Skip to main content

End of Year Blues

We are near the end of the school year and today I had to give back my student's science notebook. I had a few that said I could keep theirs but, as you can guess, the really good notebooks were claimed proudly by their owners. This is a far cry from the sixth graders I taught last year that let me all keep their books. I'm glad I got to keep a few because I was not that faithful with keeping up with my teacher version.

Overwhelmingly students loved the solar system accordion book with velcro assignment the best (although as stated in an earlier post they play with it constantly). I had a child bring in his visiting aunt and uncle and that was the page he showed off to them.

Next year I would like to:

- Incorporate a popup or two in the book
- Do a full page picture that has flaps students have to write under (I'm thinking water cycle)
- Have some kind of menu activities for students to work at the end of a unit.
- Create BINGO for each unit (the kids loved playing it)
- Give students more independent work and less guided work
- Incorporate a few writing assignments (journaling to a question, etc.)
- Decoupage the front cover at the end of the year (saw it once and liked it but need to try it first)

I'm sure there are more things but those are things that made the top of my list to be thinking about this summer.

I am hoping to get more organized this summer and maybe even get a completed teacher book together. A friend suggested that I do my teacher edition in a three ring binder with page protectors so that I can add and remove things more easily then in a composition book. So if I skip or change a notebook activity last minute I can make the necessary changes in my teacher edition without throwing the book off. I liked the suggestion.

For those following this blog...I will be back at the same school next year (Mossy Oaks Elementary School) teaching fourth grade again. I will be on a team of three teachers this coming year teaching science to all three classes. I will have one homeroom ELA class (first time teaching ELA so I am a little nervous but will be on the lookout how I can incorporate notebooking there as well...probably not the first year but who knows.)

I'll continue to post during the summer as I come across ideas.

Comments

Anonymous said…
I happened across your site through a google search. I love it! I am working to implement science and math notebooks in my classroom. I used them this past year for the first time and have gotten great tips from reading your postings. Any resources you can pass along or great ideas or activities you use would be greatly appreciated. Thanks and I look forward to reading more!
Anonymous said…
I happened across your site by accident, but am glad I did. I started science and math notebooks in my classes this past year. I have learned a lot just by reading your previous postings. Any ideas, activities, or resources you have to pass along would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Jane Hake said…
I reccommended your blog at a staff development on science notebooking and that gave you a few followers from our school! Happy Summer to you!

Popular posts from this blog

Digital Citizen Cards

This project idea came from a monthly challenge put out by Adobe Express. We have the free EDU version deployed in our district and I thought this might be fun to try with a class. I liked that there was a prize element where the students could win a classroom set of hero cards  and it tied in with Digital Citizenship Week (October 17-21).  I teamed up with an elementary technology lab teacher and we decided to try it with one fifth grade class.  We looked over the available templates and decided we liked the layout of the 6-8 template the best (because they had to list advice for staying safe online).  One of the best things about these Adobe monthly challenge templates is that they can be modified. The revised template can then be sent to students via a link or through Google Classroom.  All the templates for this challenge Adobe gives you a sample template with sample wording but we wanted students to come up with their own wording. Neither one of us was ke...

Picture of the Day - Activity

I attended a training class and a science coach shared an activity that he does with his students to help them differentiate between observations, inferences, and predictions. He puts a picture on the interactive white board as a warm up (he gets the pictures from a variety of sources but uses National Geographic's Picture of the Day a lot). The picture above is from the National Geographic site. He has the students make five observations. Then he makes the students make five inferences. Finally he has the students make five predictions. He does this every day and it really drives home the difference between those three key inquiry vocabulary terms. I've done this activity with both my sixth and fourth grade science classes and the students really got into it and became proficient at telling me the difference between those terms.

Weathering, Erosion, and Deposition Activity

I saw this activity at a science conference years ago and haven't had a chance to use it in a classroom until this week (mainly because I didn't teach weathering, erosion, and deposition). It is a great way to reinforce the definition of the weathering, erosion, and deposition in a highly kinesthetic manner. Basically you break the students up into groups of three. One group is "Weathering" another group is "Erosion" and the third group is "Deposition". Add tape to the back because you are going to stick them to the forehead of the children in each group. The "weathering" students get a sheet of paper that is their "rock" they will be breaking down. At the start of the activity the "weathering" students will start ripping tiny pieces of their "rock" and handing it to the "erosion" students. The "erosion" students will be running their tiny piece of "rock...