Friday Favorites

I feel like every blog post I write lately starts the same way...

I am determined to get back into blogging here.

In an attempt to do that I'm working on creating a regular blog schedule.

Today I am sharing some of my favorite moments from the week.

Last Friday we got a bit of snow and I was able to enjoy a snow day.

There was enough left around Monday morning to give us a one hour delay.  That extra time in the morning was definitely a favorite moment of the week.

We have a little AR competition going on between homeroom classes in each grade.

At the end of the week the class with the most AR points wins the trophy.

At the end of the nine weeks the class who held the trophy the most weeks wins a pizza party.

The trophy is a big stuffed teddy bear.

Since we were out last Friday because of the snow we had to wait until Monday morning to learn that we won last week.

My class was STOKED!

We learned today that we won again this week.

Meet Ted.

We decided he needed an AR book to read as well.

I love how this little competition is turning my students into readers.  They beg to read all day every day.  They are reading more challenging books because they want books worth lots of points.

Watching my students get excited over reading and discussing books with them will always be one of my favorite moments.


We have been studying different forms of energy in Science.  This week my students worked their way through 4 stations where they were able to "play" with different forms of energy.  They loved this!    One of our favorite moments of the stations was rubbing a balloon on our head and then holding it above gelatin.  And of course the great hair styles we created were also fun.

Plickers - An Online Assessment

I would consider myself to be a fairly tech savvy person.

Yet when it comes to my classroom, I don't incorporate as much technology as I would like.

I plan to change that next year and have been to a few technology workshop this summer looking for new ideas.

I have gotten so many great ideas that I spent the month of June with my brain on major overload.

One of the ideas that I'm excited to use is Plickers.

Have you heard of it?

So What Is It?

Back when I was in college I had to purchase a very expensive clicker for my biology class.  Every day we had a quiz at the beginning of class.  I would use my clicker to select my answer.  My individual clicker number would appear on the screen when I had answered.

Plickers is a lot like that.  

Only it's free.

How Does It Work?

Students use a Plicker (paper clicker) to answer the question.

You can see a picture of a Plicker up above.  It reminds me of a QR Code, which I love using in my classroom.

As the teacher you will need to install the free app on your phone or ipad so that you can scan the Plickers.

I was a little skeptical about this at first.  How much valuable time would I waste trying to scan all the plickers in my classroom.

Y'all it only took a couple of seconds to scan them all.

Getting Started

To get started you will need to download the app as I mentioned before as well as set up an account on their webbsite www.plickers.com

Print the Plickers for your students to use.

Because I have three different Math classes I created three different classes on the website.  However, I can use the same set of cards for all three groups.  Students from different classes can share the same card.

Once you have created your account and set up your classes you are ready to start creating questions.

Here are a few I have created about ratios.

Putting It To Use

Once you have everything set up, you are ready to use it with your students.  Spruce up your exit tickets or have fun reviewing for an upcoming test.  There are so many ways to use Plickers.

You choose a question to display for students.

They hold their card with their answer on top.

Use your app to scan the room.

Immediate feedback.

Glorious!!

I love that every card is different.  Students can't  decide how to turn their card based on their classmates' cards.

Keeping Up With the Cards

I do not plan to have my students keep up with their Plickers for a couple of reasons.

One..I want to use the same set for all three classes.

Two...They would lose them the first week.

Seriously!!

I have found several good ideas on Pinterest (What did we do before Pinterest?) for ways to store Plickers.

One teacher had students glue them in your notebook.  This would be great if you were only using one set.  She told students it didn't matter where the A was when they glued them in.  This ensured that their notebooks were all turned differently when they answered...again preventing them from copying from a friend.

Several teachers punch a hole in the corner of the card to hang them on a wall or bulletin board.

I love this idea of printing them a little smaller and using a pocket chart.

So yeah...

I'm absolutely giddy about using Plickers in my classroom next year.  

I think my students are really going to enjoy it.

If you are new to Plickers you can check out Pinterest for a ton of great ideas.

And if you have used Plickers in the past, I would love to hear from you.  Did your students love it?  How often did you do it?  How did you use it?

The One With the Water Cycle

Today in class my students all became water droplets.  They lived their little water droplet lives traveling through the water cycle.

Though it is probably a little too "young" for my students it is a game we love.  You can find it here.

You set up different stations around your room - clouds, groundwater, animal (my students' favorite), ocean, lake, and a few others.  I randomly assign students to each station.

They roll a number generator and find the coinciding number on their station.  It tells them what happened to them.

For example - and this is why the animal is their favorite - If they start in the animal and roll a one the directions say "Water is excreted onto the soil through feces and urine."

Gotta love those 7th graders!

Some years I set a timer and they go through as many stations as they can during that time.  Other years I have them go through x number of stations no matter how long it takes.

They carry paper with them recording their life and all the station they visit.

When they are finished with that part, they can do a variety of things.  Again I vary it from year to year.  They can write a creative story about their life using vocabulary such as evaporate and condense.  They could create a comic strip about their life.  There are lots of possibilities.

The One Looking Forward

I am sitting here enjoying my last bit of Christmas break.  Monday I will be back in the classroom.  Honestly, I'm ready.  I LOVE my job and when I'm not there I miss my students.

I have lots of big things planned for this semester that I am looking forward to.

A trip to California with a few awesome students.  San Francisco and Los Angeles aren't going to know what hit them.  This will be such a wonderful new cultural experience for my rural students.

A night on the town as I take my Pre AP class to see "Death of a Salesman".  They are so excited.  We are going to get all dressed up and go to dinner and a show.  Some of my boys want to wear a suit.  They crack me up!

One of the things I'm excited about is a monthly book report project.  We are going to do Historical Fiction, Realistic Fiction, Science Fiction/Fantasy, and Biography/Autobiography.  

One a month for the rest of the school year except April.  April is testing month so I thought I'd give them a break.

They may not be as excited about these as I am, but that's okay.  I have found several great ideas online for these projects.  I put bits and pieces together from several places to create something that I hope will work for me and my students.

I will share more about these as time goes on.  

I'm also pretty pumped about having my first intern this semester.  I'm also sad about it though because it is less time I get to spend teaching my students.  With this being my last year at my current school I want to soak up every minute.

We are starting physical science next week.  That means Newton's Three Laws of Motion.  I think this might be my favorite thing to teach in Science.  It is so much fun.    What can be better than learning while playing in the floor with hot wheels and ramps?

What are you looking forward to this semester?

The One With Mitosis

I dare say cell division - mitosis and meiosis - might be my least favorite thing to teach in 7th grade Science.  It is such a hard concept for my students to grasp.  I have tried a variety of teaching strategies over the past few years, but it is just a hard concept.  

Plain and simple.

This week when it was time for a mitosis lab, I found myself scouring the Internet yet again, hoping to find something wonderful that would help make it a little easier for my students.

It is especially challenging to teach cell division without the use of microscopes.  The majority of labs that can be found have students look at slides under a microscope.  Unfortunately I do not have the means to do this type of activity with my students.

After a little hunting I found something that quiet honestly felt a little last minute and a lot like settling for something that would get me by.

(Please tell me you have used those "get me by" lessons at least once or twice!)

This is the activity I "settled" for.

I printed this worksheet that the students filled out using their book while we discussed the four phases.  Thankfully our Science books have a great flow chart that does an excellent job summarizing the events of each phase.

After we filled out that sheet together I gave my students the sheet below along with a bright colored piece of copy paper - because you know colored copy paper makes any assignment a bit more enjoyable especially when you allow students to choose their color.

Students wrote Mitosis in the center of their colored paper (landscape) and then glued the cells around the word to create a flow chart.

I forgot to take pictures of the ones my students actually made, but here is the example (answer key) from the link above.

My students enjoyed the colored paper along with cutting and gluing.  Sometimes I forget 7th graders love this as much as 1st graders.

This last minute lesson turned out to be the best thing I've ever done with mitosis.  It shows the cell between stages.  It was such a great visual for my students.

It seemed to really clear things up for several students.

I had them cut all cells out and "play" with them like a puzzle.  They were required to get my okay before gluing anything down.  When they were ready for me to check it we would discuss any mistakes they may have made.  

Light bulb after light bulb went off in my class today.

Love it!!

Thank you to the creator of this little lesson.  It is definitely going in my file for future use.

The One With ABCs

When I was student teaching (which feels like a lifetime ago) one of the many ideas that I fell in love with was an ABC accordion book made from index cards.

One of the biggest reasons I love this project is because of its potential to be used for so many different things.  If I can take something and use it in more than one content area, I'm a fan.

One of my English classes is working on their first accordion book this week.  They are creating an autobiography.  I supplied them with 27  index cards for the project.  One for the title card and then one for each letter of the alphabet.

I think pictures will make more sense than if I try to describe it.  I apologize for the poor quality of photos.  I took them very quickly with my phone.

This is the example I put together to show my students.

 My A & B

 Several of my letters.  You place the index cards right up against each other and place a piece of tape on the back.  I tried to show this in the picture below.  After you have taped all the cards together, you fold them accordion style so that the title page is on top.  When you let go the rest of the cards "fall" down creating a neat effect.  Students love it!
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This can be used for so many different things.  Have students create an accordion book about a war or a specific era in history.

It could be about a type of animal for Science.

Vocabulary words in math.

A biography about someone they've studied.

The possibilities are endless.

If you would like to purchase the handout I created for students that goes along with this project go on over to my TPT store and check it out.

The One That Failed

I don't know about you, but I think posts with pictures are so much better than posts without.  That is my excuse for not posting in awhile.  I get so busy during the day that I simply forget to take pictures.  Does that happen to anyone else?

A lack of pictures keeps me from posting what is happening in my classroom.  Toady I decided to just post anyway.

I did a lab Monday that did not quite go as planned.  Please tell me that has happened to you.  The frustrating part is that it is a lab that I've done for several years and have done successfully for several years.

The question we were testing was "Which brand of dishwasher soap makes the biggest bubbles?" as we practiced collecting data to make bar graphs.

You can find this lab here. I think I've done this lab every year for the past six years.  It has worked beautifully every year.  Students love blowing huge bubbles.  They forget they are learning.

This year it was an absolute flop.  We couldn't get any decent bubbles going.  It was awful.  The students still had fun "playing" and we talked about what should have been.  We were still able to answer some of the questions and talk about the bar graph.  It just wasn't quite as fun.

I was so frustrated.  I have no idea what went wrong this year.

The One With the Ketchup Lab

The One With The Tour

Well.  I have three days of this school year under my belt.  They've been chaotic, but good days.  I think I've got a great group of students again this year.  I'm really excited about getting to share my love of books with them this year.

I procrastinated a bit and didn't get my room finished until Saturday night.  I made sure to take pictures so that I could share with you.

You are hit with owls before you ever walk in the door.

  I made the wreath by hot gluing pompoms onto a Styrofoam wreath.

 The chalkboard owl was bought from www.zulily.com.

The welcome mat is from Lowe's.   

Sorry the pictures are dark.  The lights in our hallway were off as it was late Saturday night.

 This is the view when you walk in the door

 I absolutely love this canvas.  I found it at Kirklands for $20. It was perfect to fill this blank space that I still had left.

 Front of my room - my white board with my own two class rules and my stool painted by my incredibly talented cousin.  My rules are a pinterest find.  I even ended up using the same colors.

 I hate bulletin boards with a passion.  I guess that's a true sign that I'm not an elementary teacher. :)  I prefer to do things that I can use all year.  I am not one to change it out throughout the year.  This year I chose to use it as a place to display our agenda.  The boarder was another pinterest find.

 This is my area.  You can see my teacher toolbox there on the mini fridge.  The pink owl above it is a cork board that I found in the dollar bins at Target.  The blue owl is a picture frame.  Love it!!

 My reading corner.  I gave it an uplift with the purple paint this year.  I love this bit of color.  It really pops in my room.

 The back wall holds my bookshelves.  Each book has a color circle on the spine that lets students know the genre of the book.  The poster outlined in pink is a key for the genres.

 My sweet grandma sewed these little "curtains" to hide computer cables.  I love them!!  

 My reading tree.  You can see some close up pictures of it here. 

This might be my favorite pinterest find.  It was originally designed to display artist.  I'm using it to display different authors.  It's the one "bulletin board" that I'm excited to change out every month.  The pictures below Mr. Kinney's pictures are his "friends".  I chose to use authors that inspired him as his friends.  The middle is a few facts I found about him.  Some of his books are displayed on the right.  My students absolutely love this aspect of my room.  They are already guessing and requesting future authors.

My photo gallery.  These frames contain different pictures of owls and sayings.  I made the fabric bunting at the top.  There are more curtains.

Notice the saying above the door?  Here is a better picture.

Those letters are fabric that I ironed onto the wall.  Yet another pinterest find that I absolutely love.  You simply iron heatbond onto the back of your fabric and then iron it to the wall.  The possibilities are endless.  My friend and coteacher did a flamingo and a palm tree to iron on her wall.  It's really awesome.

So there you have it.  Thank you for touring my room.  

The One With Preparation

I have 100 followers.  I never could have dreamed there would be that many people who cared about what I do in my classroom.  I'm humbled and honored beyond words.  I started this blog as a way to reflect for myself.  I thought it would be a great place to record what was going on in my classroom where I could go back and look to see what worked or didn't work.  I'm glad some of you have found something you like and can enjoy with your students.

Tomorrow is my first back to school workshop.  Though I knew it would, I can't believe how quickly this summer has gone by.  I feel like it has been a good one.  I've relaxed and had plenty of down time, but at the same time I've accomplished quite a bit for my classroom.

The past couple of days I have been preparing lab activities for Science.  It's pretty easy since we are doing the same set up as we did last year with students switching classes between my co-teacher and myself.  It seemed to work really well.  We doubled our test scores.  You can read more about what we did here.

Preparing is as simple as going back and deciding which lab activities I want to keep and which ones I want to toss.  I'm trying some new activities this year that I'm really excited about.  When it comes to searching for lab activities, there are two sites that are my go-to sites.  I don't know what I would do without them.  I'm sure you've known about them for years, but maybe you are new to the world of teaching science and you are lost the way I was several years ago.

The first site is www.science-class.net. and the second one is sciencespot.net.  They both have tons of lab activities and are organized by subject.  If you haven't already I encourage you to check them out.  You won't be sorry.

The One With Weebly

A few years ago some of my good friends at proteacher inspired me to create a website for my students and their parents. I spent hours that summer scouring the Internet, choosing the right site, and creating my web page. My students loved it!  It was a dream come true.  Unfortunately like most things the enthusiasm died down 2nd semester and by the end of the year we were no longer using the site.

Then I was switched from history to math - man I switch a lot!  I never changed my website.  Let's just say that particular group of students did not create a desire in my to go above and beyond the call of duty.  This past year when I wanted to get up and running again it had for some reason become a blocked site at school.  That is when I chose to use Edmodo.

I became pumped about Edmodo.  It was going to be the perfect alternative.  Turns out, it wasn't.  My students LOVED it, but there were just things about it that drove me crazy.  They viewed it more as getting to use facebook at school than as an educational tool.  I just never got passed that with them.  We had stopped using it by Christmas break.

Our technology person as since unblocked my original website and I'm spending yet another summer working on it getting it ready for my students.  And I can't wait!!  I'm already writing wonderful blog post in my head for them to respond to.  I really believe it is going to be a great tool for teaching ELA.  Determined to not let the fizzle die, I'm trying to come up with things to add as the year goes on so that there is constantly something new and exciting for students to explore.

Though it is still very much so a work in progress, I wanted to share the site with you.  If you don't have a class webpage and are looking for something easy to use, I strongly suggest weebly.  It has been extremely simple for me to create and for my students to navigate.

If you have a moment, check out www.weaversclass.weebly.com and let me know what you think.  If you have a class web page already, I love to peruse your site as well.  Let's share our ideas.  After all, isn't that what we teachers do best?

The One With The Questions

I'm excited to say that I've been tagged by the 24/7 teacher. I'll admit I'm a bit of a nerd and I love stuff like this.

Here are the rules:

*Post the rules.
*Post 12 fun facts about yourself in the post.
*Answer the questions the tagger set for you in their post, and then create 12 new questions for the people you tagged.
*Tag 12 people and link them on your post.
*Let them know you've tagged them



So here we go with those 12 fun facts.

1. Married to my best friend! He's the best.
2. Momma to two sweet dogs.
3. Obsessed with owls.
4. Love to read and am rediscovery a love for young adult novels as I read recommendations made by my students.
5. Scrapbooking is one of my favorite past times.
6. Dream of being a photographer.
7. Deathly afraid of snakes.
8. Cry every time I go to the dentist, even for a cleaning.
9. Have been mistaken for a student and a student-teacher by two different subs in the past week
10. Taylor Swift fan
11. Don't eat marinara sauce on my pizza.
12. Said all my life I would never teach the very two subjects I'm currently teaching and loving.


Now on to the questions asked of me by the 24/7 Teacher.

1. Favorite part of Monday? Hearing about what my students did over the weekend
2. Favorite part of Tuesday? Spending time at home with the husband. Tuesday seems to be the only day of the week we are both home all night.
3. Favorite part of Wednesday? Zumba class!
4. Favorite part of Thursday? Watching The Office with the husband
5. Favorite part of Friday? 3:15 :) I LOVE my job but I also look forward to time with the husband every weekend. Our weeks are normally pretty busy.
6. Favorite part of Saturday? Saturday morning breakfast runs with Liam Bailey (my puppy)
7. Favorite part of Sunday? Church & Sunday naps
8. Favorite part of Spring? Bright colors and skirts.
9. Favorite part of Summer? Finding great ideas and preparing for the upcoming school year
10. Favorite part of Fall? Razorback football
11. Favorite part of Winter? Scarfs & Hot Chocolate
12. Favorite part of your school day? Getting to brag on my students because they've succeeded at something that started as a struggle.


I'm supposed to tag 12 of you, but to be honest I don't know if I know 12 of you that haven't already been tagged. If you read this please consider yourself tagged and play along. Leave me a comment letting me know you are playing. I would love to get to know some of you better.

Here are your questions to answer.

1. Favorite TV Show?
2. Favorite TV or Movie Character?
3. Favorite Children's book?
4. Most unusual name of a student you've had?
5. One thing you couldn't live without in your classroom?
6. Dream vacation?
7. To go or eat in the restaurant?
8. Milkshake or Malt?
9. Facebook or Twitter?
10. Favorite band?
11. Sweet or Unsweet tea?
12.See a movie in theater or wait until it comes out on dvd?

The One With the Bonus Points

I am not a big fan of extra credit in the classroom. I believe if students are doing what they are supposed to in the classroom on a regular basis, there will not be a need for it.

However, every once in awhile I will give my students an opportunity to earn a few bonus points. Today was one of those days. They had a particularly hard TLI test today. I can't tell you how many students were struggling with it. I really believe it was the wording of the questions that stumped them. I know they know this stuff. All that to say that today was the perfect day for what I had planned.

I do several things in my classroom that I learned from my 4th grade teacher. Those things I remember doing and loving in her class. Every once in awhile she would randomly put post-its on a few test. These post-its had little things for us to do to earn some bonus points on our test.


So today I randomly planted 8 (I have about 85 students) post-it notes on my students' math test. Each post-it activity was worth five points. They say things like "do 5 jumping jacks for 5 bonus points", "hop like a frog while saying ribbit", or "sing your abc's backwards". Lots of fun things to make us laugh in the middle of what is a stressful moment for some students.

Out of the 8 students who received post-its, only 4 were willing to perform for us today. The rules are that it is completely their choice rather or not they do the activity. I won't make anyone stand up and doing something like that. However, if they choose not to do it, they can't pass it to someone else. It's theirs to take or leave.

The students loved it. It was definitely a little fun that was much needed today.

The One With The Atmsophere

**This post is without pictures. I can't get my iPad to cooperate and I'm tired of letting it sit in my drafts. Sorry.


We have officially started our unit on weather. This might be one of my favorite units. It really lends itself to hands on "in the field" observations. It is something the students find useful because they can largely see how weather impacts their every day life.

We always start with our atmosphere. Students learn the different layers of the atmosphere and their characteristics.

Today we did a scale model of the layers of the atmosphere using a meter stick, colored pencils, and adding machine tape. My students really enjoy this activity and as the teacher I love the visual it provides them.

All you need is adding machine tape, colored pencils, and meter sticks.

I measured and cut the adding tape ahead of time. Each person or group (I have done this with both options) needs a strip of tape that measures 3.5 meters. For me it was just easier to do this step for them.

I'm always a fan of lessons that allow my students to get out of their seat and move around. For this particular lab, my students were down in the floor measuring. They loved it! I loved it!

They are able to practice the skills of following directions and measuring which is great.

You can find this activity here. I will tell you though, my students find these directions a little confusion. I have taken some things out and simplified the directions slightly. I've done it both ways for several years and honestly find that we have less problems with my simpler version. You might be able to help me and clarify the original version.

If you would like my version shoot me an email. I would be happy to share it with you.

The One With the Homework Menu

Thursday...7th grade away football game that night and students are asking me for math homework, saying it's fun.

How did I do it? I gave them the power to choose their homework. I almost feel like I tricked my students into liking math when my real goal was differentiation.

I used to hate that word. Did they really expect me to make 28 different lesson plans for my 28 very different students? Yes. To some extent, they did.

Awhile back I heard about this great way to differentiate with homework. I've been meaning to try it and finally pulled it out of my bag of tricks last week.

The idea is that you give the students several homework problems, assigning a point value to each problem. For example you give them 40 problems. 1-10 are the easiest so they are worth 2 points each. 11 - 20 are worth 3 points each. 21 - 30 are 4 points and 31-40 being the hardest are worth 5 points each.

I then tell my students how many points they have to collect. The first time I did this students had to collect 35 points and I gave bonus up to 45 if they went over. I won't do the bonus every time, but I was also trying to help their grades a little.

The other thing I told my students was that I was counting how many points they earned not how many points they miss. So if they did 40 points worth of problems and one of those was a 5 pointer that they missed, they could still make a 100 % because they had 35 points.

I really hope all this makes sense. I struggle to explain what we are doing. Don't hesitate to ask if you are unsure what I'm talking about. :)

I'm thrilled to tell you that I had more students turn in homework than ever before. The majority of them did well over the 35 point minimum.

They absolutely loved it and begged to have more homework the very next day.

And all I was doing was differentiating. The idea is that your advance students can be challenged by the harder problems and not have to work as many. Your weaker students will do the easy ones, but that means they have to do more problems getting the practice they need.

I may never do homework any other way. Try it and let me know how it works for you.

The One With the T-Shirts

Have you ever given one of those assignments and thought, "This will suffice."? That is exactly where I found myself a few weeks ago. We were studying plants and comparing the different parts of a plant to the human reproductive system. Oh the joys of teaching 7th grade Science. One of the things I'm supposed to do is help my students dissect a flower.

Confession: In my 5 years of teaching science, I've only done this once before this year. Oops! Plants just aren't my thing. I know that's no reason to completely skip a framework, but hey I figured one skipped framework wasn't THAT big of a deal.

This year though, I was determined. I was going to teach those kids plants like they were my favorite thing, like I live for plants! I had to come up with two different lab activities to do with my students. Day one consisted of going to the computer lab to virtually dissect a plant. Can I just say virtual dissections ROCK! We did that on this website. It worked out great! I created an easy how to worksheet with a few questions for my students to work through. The site says this particular lab was designed for 9-10 year olds, but it worked great with my 7th graders. You can find my handout on this lab in my TPT store.

So that lab went great, but I had no idea what I was going to do for Day 2. I was scouring the Internet for ideas at the last minute.

*Sidenote - please tell me I'm not the only procrastinating teacher!

In the back of my mind was this idea I had come across on another blog. I loved the idea of using t-shirts. Then it hit me!!

My students designed a plant tee! This has definitely become one of my favorite assignments. It's in the bank for future use. They had to draw a flower and label 11 different parts that I listed for them. Their shirt had to be completely colored.

When they saw the name of the lab on the board as they walked in, they all thought they were getting real t-shirts. Disappointment filled my classroom when they realized it was a paper shirt. They were all claiming they would have worn them to school if they had been real. HA! I admit I was a little disappointment too....until I saw the end result. I just don't think they would have been this beautiful if we had used real shirts.

While they were working I took their pictures. We cut out their t-shirts (a template I found online), attached their heads and they are now adorning our hallway walls.

I wasn't real sure how much to zoom on the pictures so some t-shirts have BIG heads and some have really little heads. The kids just think this is hilarious. It added to our love of the assignment.

Every teacher that has walked by my room has oohed and awed over the shirts. I wanted to share a few of my favorites with you. It was hard to pick. I'd love to show you all ninety-something shirts, but I'll spare you. :)

I apolagize for the poor picture quality.

The One With TPT

I did it. I finally opened a store at TPT. It seems a little weird to think that someone might pay for something that I made. But you all have been so kind in showing interested to the things I have shared here on the blog.

So far the only things in the store are the Ordering Integers and M&M Observations that I posted about previously. Hopefully as the school year goes on my store will grow.

We shall see. If you would like to visit the store click here.

The One With The Five Minute Game

Several years ago I heard about this game at a workshop. I've kept it tucked away in the back of my brain and have used it a few times. My math classes played it yesterday so I thought I would share it with you.

Though I'm not 100% sure, I think the game is called Round Table. That is what I remember, but like I said, I learned about it several years ago. I have desk this year instead of tables, so we called it Straight Line. Original right? The kids thought it was funny.

This game can be played with any subject matter. I've played it in history before as well. Each row or table is a team. The only materials you need are a piece of paper, pencil for each student, and a stopwatch or clock with a second hand. The paper starts with the person at the front of the row. You present the teams with a question that has several answers. For example, yesterday they had to list multiples of 6. The first person writes down an answer and then passes it to the person behind him. They do this until it gets to the last person in the row. This is where I thought having rows was more fun than tables. The last person then runs it back to the first person.

Don't worry I had them put all their stuff at the front of the room so that aisles were clear.

The rules:
*No talking.
*No heping each other.
*You must write an answer before you can pass to the next person.
*You cannot change some one's answer.

The team with the most correct answers at the end of the set time (I usually give them one minute) is the winner.

Like I said, this game can be played with any subject. Here are a few more ideas off the top of my head.

Math: Multiples, Factors, Two #s that have a sum or difference of ?

Science: Elements from the periodic table, Bones, Muscles, Organs

English: Adverbs, Nouns, Pronouns, Adjectives, Prepositions

History: States, Capitals, Presidents

The ideas really are endless. It's great for the first or last few minutes of class. I would love to hear other questions that can be used in this game.

The One With M&M's.

Observations are very important in Science. We make them all time. One of the things I do at the beginning of each year is to help my students become aware of the observations they make throughout every day.

A favorite lab activity that I like to start each year with is M&M Observations. Students work in pairs for this activity. Depending on your class size, you could have students do this individually as well.

Each pair is given a petri dish and is asked to choose two different colored M&M's. This is part of the reason I like to allow students to work in pairs for this particular activity. They can each choose a color.

At this point, we state the question for today's activity. What will happen when we place two different colored M&M in water? Students write down their predictions as I walk around and fill their petri dishes with water.

Students are then instructed to inspect their M&M's to make sure there is a M on each one...or at least something, doesn't have to be the complete the M. If there is nothing there, I replace their M&M.

They then place the two M&M's M side up in opposite sides of the petri dish. All that is left at this point is to wait and watch. I ask students to draw with colored pencils what they are observing. We then talk about what happened and how different colors act differently. One of our favorite observations is that the M comes off and most often floats in the water. That is a big discussion. What in the world is that M made of? I let them make their guesses, but I never tell them. I have only had one student guess correctly in all the times I've done this activity. Their homework for the evening is to research what the M is made of.

I'll go ahead and tell you...it's wax.

It's a fun little activity. If you would like a copy of my lab sheet for this activity, email me and I will be happy to email you a copy.

The One With Team Teaching

Something new is taking place in 7th grade Science this year. It is something that has me giddy with excitement. I will be team teaching with a very sweet coteacher.

The idea was first introduced by our principal and has been revamped several times over the summer. The idea came from my coteacher being new to Science. She is very nervous about it. The original plan was that we would divide the frameworks, each teaching half, and trade students at semester. I was thrilled with this idea. My coteacher, Mrs. C, was as well. She really didn't want to teach life science since it includes reproduction 7th grade.

Over the past few weeks, I've been at a workshop with other science teachers. There were two ladies there who started team teaching last year. They did thinks a little bit different. Their method raised their test scores a little more than 20% and helped with their literacy scores.

That's it. I was sold! I talked to my principal and Mrs. C and we are following in their footsteps this year.

We will be focusing on vocabulary. Let's face it, if a students doesn't know what asexual reproduction is, how can we expect them to answer a test question about it? She will have "her students" (those scheduled in her class) on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. She will have my students on Tuesday and Thursday.

Here is what it will look like... Her students walk into her room Monday morning. There are a list of vocabulary words and definitions on the board. They copy them into their notebook as their bell work. They then talk about those words and do literacy activities to help enforce the definitions.

On Tuesday her students come to my room. They take an open book quiz on those vocab words. The idea isn't to have them memorize 6-8 words the night before, but to get them to see the words over and over. After the quiz, we will do a lab activity that again reinforces those words. Mrs. C. is doing the same thing she did Monday, but with my kids who did this lab on Monday.

They copy down vocab words and quiz in both rooms.

Same idea happens on Wednesday and Thursday, but with a new set of words.

On Friday they take a test on the words and have AR time.

That's the plan in a nutshell. I'm pretty excited about it.

There is a word wall that goes with it as well, but I'll save that for another post.