Notebooking, Teaching, and Technology

This week we have been learning about cold blooded vertebrate groups. When I taught this in sixth grade I noticed that the groups form the word FAR (Fish, Amphibian, Reptile). I had my students make a 3 tab flip book and put the word F on one tab, A on the middle flap, and R on the last flap. They had to decorate their front cover so that they would remember that those animals were the cold blooded animals. To help students remember I tell them that they, "Live FAR FAR away that is why they are cold." This is just a way for them to associate FAR with cold (we certainly have all three animal groups here where we live). I taught a lesson each day for each group and had them write five facts and draw and color three pictures under each flap. I tell students that the A is in the middle because amphibians start their life out like the first flap (fish) and then change to resemble characteristics of the last flap (reptiles - live on land, breath with lungs). The last flap is R f...

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 ...

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...