1. Teacher Guide
This lesson is designed to teach kids to ask a critical thinking question that you can’t just put into a search box to solve. To do that, we encourage them with smaller questions that search can help them answer. Make sure that you read the notes for each slide: they not only give you teaching tips but also provide answers and hints so you can help the kids if they are having trouble.
Remember, you can always send feedback to the Bing in the Classroom team at You can learn more about the program at bing.com/classroom and follow the daily lessons on our Partners In Learning site.
Want to extend today’s lesson? Consider using Skype in the Classroom to arrange for your class to chat with another class in today’s location. And if you are using Windows 8, you can also use the Bing apps to learn more about this location and topic; the Travel and News apps in particular make great teaching tools.
Nell Bang-Jensen is a teacher and theater artist living in Philadelphia, PA. Her passion for arts education has led her to a variety of roles including developing curriculum for Philadelphia Young Playwrights and teaching at numerous theaters and schools around the city. She works with playwrights from ages four to ninety on developing new work and is especially interested in alternative literacies and theater for social change. A graduate of Swarthmore College, she currently works in the Artistic Department of the Wilma Theater and, in addition to teaching, is a freelance actor and dramaturg. In 2011, Nell was named a Thomas J. Watson Fellow and spent her fellowship year traveling to seven countries studying how people get their names.
This lesson is designed to teach the Common Core State Standard: Reading: Informational Text
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.3.3 Describe the relationship between a series of historical events, scientific ideas or concepts, or steps in technical procedures in a text, using language that pertains to time, sequence, and cause/effect.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.3.5 Use text features and search tools (e.g., key words, sidebars, hyperlinks) to locate information relevant to a given topic efficiently.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.3.9 Compare and contrast the most important points and key details presented in two texts on the same topic.

2. What is happening to water when it turns into ice?
© Yang Wang
Having this up as kids come in is a great settle down activity. You can start class by asking them for thoughts about the picture or about ideas on how they could solve the question of the day.

3. What is happening to water when it turns into ice?
When life gives you ice, make ice sculptures. At least that’s the attitude of the people of Harbin, China, a city that endures long, cold winters by embracing the season with an International Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival. Each night of the festival, the ice city is lit up to display a dazzling array of chill-defeating cheer.
Though the festival officially takes place for a month, beginning on Jan 5, many smaller sculptures begin to pop up in December, and much of the mini-city that’s built within Harbin remains in place through March, when spring weather finally arrives and the ice begins to melt
Depending on time, you can either have students read this silently to themselves, have one of them read out loud, or read it out loud yourself.

4. What is happening to water when it turns into ice?1
Video Search
Find a video online that shows you the differences between water and ice. How would you describe how water moves? What about ice? 2
Web Search
What makes water turn into ice? 3
What is water made of? 4
What is ice made of? 5
Why does water take up more space when it becomes ice?
There are a couple of ways to use this slide, depending on how much technology you have in your classroom. You can have students find answers on their own, divide them into teams to have them do all the questions competitively, or have each team find the answer to a different question and then come back together. If you’re doing teams, it is often wise to assign them roles (one person typing, one person who is in charge of sharing back the answer, etc.)

5. What is happening to water when it turns into ice?5
Minutes
You can adjust this based on how much time you want to give kids. If a group isn’t able to answer in 5 minutes, you can give them the opportunity to update at the end of class or extend time.

6. What is happening to water when it turns into ice?1
Video Search
Find a video online that shows you the differences between water and ice. How would you describe how water moves? What about ice? 2
Web Search
What makes water turn into ice? 3
What is water made of? 4
What is ice made of? 5
Why does water take up more space when it becomes ice?

7. What is happening to water when it turns into ice?1
Video Search
Find a video online that shows you the differences between water and ice. How would you describe how water moves? What about ice?
(Possible queries: “Bing/Videos: for kids, differences between water and ice”, “Bing/Videos: for kids, how ice moves, how water moves”).
Students should watch a video (such as the one found here: and articulate what they notice about how water and ice move. They should note that water takes the shape of whatever container it’s in, it’s flexible and easily conforms. Ice, on the other hand, has a set shape that remains; it doesn’t move (at least until it melts!).

8. What is happening to water when it turns into ice?2
Web Search
What makes water turn into ice?
(Possible queries: “for kids, when does water turn into ice?”, “for kids, what makes water turn into ice?”).
From
When water gets colder than 32 degrees Fahrenheit or zero degrees Celsius, it freezes into ice. As the water gets colder, the molecules of water lose their energy and move more slowly - that's what it means to be colder. When the molecules move more slowly, it is easier for them to hook on to each other by sharing electrons. When enough of the molecules hook on to each other, they form a pattern that looks like a bunch of hexagons, all locked in together, and that is ice.

9. What is happening to water when it turns into ice?3
Web Search
What is water made of?
(Possible queries: “for kids, what is in water?”, “for kids, what is water made of?”).
From
Water is a basic molecule made up of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. When these three atoms come together, they form a strong bond that is difficult to break. The strength of this bond keeps a water molecule together for millions and even billions of years.

10. What is happening to water when it turns into ice?4
Web Search
What is ice made of?
(Possible queries: “for kids, how are water and ice different?”, “for kids, what is in ice?”, “for kids, what is ice made of?”).
From
Ice is the solid form of water. Its appears in various forms, such as in hard amalgamated crystals like ice cubes, or loosely accumulated granules like in snow. Unlike liquid water, hydrogen bonding plays a stronger role in the density and shape of ice than the covalent bonds as the water molecules are pressed against each other very closely. Water, in its natural state, exists as a liquid. The hydrogen atoms inside the water molecules are not sufficiently close; hence the hydrogen bonding between the molecules is constantly forming and breaking. This causes water to lack a distinct structure, and gives it its fluid appearance.

11. What is happening to water when it turns into ice?5
Web Search
Why does water take up more space when it becomes ice?
(Possible queries: “for kids, why does water grow when it becomes ice?”, “for kids, why does ice take up more space than water?”).
From
It happens because when water freezes, it gets really well organized! All of the very tiny, microscopic pieces that make it up spread out evenly! They act sort of like magnets and push and pull away from each other, causing them to line up in the shapes of hexagons. When water is a liquid, it doesn’t have these shapes and the pieces that make it up can flow right past each other. They can squish together and fit more of themselves in a smaller space! As a solid (ice), the pieces of water are more spread out! They take up more space. 

12. What is happening to water when it turns into ice?
Students should understand that water turns into ice when it freezes. At this point, what happens is that the molecules in water (made up of hydrogen and oxygen atoms) lose energy and move more slowly. They hook onto each other and form a pattern, which makes a solid form (this is why ice is a solid and water is a liquid). In making this shape, the substance also expands, so ice takes up more space than water. Students should understand that water and ice are the exact same thing, but the molecules in them behave differently at different temperatures.