One of our science standards is matter, and I love it! We are required to use the FOSS kit, which I love as an introduction, but I love to integrate matter in all subject areas! When we learn about Fables, we do a unit with the story Stone Soup. I create a whole thematic day where students spend the day observing how matter change change when you add heat. We start off with ELA by creating a flow map of all the steps we go through in making our actually Stone Soup! We also integrate math by measuring. Science is tied into this step when we sort the ingredients by solids and liquids and make predictions on how the ingredients will change when you add heat. We continue with the ELA portion by comparing and contrasting the two versions of Stone Soup. We then write a story about how the plots would change if the characters from each book traded places and went to each story. In the afternoon, we write our own recipe for "Stone Soup" then comes the fun part, we eat the Stone Soup and write down our observations on how each ingredient changed as well as create a bubble map using adjectives on how it tastes. They write an exit ticket on what they thought about the day.
Another way we explore matter is to see what will happen when you make something cold. We do this by making ICE CREAM! We read the Reading A to Z book called "How to Make Ice Cream". Students pick out the text features and answer text based questions about the story. Then the fun begins. We use math for measurement, and science for predictions on what will happen, and why. Then we shake, shake shake, our way to matter ice cream! Science is FUN!