1st Project Presentation: Lab Safety Animation

We have been working on our Lab Safety Animation project for almost 3 weeks now! Today it has finally ended with their presentations and I am QUITE pleased with the outcomes! The students were required to incorporate the misuse of 3 science tools and show 3 corrections using safety equipment and logical science safety practices. Here is one presentation: http://goanimate.com/videos/04jL1kP-kc0M

Lab Safety Project Challenge Brief Delivery

The first content related project my students will be working on is about Lab safety and Science tools. As the launch I will be showing the Lego Lab Safety video from YouTube. Then I will present the challenge brief and criteria through this comic I made on www.goanimate.com Here it is! Lab Safety Project Challenge Brief by Mrs. Nichols on GoAnimate

It's PBL Time, Baby!!!!!

Lots of things have happened over the summer....moved to a new city, moved into my first house, got a new job, and going to be teaching in a whole new way! I am now teaching at a fine arts magnet school that uses Project Based Learning! I've been exploring Google Docs and created a little video about PBL! This is through PowToons.

Dinosaurs Galore!

After visiting the Natural Science and History museum, my students were buzzing about dinosaurs. I figured I could engage and target all my boys by doing this theme so we did several fun activities with dinosaurs! First off, the PBSkids show "Dinosaur Train" was my main hub for dinosaur videos/games. Of course, the kids were hooked on the little characters and enjoyed the animation. The "Field Guide" allowed me to introduce various dinosaurs everyday that the students really loved to learn about. They were most taken aback by how large or small dinosaurs were.

I read aloud the first Magic Tree House book "Dinosaurs Before Dark." Mary Pope Osborne uses very rich vocabulary, so as a class we chose words that we didn't know, defined them, and wrote them in a circle map.

I also created a Brace Map to break up the parts of the Mesozoic Era. While looking at dinosaurs on the Dinosaur Train Field Guide, we classified each dinosaur in each Period (Triassic, Jurassic, Cretaceous). I would have extended the Map into a Tree Map for the classification of Biped/Quadruped, however, there wasn't enough room on the paper so I just left it at that. Here is a picture.

I also had the students write a compare and contrast essay for animals that look like dinosaurs. The students had a lot of fun doing this one.  I first explained what a Double Bubble was by comparing the Ankylosaurus to the Armadillo. I showed a picture on the Activboard so the students could share with their partners what they observe.

Remember, the colors are purposeful in Thinking Maps! After we did this, I handed the students a picture of a dinosaur/animal. They then carefully produced their Double Bubbles and filled in the information.  The kids worked so hard and were so engaged, it was actually very quiet! I think lightbulbs went off in their heads about animal ancestry but I'll leave it at that. Here are some examples.

This was the first time I had introduced a Double Bubble to them and they did a great job! Once we finished those, I modeled how to use the information from my Pre-writing Double Bubble to write the Compare/Contrast Essay. I always remind them, "You already did the hard work! Just take exactly what you wrote on your Map and write in your journal." And they always say, "OHHHHHH." Haha, makes them feel better. Anyway, After modeling how to write the essay, I turned it over to the kiddos to write a rough draft, then final draft. They did such a great job and were so proud of themselves, we chose this writing selection to go into the Permanent Folder as part of their First Grade Portfolio. And since I already started on those folders, the writing examples are filed away, so no pictures. 

A fun little activity we also did was a reading response activity with the book Dinosaurs Love Underpants. This fiction story is HILARIOUS and gives and absurd theory of why the dinosaurs became extinct....because they fought over each other's underwear!!!! The kids were cracking up the whole time I read this story and while they were doing the activity. For the activity, I created a worksheet with a pair on undies on them. They had to decorate their undies and use adjectives to describe their undies. Some came out super cute! Check them out.

I had a lot of fun teaching this unit. Next one: SPACE!!!!

Gardening

We are blessed to have a gardening area with plots at the back of our school! I couldn't wait to have hands on fun in the dirt growing and learning about plants and their parts. However, the garden had not been touched in two years and long grass had taken over!!! On a beautiful afternoon last week, I spent two hours clearing half of a plot so we could have a class garden. Unfortunately no shovel could be found in the school, so I was deduced to using a spade! Let's just say my battle wounds speak for how hard I worked!
I went to Lowe's to buy some soil and flowers. The cashier was so amazing and gave me an awesome discount since I was a teacher. He made my day! Especially because I was paying for everything out of pocket.
The next day I took the kids out to plant the flowers and herbs I bought the night before. I got a cute idea from Pinterest to plant a vertical herb garden with clay pots, so we planted those first. Then we planted rows of flowers in the plot. I had an awesome time! By looking at some of the kids faces in the pictures, several of them did NOT... And they certainly let me know it (It's hot, my hands are dirty, grass is itchy, when's recess...)! After 5 days, the flowers and herbs are still alive!!! More photos to come... I'm thinking of planting vegetables!

Research: Insects! Part 3

Piggy-backing off the "Butterfly" Brainpop Jr. Video, we made a butterfly life cycle flow craft(if that makes any sense). I had them color a butterfly, cut it in half, and glue a folded, long piece of Manila paper to glue the life cycle on. I tested each student by having them describe the life cycle to me using correct vocabulary and ideas. They were hooked and begged me to let them play with the butterflies outside.. Haha it was cute.

Research: Insects! Part 2

Alright, after we picked important information from books, I wanted to teach them the absolutely invaluable ability to take notes from a video! With a little preparation and watching the Brainpop Jr "Butterflies" video a few times, I chose 8 important statements and ideas from the video, typed them up, but left a word out/blank in each sentence. I put a word bank at the bottom as a "solution station" for the kids so all kids can succeed.
With the kids, I warned them ahead of time that we will be watching the same video about 5 times so no complaining! The first time I played it, I told them to watch it for fun. The second time, they were in charge of listening for important information which they had to discuss with their tablemates. Of course I had one student represent each table to share one important thing they discussed from the video. After that, the third time they were in charge of telling me when to stop the video when they heard something important. I warned them it was the ONLY time they could interrupt/talk during a video.
Then I passed out the papers with fill in the blank facts. We read over each statement to set a purpose for listening/watching. I introduced the word bank at the bottom and what it was for. Then we watched the movie a fourth time and they were in charge of telling me to stop when they heard the statement or idea in the video. They were NOT allowed to write any answers down during this time. Once the video finished, I let them loose to fill in the blank for each fact INDEPENDENTLY. Most students were very successful and were very excited they "did work like the big kids do." I had them glue the paper in their science journals and draw a diagram of a butterfly.

Research: Insects!

Research curriculum is always planned for the end of a school year. The kids know how to read better and some may be learning from what they read. The first way I presented the topic is how to choose which information is important while reading, why it is important, and what to do with the information once it is chosen.
Of course I started by modeling my thoughts out loud while reading a book about bumble bees. I used three sticky notes to write down three things I thought were important and why. Then we did it together while reading a book about bumble bees (they talked in partners and we all decided what information was important). Then I split them up into groups (each group had a different book) and they were in charge of reading/listening the whole book. Once read, I went by and discussed with each group what 3 things they thought were important. Then I handed each student 3 sticky notes to write down what their group decided what was important (they all decided and wrote the same things, but had a choice to write something different if desired). Each student was responsible for reading and writing to ensure all students were participating. Once I did this with all groups, we regrouped on the carpet. I told the students to choose one sticky (piece of information) that they would like to present to the class with a corresponding diagram or picture. Remember, they had to tell me WHY the sticky was important. The kids worked well together (with a class of 25...18 of them being boys this was a big celebration!) and they learned a little bit about presenting to an audience!

Rainbow Fun!

I love lots of color! So naturally I love teaching my students about rainbows. On Monday, we started a KWL chart and discussed what we would like to learn about rainbows. We practiced asking questions (learning how to research) and reviewed how to ask a good question. I shaped my anchor chart into a question mark and wrote the question words on that.
On Tuesday, we learned about ROY G BIV. We read a poem, cut it out, and glued it on a piece of black construction paper. We also made the boy, ROY G BIV, with a Mohawk (of course the boys LOVED that).
On Wednesday we read another poem, and made a rainbow out of tissue paper.
On Thursday, we drew a rainbow and glued fruit loops to them. Then we counted how many loops we used for each color and graphed them by using tally marks an bar graphs. The kids used their vocabulary skills to answer questions about least, greatest, fewer, less than, etc.
All of their work brightened our room and made us excited for April!

Vegetable Sensory Poems

We have been learning about sensory details in poetry to enhance our writing. So, to get the kids interested I used food as an example! To model I wrote a poem about a vegetable I cannot stand, beets! Then we wrote a poem as a class about a vegetable we all love, corn. Then I let the kids loose to write their own sensory poems. Here are their final products. Some are super cute.

Class pets-tad poles!

It's that time of year to learn about life cycles, and this year we received tad poles in the mail! I surprised the kiddos and their reactions were of amazement and disgust! It was so funny!!! I'm happy these kids get to experience a "pet." We will be watching their transformation with excitement! One already has legs!

100th day fun!

We had our 100th day a few days ago and we had fun counting to 100 in all kinds of ways, writing 100 words, using fun manipulatives to count to 100, and drawing 100 items.