Notebooking, Teaching, and Technology

It is no secret in my class that I like to drink diet coke from a bottle versus a can (mainly because I fear things falling into the open can). I also like my diet coke SUPER COLD. The other day I grabbed one from Walmart and thought to myself, "I wonder if there is a difference in temperature between soda in a can or in a bottle?" (and do they loose temperature at the same rate). I thought I could tie this question in nicely with our unit on light we just started. We have been exploring properties of light (it contains energy) and what happens when it hits objects. Using information we have studied students would be introduced to the question and then they would have to make a hypothesis. I thought it would be a nice easy classroom experiment. All you have to do is take a cold 12 oz bottle of diet coke and a cold 12 oz can of diet coke and then have students record the temperature of each every 5 minutes for about twenty minutes and discuss the results and what part light ...

In my previous post I talk about science fair preparation, in this one I am going to address how I handle science fair grading. I give a homework grade for the question they turn in during the planning phase (doesn't matter if it is a "good question" or not...they get the full points). I know some teachers require that students turn in their materials and procedures list at benchmark points but I don't. My life is busy enough without adding yet more things I have to review and grade! I figure if they have a decent question they will be fine. I have absolutely no interest in micromanaging their science project. The only requirement I have is if they change their question to run it by me first. I have a grading rubric but it works slightly differently. All children who turn in a project get a 70% automatically (I don't ever fail a child if they made some attempt and I never make a science fair project such a large amount of their final grade that they can never reco...

I apologize for not posting recently. Most of my notebooking has simply been a repeat of previous years with some tweaking. I'm trying to avoid repeat posts but that has left me with no material for this year! Luckily we went off schedule this past week in preparation of our upcoming science fair and I thought I would do a post about that. Our district had isolated community judges for our science fair years ago and set up a schedule for all the schools (for the sake of organizing the judges time). Unfortunately our school got one of the worst dates (right after Thanksgiving break). Science fair projects are mandatory in grades 4 and 5 and, up until this year optional in the lower grades. This year the lower grades are encouraged to do a class project but nothing except 4 th and 5 th grade projects will be accepted into the science fair. This means that the first time a child is introduced to a science fair project is in my grade level (4 th ). No pressure! Students learn about ...

We got one of "those" emails at school yesterday....the one that tells us we can't have a Halloween party. No problem....we've been getting those for years. Most teachers plan a party but don't make any reference to Halloween thus being able to say, "We aren't having a Halloween party." (I love that teachers can find the loop holes in just about anything! We are like miniature lawyers in the classroom when wording is vague :) In our school district we are about to go on a week fall break and it is the end of the quarter so our parties are called an "End of Quarter" party (and we have four of them a year). Other teachers are calling their "party" a Fun Friday. This email was a little different and seemed to indicate that ALL parties were not allowed. Whoa!!!!!! That caused a little stir in our world (mostly because notices have gone out to parents, children are excited about it, etc.). The emails started flying back and forth....

A friend of mine showed me this pop up site that I thought was pretty cool. It could easily be incorporated into a notebook...particularly the animal ones in conjunction with learning about the animal in science There are some boat ones that I thought might be fun if you studied explorers in Social Studies. I am not sure how hard they are to make but I thought I would give it a try and see if I think fourth graders (and myself) are up for the challenge :)

I saw this in a classroom and really liked the set up. She had a parent volunteer make it for her after explaining what she needed. The volunteer had taken a cut down sheet of poster board and laminated it. She used double sided tape and plastic sheet protectors. The orange one was for one subject area and the purple is for another that she teaches. She simply slides in the standards, objective, and essential question in the plastic sheet protectors. Those are mostly on display for the folks coming in to observe. She does a more "child friendly" version of these on her flipcharts at the beginning of her lessons.

I had made the larger one in the last picture at a science professional development program at Roper Mountain Science Center in Greenville , SC. One of the teachers in the class said that she made them on a smaller scale with empty soda/water bottles so I thought I would give it a shot. Teacher Tips: - Have students bring in the bottles. Collect until you have enough. Kids love doing contributing to a project and mine always asked if we had enough yet. - I took all of the bottles home in a large trash bag and precut all the tops while watching tv (and made the drainage holes). I kept the top and base together by using small cut pieces of packaging tape so that students had a matching top and bottom (they would just take off the tape when we started the project). - I modeled what I did at home in front of the students in case they wanted to make one on their own at home. - Make extras of EVERYTHING (bottles and cut pieces of duct tape). - Pour aquarium gravel into a shoe box and have ...

I went through my posts and added some labels to make searching for items a bit easier. I added the units that I teach and if the post has something to do with that unit I labled it as either: Inquiry Weather Astronomy Light/Electricity/Magnets Animals/Plants Hope that makes searching easier! Labels are located to the right of the screen ------------------->

When making these I highly recommend using white card stock for the fin and tail. I trace the shapes on card stock and have the students cut them out. If a student is done early you can have them decorate the nose and fin. I try to get students to make a compass rose on their plates (they learned how to in Social Studies so this is a great tie in). Check your science kits (across grade levels) for the modeling clay but you can purchase from Walmart (approx. $4).

These are pictures I took in another fourth grade class (not at my school). I really liked the wind vanes (some of her students got creative and added some flair to the top of their projects). I found out that they came from the Delta Science Kit for weather (which we don't have at our school...need to follow up on that :) The kit only came with supplies to do 15 wind vanes so she broke the class in half with one group making wind vanes and the other making anemometers. Those windvanes are much sturdier then the ones my students make since they are mounted on a dowel with a ball and a macroma (sp?) pin. I like how she had the students color the cups for the anemometer (I only have them put their name on one). She used the paper dixie cups and I use the plastic ones (marker wouldn't take as well on the plastic). She tried my stapling idea but actually felt it dragged down the straws more then taping (which she did last time). I thought maybe I did the taping incorrectly and she...

This is a copy of an earlier post I did about using recycled paper in the notebook. Since one side is always glued to the book it is a good idea to conserve where you can. My principal is a huge fan of this part of notebooking since it supports his efforts to reduce paper consumption ($$). During one of our back-to-school meetings where all staff was present I told teachers that I would be recycling paper into our notebooks. I set up a bin (the top lid of a paper box with recycle written all over it) in the copier room and asked teachers if they have messed up a copy to please but it in the box because I can use the back side. It worked out great. Everyone was making back to school copies and I have plenty of material to work with. Last year I started recycling late and even though I set up a box nobody really contributed or people chucked it. This year I will have plenty of material to work with. NOTE: It has been three weeks and I probably should have told folks to make sure the cop...

A friend of mine is teaching third grade and is notebooking with spiral bound notebooks. On the day I visited her classroom her children were doing an experiment with "mock rocks" based on an activity in either the Foss or Delta science kit. She choose to use spiral notebooks because it allowed for more space with glueing and writing. I think the intent is that she would use one for each of her units (so they were the small spiral notebooks - 70 page count I think). I did see that some of the pages had started ripping out just by the way the students were handling them. I think that will improve with time as they move into their next unit/book.

The fifth grade teachers put up these displays this year for their classes that I thought were kind of fun. I caught two of my former fourth graders adding work and took pictures. The displays are made with file folders in the first few days of school. Students completed an "about me" sheet that was attached to the first part of the file folder. The entire file folder was then laminated. A gallon sized storage bag was added to the bottom part of the file folder. As students complete work they can add them to their bags. In this case students were adding brochures they had done on matter for science class.

Tomorrow President Obama is giving his Back-t0-School Speech. Many teachers across the nation will be showing the event live in their classroom. Unfortunately while teachers are tuning in students may tune out. Here is an idea I got from another teacher about how to engage students while listening to speeches and public addresses. Prior to the speech ask students what kinds of words they think might come up in the President's speech on the topic of back-to-school. Brainstorm 10-20 words and then make a list (i.e. school, education, future, etc.). Have them try and think like the President. What might he say to try to motivate students from all levels and backgrounds? Have students copy that list on a piece of paper. During the speech have them listen carefully and put a check next to any word that the President uses that is on the list. If he uses it it more then once the word gets checked again. Note any words that seem to come up a lot that you didn't list. After the speech ...

I use a YouTube Downloader quite a bit to download songs or snippets of video related to the subject I am teaching. There are several kinds of YouTube Downloaders but I like the one found here . We (the teachers) have access to YouTube at school however it is dicey at best to try to stream from YouTube. If there isn't enough broadband width the video will pause and try to catch up with itself. Sometimes the advertising bar along the bottom pops up with inappropriate ads for the classroom (alcohol, condoms, etc.). The YouTube Downloader eliminates this and is easy to use. I always use it from home, since my internet is faster. Above is a screen shot of the icon on my desktop and what it looks like when I open it up. I simply copy and paste the address of the video I want to use and tell it where to copy on my computer. It will download it as an MP4 file. I can play an MP4 at school but most time I convert it to a WMV (Windows Media Video) so I can embed the video in my Promethean fl...

The first time I made these anemometers was when I was teaching sixth grade and the instructions said to tape the cups to the straw. That was a disaster and I was running around like a mad woman with the only stapler I had trying to quickly staple 96 cups to straws. Oh the memories :) I wised up when I moved to fourth grade. What I do now is pre -staple everything. If I was a rich teacher with unlimited resources and time I would purchase 24 staplers and let the kids make these from scratch but the reality is I don't. NOTE - Try to find straws that aren't flexible. You can use the flexible straws but the cup tends to drag those down. Look for supplies at The Dollar Store, Dollar General, or Big Lots to save money. I usually pre -staple at home, while watching tv , with a large trash bag next to me, as I finish a set I put it in the bag. Last year I had to make well over 80 (I got very good at it). NOTE - Make about 15-20 more then you actually need. Sometimes the staples come ...

I know a first grade teacher who wants to start notebooking with her little guys. She has enough experience to know that a normal compostion book will not work. She asked her group of students to purchase a primary composition book that has a large space for pictures on top and young child friendly lines below. The problem she ran into was that the local stores don't stock them in the quantity that she needed and none of her parents could find them. She ended up having to purchase through the internet. This can get pricy...I saw them from anywhere from $4+ to $2+ (depending on how many you ordered). I believe that she got the funds approved through her principal (she is at a title one school) and is currently waiting for the shipment to come through. I am excited to see how she will incorporate notebooking in this young grade.

I ran into a fourth grade team in another school who have started notebooking in social studies and I liked the activity they were doing the day I was in their classroom. They were using the textbook whole group to answer questions in their notebook. The teacher had used the left hand of the sheet to give them the specific (key) questions they had to focus on and the right hand side was used for the students to answer. I thought this showed how you could still use the textbook in the classroom and notebooking. By having students focus on specific standard related questions you've given them a purpose to their reading and the material becomes more engaging.