Notebooking, Teaching, and Technology

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...

The other night I meet with a group of third grade teachers who are notebooking this year. They noted that this year they only have 30 minutes a day to teach science. In reality that time is reduced to 20-25 minutes when you factor in transition and settle time. The students do go to a science lab once a week, which helps, but the question was, "How do you structure your class to notebook with such a limited amount of time?" My suggestion was to break up the lesson so that one day you would teach the lesson whole group (so covering that LH side) and then the next day you would do a short review and then the independent work on the RH side (or it might be a lab you do with the information the day before). Doing it this way you would cover two lessons a week. Friday would be a quiz, make up or video day. I looked at the standards and indicators and it could be done (it would be tight but possible). My week might look like this.... Monday - Introduction of landforms. Create a...

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.

I am helping a group of fourth and third grade teachers in the district get notebooking off the ground this year. School starts for students on Monday so one of the things we talked about was the first couple of weeks in notebooking (with the intent that that would get folks started and then we could meet again and talk about what they/we could do for the next couple of weeks). I've had several teachers express interest in seeing what that two weeks looks like so I thought I would post the one for third grade and the one for fourth grade. Please keep in mind while reading it that this is most likely how I would handle the first couple of weeks and I modify as I go based on the students, timing, etc. Your teaching style might be different from mine so feel free to adjust or abandon all together. Third Grade - First Two Weeks Download Fourth Grade - First Two Weeks Download (if there are any question look at the sample notebook posted here on line)

I am working with some third grade teachers this year in setting up their notebook and proposed they add in a page, in the beginning unit "Inquiry", that covers parts of a textbook. It actually is not a bad idea for fourth grade as well. I sort of assume when they get to fourth grade that they are familiar with the parts of a textbook and that is not a good assumption to make. The jump from second to third grade is quite strenuous academically and initiating a lesson within the first couple of weeks of school on the parts of a textbook might actually be quite helpful in the long run. I proposed that they put together an interactive white board lesson (we use Promethean in our district), have the students go through the parts of the textbook as they go through the lesson, have a higher level textbook (grade 5 science) on the desks as well so that they see that the "parts of a textbook" apply to all grade levels, and then have them conduct a textbook scavenger hunt wi...

We started learning about invertebrates. In all honesty I probably went into it a little deeper then I needed for the standards, but I was ahead of my long range plans and I taught sixth grade invertebrates, so I had resources, knowledge and time on my side. What I did was take two sheets of paper and folded them in half stapling it on the seam. This gave students six usable pages on the inside. I taught six mini lessons each day on each group of invertebrates. I discovered when teaching sixth graders that the groups they needed to know spelt out: C A MESS (Cnidarians, Arthropods, Mollusks , Echinoderms, Segmented Worms, Sponges). This is a great memory tool and I taught each group in order like that. Each lesson took about 1/2 an hour. Then I gave students a choice of if they wanted to work by themselves or with a partner to come up with a poem or song featuring some of the characteristics we had discussed during the lesson. I gave them scrap paper to work through it. They came up ...

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 stu...

Monday - Not a very inspired lesson. Much shorter then I thought it was going to be, which left me with some time I had to "fill". Basically we moved into electricity and I was going over the parts of a circuit. We watched a 20 minute Electricity video from streamline and a Brainpop on the subject. It was a sort of blah lesson. I did get to show students a series circuit in action and told them they would making them this week...which pepped up the room. Students read their LH assignment in the notebook and drew circuit symbols and an open and closed circuit on the RH side. Tuesday - Conductors and insulators activity in notebook. See post regarding the inexpensive tester we made for this activity. Wednesday - Was lucky to be able to "borrow" a student intern in our school to help us make series circuits. Students had to follow the diagram I had written on the board to create a series circuit and then one with a switch. Student "desk partnered" it up wit...

This was a short week. We had Monday off for MLK Day and then Friday off for a teacher professional development day (which equaled an all day meeting...sigh...really could have used the day in the classroom). We spent three days working with magnets. Monday - Intro to magnets. Flipchart from Promethean Planet. I embedded video clips from streamline into the presentation. Watched Brain Pop. Read LH notebook page. Students partnered up (clock partners) and tested items in the classroom with magnets and recorded their results on the RH side (last picture above). Tuesday - We did two experiments today (first and second picture above). The first was making a temporary magnet by stroking a nail with a magnet. We were trying to determine if the number of strokes affected how many paperclips the nail could pick up. Students recorded their results on a lab sheet I made for the LH side of the notebook. After students finished that they created a floating paperclip (idea from the TOPS book...

This was not an "inspired" week. We had report card grades cut off by Friday (and inputted into our system by Tuesday) so a lot of the activities were designed to either get students caught up or give them extra credit. In order to avoid spending hours grading notebooks I graded on the spot for two days (Thursday/Friday)...which went rather well and I am looking forward to no stress this weekend :) I have highlighted activities that I thought went well this week and might be worth a read. Monday - Started off with a ball toss greeting of "good morning" (the rest of the week will be review questions - see earlier post with soccer ball). Today's lesson was on Transparent, Translucent, and Opaque (definition and types of objects). Went through a Promethean Planet flipchart that I had modified on the subject. We read the left hand notebook sheet out loud. Showed the Discover Education Streamline video Out of the Darkness - Intro to Light (approx. 20 min - would not...

Monday - We started our new unit on Light, Electricity and Magnets with our title page and a sneak peek of our vocabulary for the unit, which we then put together in our BINGO boards. I put together a PowerPoint of the vocabulary with pictures and went through it while students wrote the words on their bingo board. Students became excited for the unit because I was able to show them pictures of things they will be putting together in the unit (electromagnets, series circuits, etc.). Tuesday - Properties of Light. Revised several Promethean Planet resources into a lesson. Students read their notebook page on the left hand side. We did a couple of in class examples of light traveling in a straight line with a flashlight and how distance affects brightness. I went over how to make a web using information from the left hand side with students. Then students were tasked with making a web on the right hand side using the highlighted key points. I showed the BrainPop video "Rainbows...

Monday - The main focus of the lesson was Tides. First we reviewed, updated our moon phase of the day, then I showed a Promethean slide show I made on the subject and embedded a short tide video clip from streamline. We read the left hand side information, looked at the textbook information about tides, and I had students draw a diagram of the moon pulling at the tides on the right hand side. One class was done early so we played vocabulary BINGO. Tuesday - The main focus of the lesson was Shadows. I had students tell me what they already knew about shadows. Then students took turns being the sun and my shadow as I verbally went through how shadows change as the position of the sun changes in the sky. I showed a Promethean Planet download about shadows. We went outside to see if we could spot our shadow (no luck...cloudy all week...but it did get students outside :) We watched a streamline video about shadows and direction (approx. 15 minutes long). I did not do a left or right hand...

Monday - We just got back from Thanksgiving break so I did some review. Our science fair projects are due this week so I spent some time reviewing the requirements and I let some early submissions present to the class. This didn't leave a lot of time left but I was able to go over the difference between rotation and revolution. I got the kids up and moving rotating and revolving. The main lesson was really for students to learn why we have day and night. I showed a streamline video on the subject and taught them a poem I made up with hand gestures (will post video). The end results were that my students should have been able to tell me the difference between rotation and revolution, how long does it take Earth to rotate, how long does it take for the Earth to complete a revolution around the Sun, and why does that rotation give us day and night. The only thing we did in our notebooks was to record the current moon phase on the calendar in our notebook. Tuesday - Students took tur...

Monday - Showed a PowerPoint I made comparing and contrasting the characteristics of the Earth and Moon and discussed with students. Showed an excellent ETV streamline video (A Closer Look at Space - The Moon. Approximately 20 minutes.) on the subject. No notebooking activity. Tuesday - Read the left hand information reviewing characteristics of the Earth and Moon. Showed Brainpop on both the Earth and Moon. Worked on Earth/Moon popup books (I made the books and students colored and cut the moon and Earth gluing it in the popup location. Students had to list five ways the moon was different from the Earth and five ways the Earth was different from the moon. They also had to trace a path from the moon around the Earth in the popup and note the number of days it took to go around). Wednesday - Lesson - Why do we see different phases of the moon? Right hand assignment was to start a moon calendar , which we will update daily until Christmas break. I made the calendar full page size and sh...

Whew...this week was one of those topsy turvy weeks that threw us off schedule slightly. We had H1N1 shots administered Monday, a field trip Tuesday, no school on Wednesday.....looking forward to a "normal" week :) Monday - Showed students the International Year of Astronomy Trailer on YouTube and explained how 400 years ago Galileo used his telescope for the first time. Played the song " On the Shoulder of Giants " for students (video with the song can be found on my website - my students last year LOVED the song and had it memorized!). Showed a PowerPoint I made about the planets in order (had students line up as planets with smaller ones being the rocky inner planets and the taller students being the gas giants - threw some students in there to be the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. I picked a student wearing red to be Mars and I lucked out with twins in one of my classes so I made them Venus and Earth). Students got to practice trying to say the plan...

We just got back after a week long fall break and it was a short week for me. I attended and presented at the South Carolina Science Council Convention in Myrtle Beach Thursday and Friday ( notebooking and blogging) so there was sub work for the students. This is what we did in the notebooks this week. Monday - Put together the astronomy title page and reviewed the standards for the unit. I also went over the vocabulary for the unit with a Promethean slide show and, as I was reviewing the vocabulary, students were filling out their bingo boards for the unit. Tuesday - We started with information about the sun and its importance to Earth. We did a fun activity that I had done at space camp last summer (with a sheet, a bowling ball, tennis ball, and ping pong ball) showing how the mass and gravity of the sun cause planets to rotate around it. We read our left hand sheet about the sun and watched a Brain Pop on the subject. On the right hand side of the notebook students had to list fou...