She's back

Hi everyone,

I guess you're all thinking I fell off the face of the planet, and I guess that's somewhat true since I've been drowning in graduate school work, student teaching, substitute teaching, tutoring, and all the other fun stuff life hands me. But, I've decided it's time to get back on the blog horse since we'll be back into a new school year soon.
My first post back is a little project I finished up this week for a job I'm interviewing for, and I thought it turned out well, so why not share it?! This is a lesson I did with the 5th grade class I've worked with throughout the year as a substitute teacher, and one of my favorite groups of kids. They just started a unit on environment sciences, so I asked their teacher if I could crash the class and talk about decomposition and waste. They seemed to really enjoy the activities and video, and the exit tickets I got that day had some GREAT follow up questions, so I'd say it was a success. Hope you enjoy.

Fun with Force & Motion

We've just finished up our physical science unit on force and motion and it’s been a while since I've posted so I thought I’d pop in and write a quick update. As you can imagine, we are up to our ears in end-of-year assessments, tests, rehearsals, and classroom clean up. With so many things on the to-do list, it was difficult to get through all of the physics that we’d planned, but we made it.

In my online quest for fun experiments to supplement my unit, I came across this wonderful comprehensive physics packet. Got to love freebie shares online, right? Anyway, this thing is full of goodies including one of my favorites, the balloon rocket race. Last year, I did this one during St. Paddy’s Day with little leprechauns and they LOVED it, so it was nice to be able to tie it in to our science theme this go round.

All you need for this activity are balloons, string, straws, and a bit of tape. Here’s how it works:

• Find a start line in your classroom (about 8 feet from the wall).
• Measure one piece of string (I used fishing line) and tape the end to the wall.
• Give each student one piece of string, a balloon, and a small piece of straw.
• After the balloon is blown up, tape the small straw to the side and feed the string through it.
• Hold the balloon tight to not let the air out and grab the string with the other hand.
• Once everyone has a fully inflated balloon and a grip on their string, start the countdown and remind them to hang on to the string as they release the balloon.

If you want to turn it into a little competition, have the winners from each round go on to the finale.

If you have any other super fun experiments to share, leave a comment for me so I can add it to my list. Thanks and have a great week!

Children's Book Project

We are wrapping up our earth science unit and getting ready to go on spring break here in a week, so I really wanted to give my students a language arts project to tie it all together before they go on vacation and forget it allJ It’s been quite a few weeks since we’ve done any sort of narrative writing because we’ve been in our expository unit, so I wanted to give them the option to do some creative writing for a change.

For this assignment, the students have two options- 1) Create a storybook that relates in some way to earth science, or 2) make a picture dictionary that relates to earth science. In either case, students will be responsible for creating a 20-page book for a young child audience. This is great because it forces them to think about their word choice and eliminates the “copy & paste” method that they may be tempted to use. Plus, it gives both right-brained and left-brained students the opportunity create something cool.

On my search for a digital option for this project, I remembered storybird.com. I’d used it last year, but completely forgot what a great site it was for creating stories. Since that really only works for the storybook option, I also gave my students the choice to create a wikispaces page. Here’s the rubric and guidelines that I created for this project along with a really great storybird story. If you haven’t used this site, I suggest you check it out. It’s awesome, and better yet, it’s free!
Happy Saturday, folks!

Children's Book Project Guidelines
Children's Book Project Rubric
 

Landform Project

Wow, what a week it’s been here, folks. We survived Dr. Seuss week and are gearing up for our annual Olympics next week. Under normal circumstances, I would be really excited to help out with team banners and cheers, but I have been beyond busy and just trying to keep my head above water. Anyway, I was brainstorming for some creative projects and experiments to get us through our earth science unit and wanted to share a couple of things I’ve been doing. I’ll start with our landform project…

For this project I had the students choose a landform from an approved list, research the forces that helped to create it, and how weathering and erosion continue to slowly transform it. They are well underway on this assignment and things are going well. I will post pictures just as soon as I snap some, so stay tuned for those. For now, check out the quizlet set of landform vocabulary that I found online (courtesy of rmslonghorns) along with the project guidelines and rubric I created for this project.

Grade 6 Landforms

Landform Project Guidelines

Landform Project Rubric  

Digital Posters- Earth Science

 Sorry I’ve been MIA for a few days… I’ve been in the throes of planning and coordinating all kinds of stuff like Dr. Seuss week, our 100 days celebration, school Olympics, oh, and this little thing I do on the side called TEACHING. I’m starting to feel like I didn’t just have a week off!

Anyway, back to the real postJ We’re about a week and a half into our earth science unit and my kids have their first assignment due after the weekend; a digital poster collage about Earth’s layers and plate tectonics. Exciting stuff, folks!

I found the link for an online poster creator while I was browsing the community shares on edmodo and thought to myself, “Self, that’s a great idea. You should use that in your class.” So that’s exactly what I did for this assignment.

The website’s called glogster and basically, it’s just a graphics blog that allows students to design their very own posters using fun graphics, pictures, videos, and so much more. What makes this website even cooler? They have a separate page just for education so you don’t have to worry about them seeing anything they aren’t supposed to! Pretty neat, huh?

Check out the example poster I started along with my project guidelines below, and stay tuned for their finished posters, which I’ll add later. Happy almost Friday!

Digital Poster Project Guidelines

Food Web Poster Project

One of my very favorite units to teach in life science is on food chains and food webs. I guess I’ve always been fascinated by how perfectly nature seems to work; organisms giving and receiving life- no detail overlooked, everything serving a purpose. The interconnectedness of nature and life is truly mind-blowing, isn’t it? Ok, I’m done with the deep, philosophical thoughts for nowJ

We’ve been studying the symbiotic relationships that exist in different biomes around the world and learning all about how species are dependent on one another for survival. For our final life science project, each of the students was assigned a different ecosystem to research and present in the form of a food web. Naturally, I wanted them to go beyond the basic rabbit-eats-grass, snake-eats-rabbit connection and start using the vocabulary that we’ve learned so I required that they label producers, consumers, and decomposers. As with most of my projects, I gave them the option of creating the poster by hand or using a word processor program. Once again, they rose to the challenge and impressed me with their ability to simplify their findings. Their oral presentation skills are improving so much.

Here's a fun video that breaks down the different types of symbiotic relationships that we find in nature.

 

Feel free to steal the guidelines and rubric here. Here are a few photos of their work.

 

Happy Friday!

Biome Research Project

One of my science standards this unit was to address biomes and habitats. Because I'm trying to move my classroom into the 21st century, I wanted to get away from teaching straight out of the book and go digital. I absolutely love having this kind of creative freedom as a teacher.

Anyway, I made these nifty NatGeo research journals (attached below) for my students to study different biomes around the world during our ecology unit. I wanted to cater to the different types of learners in class and this was the perfect tool. I sent them on a little digital adventure as modern-day researchers to collect data and present their findings to their team at headquarters. I wanted them to look for key characteristics such as plant and animal life, climate, and human impacts while documenting their findings. It’s great because these research journals are going to make the perfect study guides for the test coming up in 2 weeks.

 

After completing their research journals, they each chose their favorite terrestrial or aquatic biome and created a digital presentation that they delivered to the class the following week. My students hit this one out of the park. Here are a few examples of their work:

 

 

Desert biome Prezi

 

marine biome presentation

rainforest biome presentation

Savannas biome presentation

Research Journal Pages:
-Cover
-Aquatic Biome
-Terrestrial Biome    

Life Science- Information Reports

What a busy couple of weeks it has been! I tell you what, it’s going to be a miracle if I survive until Christmas break. This semester is kicking my bootyJ

I’m going to make this one short and sweet, but I just wanted to share a prezi that I made for one of our life science projects. I got the idea from a webquest that I saw on zunal.com a few weeks back, and what’s great about webquests, is that they are a creative accessible and way to engage your students in projects. Since I’ve never made a webquest and I’m a complete geek for prezi right now, so I created this little number and posted it on edmodo for my students to have access to at any time. It includes my detailed expectations, some video clips, and even my rubric. Check it out:

 

The final reports are due tomorrow, so we’ll see how they do! Happy Wednesday.

Field Tripping

Field trips are something that every student looks forward to each year. In fact, when I did a questionnaire at the beginning of the school year, field trips was the number one answer for the question “What are you most excited about for 6^th grade?” I remember feeling the same excitement about field trips when I was growing up. Actually, it’s probably still one of my favorite school days of the year.

Picking a location for a field trip here is a bit more challenging than it would be in America because certain things simply aren’t an option. There are no science museums, no aquariums, no nature centers. There is a very sad zoo, a few big parks, and a variety of war-related museums, but all leave a lot to be desired, especially for kids. Last year, we did a Master-Chef-meets-Amazing-Race at the biggest market in town during our Health and Nutrition unit, but this year, I had a better idea; visit the charities we chose for Service Learning.

One of the organizations that we’ve been fundraising for is Wildlife At Risk. This amazing non-profit organization is helping threatened and endangered species and their habitats throughout Vietnam with conservation and education/community outreach. One of the representatives of W.A.R. came out to give a presentation to our students about biodiversity and what is happening to the rainforests here. The students were so excited to help that we decided we’d visit the wildlife rescue center just north of the city in Cu Chi.

Visiting the rescue center was the perfect idea for a field trip because our theme right now is Life Science. We’ve been studying biomes, habitats, and food webs and the impacts that humans have had on them. Plus, it was an opportunity for the service learning group to see where their fundraising donations are going.

So Friday was the big day. It was quite a long haul on the bus with 50 first and second graders, but it was well worth the visit. Here’s a little slideshow I made of our trip.

 

What unique field trips have you taken?

Leaf Art

Sorry for the delay, folks. We have been incredibly busy this week trying to get the kids back into school mode after their week off. Not an easy task, I assure you. Anyway, we’ve kicked off our life science unit with some really exciting stuff. Here’s some art we did earlier today.

We’ve been talking all week about ecosystems, biomes, food webs, and habitats around the world and right here in Vietnam. Because it’s the end of the rainy season, the plants are insanely green and lush so I thought it would be a great day to do our art class in the elementsJ We headed downstairs to find a place to plop down and start our sketches. Here’s a few of those:

 

Later, we collected some samples (to use for our lesson on classification in the afternoon), headed back upstairs and broke out the watercolors. I don’t know why, but every time that I try to do a watercolor lesson, my students insist on using too much paint and not nearly enough water. I must remember to stress this more in the future. Anyway, they had fun and the art turned out ok too. I’d say that’s a win for everyone. Here are a few more shots from the second part of our lesson:

 

Happy Friday y’all!