That's a Wrap, 2014!

Wow! What a year it has been.

I'll spare you all of the details, but it was an absolutely amazing year and 2015 is bound to be even better. 

Last year, I created a foldable for my students to make a few new year's resolutions using the numbers "2-0-1-4" based on another folder I found through Pinterest. You can read about that foldable here. 

With the new year approaching and Christmas break winding down, it became time to create another foldable! Last year, my students enjoyed kicking off the new year with resolutions and I hope my crew this year enjoys it just as much. 

Download the 2015 foldable HERE. 

Have a safe and happy new year!

WE WILL ROCK YOU! Summer School Day 2

Summer school is trucking right along. It's fast paced and way different than the regular school day. It's nice not having the pressures of testing hanging over my head. Plus, the hugs from students in June is a wonderful added bonus.  :)

After our conversation about soil yesterday, we extended the conversation into erosion and landforms. Below are a few online videos I used and a great flipbook!

While the song was playing I started to hear, "Ohh... I get it now!" We weren't diving into the types of rocks, but it was a fun song to get our brains shifted into science mode. 

I also show clips from Bill Nye's erosion episode. I like these clips because he visits areas around the country to show erosion and cool experiments to try at home. 

Right as time was running out for the day, we started a landform flipbook. Thankfully, there are smart and talented teachers on the internet who share fantastic resources. Ginger Snaps has a fantastic flip book to demonstrate different types of landforms, plus you can download the file for free! 

Bless you, Ginger Snap Treats for Teachers!

Tomorrow, we are going to finish our flip books and move onto the atmosphere Thursday. Exciting week full of science! 

Forcing It

We're in the swing of Force & Motion. I have to admit, I am extremely excited to be discussing forces, energy, motion, and machines. Maybe it is the nerdy science teacher in me! 

I've mentioned before that I want to find a way for students to enjoy their text book.  Next year, I may have to think of a different name for our text to make it sound exciting. Well, today we had to buckle down and take notes. Try not to boo me! Luckily, after stumbling upon blogs and Dinah Zike's resources, foldables have become a constant in my classroom. 

Our big question of the day was, "What are forces?" Instead of having the students take notes and read the text. We did things a little differently. We read the text together and as we encountered a new type of force (i.e. gravity, magnetism, work, power) we defined it underneath its flap. Of course the foldable wouldn't be complete without a little sketch and demonstration. Let's just say, I was throwing things and running around my classroom all day long. 

Thanks to my new SmartBoard bulb, I was able to put the notes on the board and guide the students through each flappity-flap. For being a day full of notes and reading, it was a pretty fun time! I hope the kiddos enjoyed it as much as I did.

Have you taught force and motion? What exciting experiments and demonstrations have you done?

I know have the greatest job on earth, but I think tomorrow I will be applying this philosophy. I'll be the one in a Spiderman costume.

Flippyity Flaps

Warning: I went a little crazy with hyperlinking. Once I started... I just couldn't stop. You've been warned.

One of my goals for science is to make using our textbook more exciting.  It's common knowledge that textbooks don't possess much of that "cool factor".

I've always been a fan of Dinah Zike's Foldables, but until recently I hadn't quite figured out how (or when) to use them.  Then, my wheels starting turning.  As part of of plants chapter, I wanted my kiddos to be able to recognize the process of photosynthesis, but I didn't exactly have gobs of time to spend on it. I knew in my mind, I wanted my students to create some kind of photosynthesis foldable. After a few failed google searches, I decided to use my own noggin.

Using an awesome foldable resource I snagged from Pinterest, I decided on a "Six Door" foldable.  A Teacher's Treasure has several great options and ideas for foldables here.

In the top three boxes, students listed the three things necessary for photosynthesis to occur: water, sunlight energy, and carbon dioxide. On two of the bottom flaps, we wrote what plants produce as a result of photosynthesis: oxygen and sugar. One of my students even suggested writing "produces" at the bottom to remember! Brilliant!

Finally, in the last box we wrote the definition of photosynthesis.
Not too shabby!

On the inside of the flaps, using our books as a resource, students described what happened with sunlight, carbon, water ... and so on and so on.  My kids loved it! It was probably because they got to fold, cut, and color. Oh well, I'll take it!

I've been a follower of Eve's Science Notebooking blog for awhile, but it took my brilliant coworker to stumble upon her Flip and Flaps post for the lightbulb to turn on!

As I mentioned earlier, I am always looking for ways to make the textbook seem "cool". Although, one student DID tell me that he took his book home every night to read... I'll assume he is the minority.

So! After reading this post on Flip and Flaps, Erin (my brilliant coworker) and I put our heads together and whipped up some flippity flaps for the week! Using Microsoft Publisher as Eve suggested, I created a little interactive textbook activity for lesson four. I asked my students today what they thought and I received cheers! Let's keep in mind... they got to color and glue again.

On the cover of the flip flap, I created a parts of the flower review based on this photo.  On the inside, students sneakily had to reread the text to fill in the blank and answer various questions.

I'm Learning So Much about Flowers!

How DO plants grow?

Erin (my brilliant coworker) recreated this leaves, stems, and roots flip flap for our kiddos to review the functions of each. Once again, my kids were in love with science (or their scissors, colors, and glue).

Now, before I part for the evening I must inform everyone of something extremely important happening this weekend. The University of Missouri will be playing the kU jayhawks (yes, that is grammatically correct) at THE MIZZOU Arena this Saturday. There's only one thing I have to say:

MIZZOU-RAH!