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Our Week








Monday - Students received study guides and teamed up with clock partners to fill in. Reviewed the answers. Watched Bill Nye Electric Currents.
Tuesday - Spent half the day in the computer lab playing a great British electrical circuits game called Silicon Spies. The game takes about 30 minutes to play (counting logging in). Spent the other half of the day testing out our electric circuit boxes (see pictures above). I borrowed these boxes from one of our teachers in the school who was an ex-science lab teacher from another school. They look pretty easy to make and that make my summer "to do" list.

Wednesday - Brought in light bulbs (old clear type with filament and the new CFL's). Passed around for students to see. We watched a short video on YouTube about CFL's (very good) and then watched a show I downloaded from Discovery Streamline - Animated Classics Thomas Edison Invents the Light Bulb. Played vocabulary Bingo.

Thursday - End of unit exam. I gave the students some activity sheets I found online that they worked on quietly after the exam to give me time to grade. Grading is my least favorite activity and I tend to procrastinate. This gave me a chance to get quite a few graded, and as an added bonus I was able to show students their scores immediately.

Friday - Valentines Day exchange....so we were a little less focused. I was going to have students start their title page for their next unit but went with a video about Coral Reefs as an introduction to several things were are going to learn about in our new unit (Organisms and their Environments). The movie is very good, about 45 minutes long and focuses on life in a coral reef and why reefs are dying. I created a link to Amazon about the video but you might want to try out Netfix if you don't want to purchase it and you have a subscription or half.com if you want to purchase it (often times cheaper then amazon...just factor in the shipping and handling). I am not sure how much the students got out of it...since most of them were going to town with their Valentine's Day candy :)
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