Notebooking, Teaching, and Technology

All teachers have those little things that drive you INSANE during the course of the school year. Initially for me it was the constant need to get up and use the pencil sharpener...ugh! (or worse yet...not having a pencil...nothing slows down notebooking more). I made my peace with that years ago by having a pencil loaner bin filled with the cheap plastic pencil sharpeners (that catch shavings). I buy those at Staples during their penny sale and as a teacher you can get more then the "four per customer" rule. I did not buy enough for this years class and made a mental note to get more. Make sure you put your name on it with permanent marker THEN put a piece of clear tape over it. That has kept them from disappearing and is an easy way to tell the difference between yours and a student. Of course my next little pet peeve is that students will not take a pencil if it doesn't have an eraser so that leads to a 5 minute search through the pencil loaner bin for one that does....

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...

Here are pictures of our circuit testers that we made using the instructions in the Tops Science Electricity book. The students loved making them because they used everyday household items (aluminum foil, battery, and a light bulb). I had several students who made them at home and came back to tell me about it (which is always music to a teachers ears :) The lesson had students teamed up to test various objects around the classroom and record as either a conductor or insulator.

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...

Today was a "full moon" crazy day with the students (and a Friday)....you know the day where you lost everyone the moment they set foot into the classroom and it just gets worse as the day goes on? In those situations I really try to remember that a sense of humor goes a long way. Of course I had "a lot I wanted the class to accomplish" and it took me part of the day to find my sense of humor....the question is what do you do on a day like that? For me I immediately reduced what I wanted to accomplish for the day to...take a quiz, listen to the lyrics of a magnet song, and play BINGO (I lost the students at the magnet song...behavior wise...but got them back with Bingo). General on my "full moon" crazy days, when everything is going wrong, I can always count on asking students to produce science related posters or drawings (with captions) to put outside in our hallway. Today the kids were too chatty to let them work independantly so Bingo was a good activi...

This week we made electromagnets. We watched a video that I found on a google search on how to make them that I showed it to students (I have made them for several years but I was trying to show students how easy it was and if they forgot they could look it up). We read our RH assignment about electromagnets and their uses and then started to build our electromagnets. Pictured above is the tray of supplies that each table received. We found that metal paperclips worked better then the plastic coated colored paperclips that I have pictured. The tape on the fingers was an idea I got one year from another teacher. We have battery holders in our science kit but the clasps were hard for the students to use (discovered last year). The batteries heat up when held and the tape is a way to keep fingers from getting too hot. The students loved putting tape on their fingers and comparing how hot the batteries got (they never got hot enough to worry about...but you know how students over react :...

This week I gave students their first "choice" assignment. They had a choice of one of three activities for their right hand assignment. These were all assignments they had done before so they knew what to do. This was right after we did our magnet study and students had to choose between an acrostic (Magnet), web, or storyboard. They had to have six (good) magnet facts, illustrations, and color (and it had to be done within the time frame given - 30 minutes). What was interesting was that a lot of the students choose the acrostic...thinking it was "easy"...when in fact the storyboard and web would have been easier. It was a good lesson for students to learn...looking at the assignment strategically. I surveyed the students and they liked being given a choice and I liked seeing how students worked within the parameter of choice.