Skip to main content

Day 1 in the Science Classroom


Here is what would be my rough plan for the first day in my science classroom:

(DISCLAIMER - As many of my readers know I took an Instructional Technology Coach position last year and will be doing the same this coming year. Although my main job in the schools I serve....four this year....is to help teachers integrate technology into the classroom I still help out with teachers who want to implement notebooking in the classroom. Floating between four schools also gives me the opportunity to see great teaching ideas and share among schools and this blog!).

Day 1

- This is usually collecting supplies, going over classrooom rules (everything from bathroom procedures to tucking in chairs - I usually act out the behaviors I don't want to see and the behaviors I do want to see...which usually cracks up the students). Show them where you keep things in the classroom (particularly the Plan of the Day). I have students practice a fire drill so they know where to go when they are in my classroom, an earthquake drill, and a tornado drill (this is a great way to introduce what we will be learning in weather). They love practicing these things because it gets them moving in my classrom! I have my camera ready to take pictures so I have something to put on my classroom website for the first day of school. I show students the science notebook and explain how it is going to be used. I pass out labels to put in the upper right hand corner of the notebook and have sharpies so they can write their first name on it (those can be put on lab trays so the supplies are ready to go). If you have time left you can have the class as a group number the first 25 pages in their composition book (don't let them go ahead of 25 or they will mess up the count!). Collect the compostion books (purchase extra composition books so if a student doesn't have one you can give them one of yours and they would just owe you one when they bring it in).

When students are gone for the day glue in the instruction booklet on the first page or on the front inside cover (see picture on this post - http://sciencenotebooking.blogspot.com/2012/07/free-download-at-teachers-pay-teachers.html ) as well as the inquiry standards (see picture on this post - http://sciencenotebooking.blogspot.com/2008/12/title-pages.html) and the information about the textbook scavenger hunt - see this post - http://sciencenotebooking.blogspot.com/2010/08/textbook-scavenger-hunt.html). This will save you a TON of time on Day 2 (you can teach students how to glue their own stuff in later).

Items you will have to create ahead of time - Textbook Scavenger Hunt (one half page for the notebook) for the textbook your students use (see this post -  http://sciencenotebooking.blogspot.com/2010/08/textbook-scavenger-hunt.html).

Labels:

Comments

Jordon said…
Awesome! Thanks for posting your ideas. I've pinned this to refer to when I start planning!!
July 25, 2012 at 1:04 PM
Post a Comment

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...
Post a Comment
Read more

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.
13 comments
Read more

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...
5 comments
Read more