The Science Fair

Did you ever do the science fair when you were in school? I did, and I hated it. I hated it, because I was a major procrastinator and waited till the last minute to do my project, which meant it wasn’t that great. One thing I do remember liking about it though was that my dad helped me. We may have slapped it together last minute, but we still did it. 

When I first started at my school, I knew I was taking on a lot with three grade levels. What I didn’t know was that I was also in charge of organizing our school’s science fair. It made sense. I mean, the science fair is for grades 3-6 and I teach grades 4-6. So, like most things, I jumped right in.

Each year, I give my students a planning packet and a list of project ideas that cost less than $10, as well as, a link to a website with more involved experiments, and a display board. In the planning packet, students have a timeline with dates for their project. I meet with each student on these days to discuss their project, provide feedback, and make suggestions. I do this because I am reminded every year of my mastery of procrastinating as a preteen, and I don’t want my students to follow in my footsteps (though there are still a few). So, at the end of nearly 12 weeks, I am pretty familiar with 24 experiments, and am excited to see boards and hear presentations.

On the day of the science fair, students come prepared to present. They are always nervous, so we practice presenting several times in the morning. I go over presenting skills and model what this should look like. At noon, they set up their projects for our judges to preview before presentations.

We are very fortunate to have volunteer judges from the bio pharmaceutical company, Takeda, and one retired computer scientist from the military. These judges work, or have worked, in a science field and it is awesome that my students get to interact with them. It’s an opportunity for them to hear about future careers in science. 

Our judges do two rounds. Round 1 involves all grades 3-6. Judges are assigned clusters of students, and from their cluster they pick their top two based on rubric scores. Round 2 is our finalists. The judges have a less involved rubric here and listen to all finalists before selecting the winners. Everyone puts in so much time and effort into the science fair each year, and even though it is a stressful assignment for many, it is worth it.  

Field Trips

I love field trips. They are a lot of work and can be really stressful, but it really is worth it. I always try to book field trips around my curriculum. You can see some of my past field trips here and here.

Every other year, I take my students on an overnight trip. It’s an incredible experience and I really enjoy going. The place we’ve gone in the past was affected by a fire in the area a few years ago. They’re rebuilding, but it didn’t look like they were going to be ready for students this year so we went somewhere else.

The camp we went to this year was pretty amazing. It was a lot more space and science oriented. The first activity my students participated in was zip lining! This activity wasn’t just for students, though! All the teachers and chaperones participated, making it a great bonding activity.

While at this camp we learned a lot about energy, space, light, and rockets. We also went on a night hike, looked through telescopes, and built rockets. Of course, we launched them before we left 😉

It was a wonderful three day trip and I am so thankful for the experience.

#clearthelist

Have you heard about this movement? It was started by a teacher in Texas with the idea that teachers would be able to support each other with classroom supplies. It has turned into something so much bigger.

Thousands of teachers have been sharing, posting, and tweeting their amazon wishlists for classroom support. So many people, including celebrities, have really taken this on and our helping teachers 'Clear the List'.

I've had an amazon wishlist for my classroom for over year. I've been adding things to the list that I wanted, but just couldn't afford. By the time school started, everything off my list had been purchased by friends, family, and people on twitter. It was incredible!

First items off my list!

On average, teachers spend nearly $500 of their own money on supplies for their classrooms. Some districts will reimburse teachers for the money they spend on supplies, but not all do and the amount reimbursed isn't always equal to the amount you spend. It's usually less.

This movement has really helped alleviate stress for so many teachers around the country, but the people it benefits the most are the students.

If you'd like to support a teacher search #clearthelist on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram and find a wishlist for a teacher in need!

FanCACTUS!

Every year I do a classroom theme. I've done Harry Potter, Narnia, and Roald Dahl. My table groups are always named after characters or books, and the first week activities relate to the theme. 

This year my theme is Cactus. My table groups are Barrel Cactus, Queen of the Night, Prickly Pear, and Succulent. 

Everyone received a special cactus eraser on the first day of school, and our first art project of the year was mixed media art. 

I'm also putting cactus facts in my monthly newsletter. 

Overall, I thought it was a great start to the school year and my students seem to like it. 

Not pictured is my new flat panel. I'll post all about that later!

Aside from all things cactus, I decided to try to do more STEAM this year. If you're wondering what STEAM is, go ahead and click HERE for more info. 

In a nutshell, STEAM is learning that includes science, technology, engineering, art and math. I'm trying to do STEAM Fridays, but it's expensive so I've been asking my families for donations. 

Building structures with marshmallows
and toothpicks

We made rockets using paper, tape, and straws.
They loved seeing how far they could launch
them. 

Slowly but surely, the supplies we need have been coming in and my students love the hands on actives we've been able to do so far this year. 

That's all for now! Not sure how often I'll be sharing this year. Having a toddler and teaching has made blogging more challenging! 

So, until next time!

What’d you miss?

It’s been a really long time! I wrote this post back in June 2018 and forgot post it. I’m posting now and will follow up with the upcoming school year soon.

6/10/2018
I realized this morning I hadn’t posted since November! A lot has happened in my classroom since I wrote about this year’s social studies.

On December 5th, our county was ravaged by the Thomas Fire. Being close to the start of the fire, my school was closed for five weeks. Families were evacuated, battled flames, and one lost everything. It was a very emotional holiday, followed by yet more fear and anxiety with the rains that caused all the mudslides in January.

Coming back to school after the fires and dealing with the rain was challenging, as my students were stressed and scared. Still, we tried to make the best of our returning situation. We had our school Spelling Bee, Science Fair, auditions for the school musical, and the 5th/6th grade Outdoor School Trip all by the end February.

Outdoor School was wonderful. We went on hikes and sang at campfires, but again the rains came and we had to leave camp early due to possible mudslides. My students and I were sad to leave, but thankful we were able to attend even for the short amount of time we went.

This year’s musical was The Seussical. I’ll admit, when the drama teacher said this was what she wanted to do I was worried. I’d never heard of this play, and when I started listening to the sound track, I wasn’t sure we’d be able to pull it off. The shortened version we were doing had 18 musical numbers, and being based on Dr. Seuss stories, some songs had tricky wording. Our entire school worked so hard, and on a Thursday in May they performed in front of over 100 people. It was wonderful! They all did such a phenomenal job!

It’s been a  whirlwind of a year.

Social Studies

This year’s social studies is my favorite! We’re doing the 6th grade curriculum, which is Ancient Civilizations!

Sixth grade was when I really started to love school and learning. It had a lot to do with the two amazing teachers I had, but it was also because of what we were learning. This was the year I learned about Ancient Egypt, China, Greece, and Rome. We made mummies and had our own Olympics. I loved it! My first year teaching 6th grade social studies I even re-did a project for Egypt from when I was in 6th grade.

One thing I noticed from my first year teaching this curriculum was that the activity book was very, very dry. What student likes to learn from something without colored pictures?? I want my students to enjoy social studies as much I did, so over summer I looked around for ways to spice things up and  I found a great Interactive Notebook, specifically for Ancient Civilizations!

We've also started research projects on historical figures. The project we are doing is similar to the one I did a few years ago. Each student is reading a biography on someone from history. I tried to find people we would be learning about this year, but there weren't enough age appropriate biographies out there. Every student will be responsible for writing their own biography/report on their person, as well as, creating a Power Point to present in front of the class. 

My students seem to be enjoying our social studies so far, but we just finished our unit on Mesopotamia. Next up is Egypt, which I am so excited about! I hope I can instill memorable learning moments in my students, just like my two 6th grade teachers did for me.

My sixth grade year (1998-99). We each made a canopic jar, sarcophagus, and a mummy.  

Aloha! Another First Week

Narnia is my theme for the entire school year, but I also like to have a special theme for
the first week to kick things off. When I went to Japan, I made the first week Japan themed. Since I went to Hawaii over the summer, our first week theme was Hawaii!

Each day, I taught the students a Hawaiian word! Throughout the week, we learned: Aloha, Mahalo, Ohana, Hele, and Honu. My students loved learning a new word and would remind me first thing for their Hawaiian word of the day!

I shared some pictures of my trip with my students, including all the sunrise and sunset photos.

 Everyday, was gorgeous so I thought we'd create some of our own sunrises and sunsets!

I, of course, also showed everyone how cute Spencer looked!

To make our pictures we watercolored the background, and then used black paper to create the outline for the islands. In all honesty, I got this idea from the Hogwarts silhouettes I did last year. Still, they came out looking great!

I also taught my students a little bit about Hawaiian history and culture. Part of the cultural aspect we went over was Hula. We discussed what Hula means to the people of Hawaii and how it is both beautiful and sacred. We were very fortunate to have someone (a previous student!) come in and give us a little hula lesson! She did a fantastic job, and everyone was focused while learning the steps to a particular dance/song. I was especially impressed when several students volunteered to perform the dance in front of the class! They all did wonderfully, and even our hula teacher was impressed!

We ended the week learning about the history of surfing and everyone got to design their own surfboard! Here are a few of our surfboards:

As with any first week of school, we also had to make self portraits. The ones we did this year were really interesting! One side of their face is supposed to be realistic, and the other side is supposed to be all the things they like.

It's been a pretty jam-packed, full year so far! We've got our new language arts curriculum and some new technology this year. It should be exciting! I'm going to try to be better about blogging, but it'll be even more challenging with a little person crawling and climbing everywhere.

Literally climbing on me while writing this blog.