Today I worked in 3 different 3rd grade classrooms at the same school and all of the teachers requested to cover how molecules behave differently in solids, liquids and gases. I didn’t want to do the same lesson all three times because I wanted to show these teachers different digital tools so they could share what we did with their team. Of course we had to use the iPads for these lessons 
One class has had a lot of experience with iPads so we carried out an ADVANCED lesson. One class has used the iPads a few times this year so we carried out an INTERMEDIATE lesson. The third class had not used the iPads in school this year so we carried out a BEGINNER lesson…
Erin from the blog, Technology Erintegration, and I were bouncing some ideas about these matter lessons involving iPads and I told her that I wanted to somehow make the molecules in each state of matter move. She suggested to use a stop motion app…BRILLIANT. Within a few days, Erin put together {THIS} awesome iPad resource and sent it my way.
The trick to stop motion is to take A LOT (hundreds) of pictures, move your objects ever so slightly and have A LOT of patience. You will notice in the class movie below the groups who took their time and the groups who thought they could beat the system by taking less than 100 photos. Ha! Overall, I was truly impressed how the students made the molecules in a solid keep their shape, molecules in a liquid take on the shape of the container they are in as well as POUR and molecules in a gas float around and take the entire shape of the container.
Check out their videos:
This app smash used the free apps Doodle Buddy and FaceTalker. Students scanned a QR code that took them to a matter template that I had created in PowerPoint, saved as a jpeg and uploaded to Comemories. They saved the template to their camera roll and imported it as a background in Doodle Buddy. Next, students used the smiley face emojis to stamp out the molecules in solids, liquids and gases, drew arrows to show movement and saved that to the camera roll. We then imported the Doodle Buddy creation into the app, FaceTalker, replaced the scientist’s head with our own head and then recorded our explanation. Check out some of their creations:
Thayer’s Matter from Julie on Vimeo.
If you are not fully comfortable with using iPads yet, then this beginner lesson would be for you! Students can either find an image of the molecules in the 3 states of matter, take a picture of an image or you can preload one into a Google folder or Comemories site and then create a QR code for students to scan. We used Chatterkid to make the picture come alive and talk. Chatterkid does such a great job walking students (and teacher) through step by step of the process! Check out the class movie:
