Thanks to what I learned while taking a great class from Michael Grinder mid-career, I have dedicated different parts of my classroom to a unique purpose. I find this gives students a nonverbal clue that helps them make sense of our environment. When anyone is standing or sitting in the front of the room, we are sharing information or instructions for an activity. We’re focused on the presenter. We might be discussing, clarifying, or sharing with each other. When I’m sitting at the small table by my desk, I’m working with a small group of students. The rest of the group is working on an activity I’ve already …
Here’s a concise list of key strategies for you to consider as you deepen your effectiveness in the classroom. Thanks to Samantha Cleaver at Scholastic.com Do you have other suggestions for being an effective teacher?
I just added a new product to my store at TPT, Plants have Parts!  It features a wealth of resources including the lesson plan, PowerPoint presentations, movies, copyright free images, worksheets, a student booklet, assessments, and a web page with more resources. Check it out! I’ve also uploaded freebies – seek-a-word puzzles for plant parts and seek-a-word puzzles for fruits that students often confuse with vegetables. Are you interested in integrating plants and language arts? Consider Jack Prelutsky’s poems “The Cherries’ Garden Gala” or “I’d Never Eat a Beet” from his book New Kid on the Block. You might create an ABC book for plants. Here’s a list …
Do your students need to practice a basic math skill? Do you want them to be more confident using that skill Would you like to send a game home so students can practice math with family members? While playing a Memory Game, students match up numbers with names, computation problems with their answers, fractions with their equivalents and much, much more! Print a set of cards and an answer key, zip both in a bag, and you have an easy to store game that’s an excellent way to spend a few minutes in class, review an important skill, or reward carefully completed work. When you create games …
How is it possible I can buy dice and somehow they evaporate over time? I know it’s rare for a solid to sublimate into a gas, but every June I end up with far fewer dice than I had in September. And the ones I have can be in pretty bad shape. I hesitate to send dice home with math games because I know they don’t always come back to school. Many of my math games require dice so here’s my suggestion for you: use a six sided pencil! A student sharpens a pencil until it’s too short to sharpen. Do you …
Are your students learning about the life cycle of a frog, bird, bug, whale, or cat? Are you collecting resources to meet NGSS 3-LS1-1? (Develop models to describe that organisms have unique and diverse life cycles but all have in common birth, growth, reproduction, and death.) With this FREE product, students cut apart squares that represent the stages in an animal’s life, glue them back-to-back with a piece of string between the images, and then suspend the images in a spiral from an embroidery hoop or a loop make from a folded piece of construction paper. Choose from blackline images, color images, or blank …
Teaching a unit about force? Poetry can be a great addition to your science resources. Read about ten ways to use poetry in your classroom from Reading Rockets. In addition to my list of poetry by Shel Silverstein, here are suggestions for poems you might consider sharing with your students. The Butterfly Jar, Jeff Moss force: “London Bridge” A Pizza the Size of the Sun, Jack Prelutsky buoyancy: “We Often Walk on Water” magnetism: “I’m Practically Covered with Needles and Pins” Something Big has Been Here, Jack Prelutsky force: “The Turkey Shot Out of the Oven” These could support activities …
It’s 1985 and I’m a “new to science” teacher. The principal and the parents haven’t expected me to teach science, just the basics, so that’s what I’ve been doing. Then a life changing event occurs. Marie came to see me to talk about her son and offered to teach anatomy. Sure, I’m not teaching science, why not let her? Students who couldn’t pass a spelling test learn how to spell the muscles she was explaining. (Did you know the levator anguli oris, levator labii superioris, orbicularis oculi, risorius, zygomaticus major, and zygomaticus minor make it possible for you to smile?) Students who couldn’t focus in my lessons focus during hers. I …
While teaching a university class, my teacher participants asked me about strategies for learning new science vocabulary. What resources could be used to help students learn key words for a new science topic? I created a set of cards for a variety of topics that have an image, a simple definition in English, and the term in English, Spanish, Vietnamese, and Russian. You can choose from: astronomy, birds, wild cats, frogs, geology, insects, motion, weather, and whales. Consider these other resources: Increasing vocabulary is an accomplishment. Celebrate mastery of every word!– Marilee Sprenger in Education Week Teacher Rigorous and meaningful vocabulary activities can …
Do you find a page from NGSS with several standards and the Science and Engineering Practices, and the Disciplinary Core Ideas, AND the Crosscutting Concepts all on one page to be a bit overwhelming?? Consider downloading the Evidence Statements. What are Evidence Statements? They are resources you’ll find at the Next Generation Science Standards web site.          In the pages shown above, you can see four physical science standards from third grade are saved on four different pages. Notice the grey boxes at the bottom of each page? That’s the  “Observable features of the student performance by …
