earth and Moon
Why it's breakfast time in Calgary and bedtime in Singapore, why your shadow swings round the stick, why the Moon changes shape and why some places barely have seasons. Students build models with balls and lamps, track real shadows and read real sky data from cities around the world.
How Your Body Works
Why your heart races when you run, what happens to your lunch, how your arm bends and where germs hide. Students take their own pulse, build a model gut and a card elbow, and run a handwashing fair test with glitter 'germs'. Everyday materials, no winter, works in any country.
Keep It Cool: Ice, Insulation and Staying Comfortable
Why salt makes ice melt faster, which wrap keeps a drink coldest, how a seal and a fennec fox each keep their body temperature steady, and how to build a cool box that beats the heat. Four hands-on lessons that start from a freezer and work in any climate.
Clean Water Challenge: Mixtures, Dissolving and Separating
Where does the salt go when it disappears in water? Can a filter make muddy water safe to drink? How do you get fresh water out of salt water? Three hands-on lessons on dissolving, separating mixtures and the solar still, with nothing tasted and nothing boiled by children.
Bouncing Light: Mirrors, Water and Colour
Steer a beam around a wall with mirrors, find out why a pencil looks broken in water, and split white light into the colours hiding inside it. Three hands-on lessons on reflection, refraction and colour that build on shadows and work in any climate.
Flowers, Fruit and Seeds: How Plants Make More Plants
What is a flower really for? Is a tomato a fruit? How can a seed travel without legs? Three hands-on lessons on pollination, fruits and seeds, and seed dispersal, from a flower you can take apart, through foods you can cut open, to seed models you can drop, blow and float. Nothing is tasted, and it works in any climate.
Restless Earth: Fossils, Soils, Volcanoes and Plates
Press model fossils and read a cliff of layers, shake a jar of soil and watch it sort itself by grain size, plot real volcanoes and earthquakes on a world map to find the edges of Earth's plates, then move model plates and test a building on a shake table. Four hands-on lessons that build on Rocks and Erosion.
Forces at Work: Gravity, Resistance, Levers and Pulleys
Do heavy things really fall faster? Why are fast swimmers shaped like torpedoes? How can a small push lift a big load? Three hands-on lessons on gravity, air and water resistance, friction, levers and pulleys, measured in newtons with homemade and simple tools.
The Reason for the Seasons: Tilt, Daylight and the Solstice
Is summer when Earth is closest to the Sun? Students test the idea with real 2026 orbit distances and city temperatures from both hemispheres, walk a human orbit, graph real solstice day lengths from the Arctic to Tierra del Fuego and work out why a high Sun heats more than a low one. Nothing to buy: just the printed sheets and the room.
Stars and the Night Sky
Where the stars go in the daytime, why they wheel across the sky all night and why Orion is a winter sight in Canada but a summer one in Australia. Students sort real star data, spin and orbit as human models and read a printed sky chart. No materials needed: just the printed sheets, in either hemisphere.
Think Like a Scientist: The Scientific Method
The steps of the scientific method, taught as a cycle rather than a recipe. Students sort testable questions, inspect unfair tests and plan a fair one, turn a page of practice data into a mean, a bar graph and a claim, and then walk the whole cycle with a real case: Ignaz Semmelweis and handwashing in 1840s Vienna. Nothing to buy: every lesson runs on printed sheets.
The Water Cycle, Start to Finish
A water-drop journey game around eight stations of the room, a 100-square model of where all of Earth's water really is, from USGS data, and a sealed bag of water on a sunny window that shows the Sun driving the whole cycle. Two of the three lessons need nothing but printed sheets.
Our Changing Planet: Resources and Human Impact
Where the copper, cobalt, lithium, oil and sand in a phone come from and why, which energy sources refill and which do not, what real population and energy data say about people and resources, and how real towns cut their waste. Four no-materials lessons built on printed data cards, with a hopeful, evidence-first tone for Earth Day or any time.
The Solar System: Gravity, Orbits and Scale
Pace out the whole solar system across the schoolyard from real NASA distances, walk a human orbit held together by an arm of 'gravity', graph real planet years to find the pattern, and plan a mission from planet data cards. Nothing to buy: just the printed sheets and some space.
Living with Water: Salt, Rice and the Mekong
Science and English together, for English learners (CEFR A2–B1). Three investigations from Vietnam: how salt farmers turn the sea into salt, how rice terraces stop a mountain washing away, and how a house in the Mekong Delta stays dry in the flood season.
Math
Data Detectives
How fast are our reflexes? Which graph is telling the truth? Do taller people really have bigger hands? Three lessons where students collect their own measurements and find out what numbers can and can't tell you.
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