Watch Out Discovery Channel! We're Space Experts!

Let me start by saying, this was one of those projects where I wasn't really sure what was going to happen. I knew what standards I was teaching and gave each of my students a solid rubric - but from there I was anxious to see the direction it went. I can honestly say I learned a valuable lesson about trust and being willing to try - even when you think it may be too much to handle.  I was so amazed by what the students created together. It was a swift reminder that I don't always have to be in control of every little detail. Hop over to our YouTube channel to see what I mean. 

Now, let's get down to business. Who can get me in touch with Discovery Channel so we can start broadcasting our knowledge of the universe? Email me. :)

--------------------

This project was broken into three different phases. Overall, it took us about 5 days total (or five class periods of 50-min each). The last day was more of a catch up/clean up/submit to YouTube. 

First, we broke out to in expert groups based on interest. Students were able to choose if they wanted to research the Sun, Moon, or Earth. On Google Classroom, I provided a "research guide" with specific questions about the Sun, Moon, or Earth (depending on their topic of research). I tailored the questions to our specific standards to ensure students were researching the appropriate facts. Plus, I provided specific links because I didn't want my students to get lost in the world wide web - it can happen you know!

The next step was to create informative movie clips about their respective topic. You can view those on Google Drive here. This is where the fun began! Students collaborated in their expert groups with a partner to develop a script for their movie clip. They were informed their movie clip would be used in a collaborative iMovie in the following days. In our school Maker Space, we have a green screen available - so we decided to do some filming in outer space thanks to the DoInk app!

Once partners had filmed a movie clip, they AirDropped it to their partner. The final step of the project was to form a collaborative group with one Moon expert, one Sun expert, and one Earth expert. From there, students put all of their movie clips together and began the editing process. Students had access to their rubric/checklist via Google Docs at all times. Prior to each class, we would review the rubric to remind students of what was expected for the video. You can check out the rubric here. 

Today, students were quite giddy when they heard their videos were officially published to YouTube (with parent permission!).  They were so excited to go home and subscribe to our classroom YouTube Channel. 

Living in Space, Uh... I Mean 5th Grade

'Tis the most wonderful time of year because of the approaching holidays, time spent with family, and of course teaching Outer Space goodness to my 5th graders. I've decided to compile a few of my favorite resources and lessons we've had over the past few weeks. December has been an exciting month in 5th grade science!

While searching for more interactive and engaging ways to learn about the Moon, I stumbled upon The Science Penguin. To put it mildly, I'm her biggest fan. I've snagged several goodies from her Teachers Pay Teachers store and my kids are smarter for it!

Last week, after spending extensive time discussing the differences between the Earth, Sun, and Moon I was stuck on how to continue our conversation and take our thinking a step further. Thanks to one of the resources I purchased from The Science Penguin, we were sorting out characteristics of the Lunar Cycle, Tides Cycle, Earth's Revolution, and Day and Night. 

A few popular videos and songs we've discovered this year are:

A classic for the ages, Mr. Parr.... 

Throughout the unit, I've pulled my various outer space books from the nonfiction shelf. While chatting about various aspects of our universe, I have referenced pages from a few notable titles. It's been a great teachable moment on accessing nonfiction in a different way than we read fiction. I've been able to model using the index, table of contents, and whatnot to gain certain information. 

Seymour Simon

Don't Know Much About Planet Earth

When we return from the holidays, we are moving on in science and I'll have to wait another year to teach outer space. Which means, I'll have another year to find and develop new and exciting lessons for my students. :)

Poetry in Science

It's possible! It's true! 

A few weeks ago, prior to starting our Solar System unit, I updated the display on our classroom door to a poem titled, "A Galaxy". 

I found the poem in Douglas Florian's book, "Comets, Stars, the Moon, and Mars" and decided it would be the perfect teaser to our new unit. The best part was watching students turn their heads and read the poem as they enter and exit the classroom.

If you're looking for a new book to add to your classroom collection, I highly recommend this one. I have read a poem daily from its pages to bring a little poetry to our science classroom. 

Source

Source

Comets, Stars, the Moon, & Mars: Space Paintings and Poems by Douglas Florian

Buy it here. 

What IS Life Like on the International Space Station?

Eventually I will "get over" the fact that I can't take my students on a field trip to Outer Space - not exactly in the budget this year. Until then, I will continue hunting for ways to share the excitement of space with them. I am ashamed to say that, until this year, I wasn't up to date on the missions and expeditions of the International Space Station. This year, our school has been tracking and following NASA Astronaut Mike Hopkins and his crew members of Expedition 37/38 as he lives in space until February. Mike Hopkins is an alumni of our high school and we've all been cheering for him since he departed earlier this Fall. 

This got me thinking, if we can follow Mike on Twitter - who else can we find that's in space? A few clicks later, I was uncovering several Twitter accounts of astronauts who were preparing for space travel, had been to space, or currently residing on the I.S.S. 

Earlier this week, I posed the question, "what's life like in space? What would it be like to live on the International Space Station?" We brainstormed how life would be different and started asking questions about daily routines that would change because of zero gravity. 

The goal of the day was simple: find out what life is like in space! I let my students explore Twitter accounts and reminded them to take notes so we could share at the end of class. 

Screenshot of Mac: Mike Hopkins' Twitter Page

Screenshot of Mac: @NASA_Astronauts Twitter Page

Oh, but wait.... there are VIDEOS, too. TONS of videos! Ever wonder what it is like to brush your teeth in space?

What about washing your hair in space?

What's it like to sleep in space? Do you float?

Okay, okay... I know you're wondering, what happens if you get sick?

That's only the beginning. Once I started searching for videos, I found TONS from several Expeditions on the I.S.S. Who better to teach my students about life on the I.S.S. than residents of the I.S.S.? 

We're constantly checking in our favorite astronauts through Twitter and reading their updates in our classroom. It's truly remarkable to be able to share with my students what is happening on the I.S.S. through Twitter and live feeds. AMAZING!

5th Grade Skywatchers!

Just last week, we started our Outer Space unit. We will be reaching for the stars and floating along the Milky Way until Christmas and I couldn't be happier! A friend of mine introduced me to the app "SkyView Free" for iPhone and I introduced it to my students on day during science while we were chatting about galaxies and constellations. My kids were passing around my phone spotting different constellations, satellites, International Space Station, and the Moon!

Screenshot from my iPhone After Spotting the MOON!

Source

You can download "Google Sky Map" for Android users. 

Trust me, this app is a sure way to impress your kids. I had several of my students download the app on their own devices at home. 

Do you have any outer space apps you share with your students?

Landing Back on Earth

As second quarter comes to a close, our outer space unit is quickly ending as well. The inner space cadet in me is very sad and I'm not quite ready to move on.... but alas! There's always next year. 

Here's a peak at a few of the activities we did this month to learn about Earth and its planetary neighbors. If you would like more information on any activity, please email me! I love chatting with teachers around the country. [jordon.furnell@gmail.com]

Toilet Paper Solar System. Read more about that exciting adventure here. 

How Far Can You Jump in Space? A fun activity that tied math, graphing, science, and technology together. 

Oreo Cookie Moon Phases. Now that we've eaten both the Sun and the Moon, one student has requested that we eat all 8 planets. I told him that I'd work on that one. :)

Google Earth. Yesterday, I blogged about using Google Earth to explore not only Earth, but the Moon, Mars, and the sky! Read about it here. 

Designing Constellations with Chalk. We spent a morning outlining constellations on black paper. Read about it here. 

Phases of the Moon. Thank goodness for Mr. Parr and his oh-so-creative Youtube channel.  My kids LOVE his science songs and it's a hoot watching them sing along. One of our (uhh..my) favorites is the Phases of the Moon one. Check it out below!

SKYPE! Today, we had the pleasure of chatting with both John and Barbara down in Texas. My kids were incredibly excited to speak LIVE with someone who works at NASA. What an incredible experience! 

That's just a snapshot of what we've been up to this month. Also just a snapshot of everything I remembered to take a picture of. Next, we'll be studying force and motion. 

Tips? I'm all ears!

It's Only Monday, and We've Already Been to Mars

The other day, I accidentally opened up Google Earth and a tip popped up that said, "Explore the Moon!" I shrieked at my desk and started exploring. My exploration didn't stop there. With the simple click of a button I was exploring Mars and the sky too! Needless to say, I had to find a way to work this into my lesson plans. Lucky for my students (and me!), we had to talk about why Earth is the best candidate to support life in the solar system. I felt this would be an engaging and meaningful way to explore other celestial bodies in our galaxy. 

This morning I posed the question, "Why is Earth the best place to call home?" Our plan for the day was to contrast Earth, the Moon, and Mars and determine why Earth is the best place for us to live. We hopped down to the computer lab and opened up Google Earth. I gave very few directions, because I wanted my students to do most of the exploring. In a whole group setting, I demonstrated how to navigate between the planets (Click View then Explore...) and sent them on their merry way. Each student also had a triple t-chart in their notebooks to write down features of Earth, Mars, and the Moon. To conclude class we watched a BrainPop video about Earth and wrote down all of the reasons why Earth is perfect for us. 

Exploring the Moon with Neil Armstrong!

While students were working, I moved around the lab and suggested different areas to click and showed students a few more neat features. For example, you can take a guided tour of the Moon and Mars complete with narration! 

Just Taking a Tour of the Moon...

I strongly encouraged students to Explore BEFORE Asking...that way, they wouldn't be dependent on me. Most were very excited about the lesson and teaching me new things about the program. It was a great start to our Monday. 

We Landed on the Moon!

Tomorrow, we are participating in an incredible Skype session. Thanks to the wonderful Barbara and her beautiful blog The Corner on Character, for making it all happen. 

Before I scoot, I must say a few things about the heartbreaking tragedy that happened in Connecticut on Friday. In my mind, I cannot piece together an appropriate set of words to even make sense of the unthinkable situation. My heart is with those affected and those poor children and faculty who lost their lives. I made sure to tell all of my students how wonderful it was to see them and their bright shining faces this morning. After all, they are the reason for why we do what we do. The Cornerstone For Teachers wrote an incredible post titled, "What Do You Say at a Time Like This?". I leave you with her words, because I can't seem to find my own. 

NASA, Call Me Maybe?

Here's a weird question for you, what do Carly Rae Jepson and NASA have in common? Well, click the YouTube video below to figure it out. Some quirky folks compiled video and images from the NASA Curiosity Rover mission and made themselves a little parody video. It was also a catchy way to get my students thinking about how we study space. 

After more discussion about telescopes and satellites, we started talking one of NASA's current missions, "Curiosity". They were floored when I informed them that it had just landed back in August. To get a better look at the Rover, we spent some time playing on this incredible "Explore Mars!" web application. Click here to check it out for yourself. In a nutshell, students could drive the rover around Mars, check out the crater in which it landed, and read about various tasks the Curiosity is working on.

Call Me, Maybe? NASA photo. 

I only have 6 student computers in my classroom, so we had to do a little sharing. While one set of students were on the computer, I was explaining a fun writing assignment to the others. Using images taken from Curiosity of Mars found here, the students were to write a postcard BACK to Earth from Curiosity. I let the students click through the gallery and select which image they wanted to write about. Here are a few of my favorite images from the gallery. 

Small Debris.

Wheel Scuff.

Exploring Mars was AWESOME today, but we did run into a few hiccups. The application was running very slow on our student computers so some students didn't get the full experience. I hope to pull up the application again so we can try it out another afternoon when we have some free time. 

For the next couple of days we'll be talking about our Solar System.

Happy Monday!

Galaxies & Constellations

There are many reasons why December is one of my favorite months, but one BIG reason is because we are studying OUTER SPACE! There's something about teaching outer space that makes my heart skip a beat. We're just diving into our universe, but we have started by identifying our location (in the Milky Way) and how that compared to other groups of stars (also known as...constellations) In 5th grade, we do not assess constellations or put much focus on them, but it connects to how our Earth rotates on its axis. It was enlightening for many students to understand how we see different constellations at different times of the year... depending on where we are on the globe. 

To compare constellations and galaxies, we created a Double Bubble Thinking Map. Side note, in this unit I'm REALLY trying to incorporate the use of more and more thinking maps. They're incredible ways to organize information and another great way to take notes. For example, we created a brace map at the beginning of our unit to write down vocabulary words and associate them in groups. Now, back on track! Below, you see a student working with his group to pull information from a resource page and the text book and create a double bubble. After the small groups worked for 5-7 minutes, we shared out our new information and created a class double bubble. 

After we had ironed out the differences between galaxies and constellations... we started creating! Students were given months, chalk, a guide, and stars. Badda bing... badda boom! 

Today, I was trying to decide what to DO with the constellations and I thought, "Duh.. we need to look up." I hopped on a table and started tacking them to the ceiling. At the end of the day, we all stared into the "sky" and found constellations! 

Tomorrow, we're continuing our conversation about the SUN ... our closest star! 

Meeting Scientists

In college, I read an article for my science class about bringing scientists TO your classroom for an authentic learning experience. While reading it, I thought.. hmm? How on earth could I do that?

As a second grade teacher, my team brought in a crew of soil scientists to talk to our kiddos about soil and it was great! The kids (and teachers) liked it so much, we did it again the next year!

I wanted to bring this type of experience to my kiddos at Osage, so I started asking! Thanks to a good friend, I was introduced to Mr. Zach Paul. He's a meteorologist for KRCG News in Columbia, Missouri.  During our weather unit this fall, Zach graciously visited my classroom for an entire day and talked with my kiddos about the weather. They were so excited! Not only were they excited to have a REAL LIVE TV STAR in the classroom, but they were so intrigued by his line of work as well.

Filling our brains with weather knowledge!

Zach talked to us about all things weather his daily life. It worked out perfectly, because my kiddos had been studying clouds, the water cycle, and all that jazz so they could ask great questions. We even taught Zach our water cycle song!

Let's chat about the weather, Zach!

As you may (or may not) know, my class just finished its oh-so-wonderful unit on the solar system. Hands down, space is the most fun to teach! In a few posts, I mentioned how I was dying to take my kids on a field trip to space but the funds weren't available. (ha ha.. funny, I know).

Then, a wonderfully surprising thing happened! I received an email that Barbara from The Corner on Character had commented on my blog. She always leaves the most uplifting comments, so naturally I was excited to read it. Then, I had to read her comment again... and again...and again. Her comment offered a skype session with her husband who works for NASA!

Through Barbara's outreach, my students were able to Skype with her husband who works for the Johnson Space Center in Texas. Prior to our skyping session, I spoke with my principal, technology, and my team to make appropriate arrangements. The next thing I knew it was Monday morning and I was skyping with John and Barbara in Texas with 60+ students in my room!

First, we brainstormed a list of questions to ask John. I reminded the students SEVERAL times to ask thoughtful and meaningful questions. Besides, its not everyday that you get to speak with someone from NASA!

Hi John!

John talked with us about current missions, the planets, and a little insight on his work with NASA. Once again, my kids were enthralled and had millions of questions. Thanks to the power of technology, generous people (cough Barbara!), and this blog ... my kiddos got to experience something really great.

That's all folks!

Over the Moon!

We're all about outer space in room 52. The planets, comets, meteors, the Moon, and everything else in between have absolutely positively taken over.

If I could, I would have packed up the kiddos and taken a first class field trip to outer space ... but my budget couldn't cover that trip this month. Maybe next year? Here are a few things we've done to make up for not being able to visit the planets. (A girl can dream, right?)

I spotted this photo on Pinterest and tracked down the source to Beakers and Bumble Bees. From there, I began searching for how to make this work in our hallway. Then! I found Astro Society (click the link!) and it had a beautifully converted toilet paper chart. It lists approximate values for laying out planets and their distances from the Sun. This was a great visual for how far the planets really are from one another!

The students were amazed when we were counting toilet paper down the hallway. Plus, we generated some curiosity from other classrooms.

Can you see the asteroid belt?

Last week, we went a little crazy chatting about the Moon and its phases. Now, if you know me... you would know that I will use any excuse to sing and dance. Naturally, when I found a few songs on the Moon Phases I KNEW I had to bring them to my classroom. 

This little number by Mr. Parr uses the tune from "Forget You" by Cee Lo Green. To say that my students love it is an understatement. I've listened to this song easily 20 times in the past week. I've had kiddos looking it up at home, too! Have a listen!

I see you hangin' all around in the sky above...

Here's a rap to tap your foot along to:

Here's one more sung by some kiddos. 

Memorizing these phases can be daunting, but I decided to trick my students into learning them with oreos. Who wouldn't want to learn and eat at the same time? My 8:00 science class was PUMPED about eating oreos first thing in the morning. As I handed out four oreos to each students I heard one little one say, "My dad doesn't even let me have this many at home!"

Educational & Delicious

Before munching down their delicious phases, each student had to name each phase in order. See? A sneaky little trick don't you think?

In other news... sorry 'bout your bad luck, Pluto.

Over the Moon!

I'm fairly certain that I am not the only teacher on the block "secretly" counting down until Thanksgiving break. Right? Anyway, until that time arrives I'll do my best to plug in some Thanksgiving cheer in my classroom! 

While browsing blogland, I found an idea to "Gobble Up Similes and Metaphors", but similes and metaphors weren't on our menu, so I racked my brain to think of a way to gobble SOMETHING in 5th grade.  Then, I remembered that we could always use a little refresher with vocabulary. Plus, we were working hard on using context clues to identify the meaning of unknown words. So, one day we gobbled up great vocabulary!

Pardon my poor photographs, we'll blame it on the fact that I've dropped my phone several times and it's not in the prime condition it once was. 

Gobble! Gobble!

Each student received a plate and was instructed to pick two vocabulary words from any content area. Then, they had to use the word in a sentence on their plate. We went over proper sentences that would help our readers figure out the meaning of our vocabulary words.

For example: "I can survive." was not an acceptable sentence!

Yum! I'm stuffed.

At the end of September, I posted "Power of the Pod" (click here to refresh your memory) where I shared an idea to name your pods after content you want your kiddos to memorize. Sounds sneaky right? 

Today was the grand debut of the moon phases in room 52! I have five pods in my room and I have 5 moon phases represented to give the students a visual when memorizing the oh-so-wonderful phases. 

Full Moon in the HOUSE!

I bet you didn't know the surface of the moon was made from construction paper, did you? See! You can learn something new everyday. 

Watch our for Werewolves

Needless to say, today was confusing. I called the "Cumulus" group to line up then realized they were now the "Waxing Gibbous" group. Yikes! I should have studied a little more. 

Ready.. Set.. Memorize!

This morning, I asked my students, "do you notice anything different?" This is one of my favorite games to play. Simply because they not only notice what I want them to find, but they also sometimes mention things I've misplaced in the room or things I didn't mean to change. Which helps me out tremendously! They always keep me on my toes. 

For example, this morning the "game" (I'm noticing I use that term very loosely nowadays, there was no actual gaming occurring in my room) went like this..

"Notice anything different in our room, kids?" -Me

"Your desk is clean!" - Student

"Yes........................... anything else? Look up." -Me

"Are we studying space!?!" -Student

This went on for awhile. Great Monday morning conversation! 

Happy Monday!