Gimme FIVE! A HUGE Back to School Giveaway!

As much as I adore the summer, I love the back to school season.  I remember being so excited to have new notebooks, a new pencil case and brand new pencils.  It was a new school year, a new grade, and a chance for a brand new start.

This year to celebrate back to school, EIGHTEEN of my blogging friends have gotten together for a fabulous hop and giveaway!  I'm giving away FIVE products from my Teachers Pay Teachers store, Strawberry Shake.

Here are the rules:
Leave a post on my blog.  Include the following FIVE things (no repeats in your entry please!)
1.  One task cards set from my store.
2.  One photographs package found in my store.
3.  One science for K-6 product found my store.
4.  Your favorite item from my store.  This is the product you'll win if you are selected.  (Downloadable product only.  Hard goods excluded.  Bundles also excluded.  They are already marked low for GREAT deal!)
5.  Your email address.

I'll choose FIVE winners and each winner will receive the product selected for #4.

Once you've entered my giveaway, hop on by these other great blogs for their promotions:

Have a GREAT back to school season!

Science Showcase

Welcome to my monthly Science Showcase!  This month: The nature of science, STEM, and scientific method!  I love to share some of my favorite FREE finds from Teachers Pay Teachers to help you engage and encourage your students' exploration of science!  Please check them out, and if you download them for use in your classroom, please leave your very best feedback for the teacher-authors!

First from GETTING NERDY with Mel and Gerdy:  Introduce your students to science curriculum with this fun PowerPoint and "What is Science?" Cubing Scienstructible.  This engaging activity encourages students to explore the nature of science and their role as scientists.

Then from GET CAUGHT ENGINEERING:  Whiz! Zip! Zoom!: Roller Coaster Engineering

Students will not want to stop as they design, build and test their roller coaster made from foam pipe insulation.  Students cannot resist the excitement of  building and testing loops and curves.  Set the scene for a lively discussion of force and motion.

And from SCIENCE STUFF by Amy Brown:  

A 26 slide PowerPoint presentation on the nature of science and the scientific method. The slides are colorful and visually appealing. Steps of the scientific method are covered, but more importantly, the lesson provides examples and practice problems illustrating the application of the scientific method. Analysis questions and answers are included.  4 pages of notes for the teacher and a 5 page notes outline for the student. 

And last, from my own store, STRAWBERRY SHAKE, a review assignment that covers the process of diffusion.  This activity is part of my huge high school science packet:  Using Indicators to Investigate Diffusion.  If you teach science in New York, you'll find this review directly correlates to Part D of the Living Environment Regents Exam.  But even if you do not teach in New York, these activities and review materials are so valuable for teaching students how diffusion works, and why it is so important in many applications of biology.

I hope you've found something useful on this month's Science Showcase!  If you know a great science teacher-author or have a terrific freebie you'd love to share on Science showcase next month, please leave your information in the comments, or email me at TeacherTM@aol.com.

24 HOUR GIVEAWAY!

You Oughta Know About....

Hi everyone!  Today I'm participating in a blog-hop sponsored by Jasmine from Buzzing with Mrs. McClain.  She's got an awesome blog with lots of terrific followers and I appreciate her invitation to join in the fun today! 

You oughta know about this really cool tip to save your old pencils from an early end.

If your classroom is anything like mine, you use a lot of pencils.

A. LOT. OF. PENCILS.

And it doesn't take long before we accumulate a whole pile of pencils like this.  Short, stubby, worn out.  NO eraser left.  Only, sometimes the pencils are like new except: no eraser left.


And there never seems to be one of these around when you need one.
So I'm going to show you the best trick I know for extending the life of your pencils!

You can actually use your hand held pencil sharpener on the eraser end of the pencil!  I like to use the bigger hole because I can really control how far I'm cutting around the eraser.  A little strip of metal can be very easily carved away from the eraser.

And look how nice your pencil turns out!
It takes a little practice to get the cutting just right.  But once you've got it, it's SO easy!  This trick has been a lifesaver for hundreds of pencils in my classroom.  Rejuvenate your own old pencils with your hand held sharpener!


I'm so grateful to have so many regular followers and glad to have so many new visitors to my blog today!  Follow my blog for the details on an upcoming giveaway of your choice of one of the top selling products from my Teachers Pay Teachers store.  Prize includes your choice of anything in my store (bundles excluded).  Maybe one of these:

As you can see, I'm very much about SCIENCE.  If you're interested in finding great FREE science activities, see my monthly feature, SCIENCE SHOWCASE.

Thanks so much for stopping by!  Hope to see you again soon!

An InLinkz Link-up

Surviving the Chaos: Capitalize on Creativity

We've got a big state exam coming up at the end of our course in two weeks.  The kids are getting antsy. (Heck, the TEACHER is getting antsy!) and it's not always easy to stay focused and accomplish everything we need to do during these last precious hours we have together.  After months of hard work, taking notes, studying, doing lab experiments and activities, everyone is looking forward to a couple of months rest.  But not before we make it through the Regents exam.

Capturing student attention (and keeping it for 40 minutes) can be a real challenge.  One of the best ways I've found is to do creative review projects that include drawing, coloring, cutting, and sharing each one's work with another.  

I have several favorite go-to creative projects, and we're pretty good "on the fly" with not much more than a blank sheet of paper and a couple of colored pencils.  I may just have the each student draw an important diagram, then switch with a partner.  The diagrams can be labeled either together or separately.  

Sometimes I provide a diagram that's scrambled, and have the students cut it apart, color it, and put it back together like a puzzle.

Or I take a sentence, chop it up, and have teams of students race to unscramble the sentence into an important biology fact.

There are so many creative activities that will re-capture your students' drive and motivation to review and share what they've learned.  And there's no better time than now.

Engage your students with this interesting and informative article based on 

scientific information about turtles as carriers of Salmonella bacteria.

Pair this article together with the following activity 

for a great lesson about reptiles!  Comparing Reptiles and Mammals

And if you REALLY like FREEBIES.. check out my recent post called SCIENCE SHOWCASE.  Its a new blog feature I'll be running from time to time, loaded up with awesome science freebies!

 

An InLinkz Link-up

Science Showcase: First Up - CHEMISTRY!

I've decided to start a regular feature in which I'll be introducing you to some fantastic freebies and paid products to help you teach science!  I'm going to start this week with some CHEMISTRY FREEBIES!

First up for chemistry teachers and students of all ages: Kelly Wilson's Chemistry Jokes and Riddles.

Everybody loves a good joke. Share these silly chemistry jokes with your students and other teachers to have a good laugh!  There are 15 pages of jokes and riddles.  Use these to have fun and keep smiling!

Next, for elementary scientists its Chemistry for Kids: an experiment investigating solid, liquid and gas.  This freebie comes to you from Science for Kids.

Your kids will love this chemistry experiment! It is a great way to teach the scientific method, to use as an intro to basic chem, or as a wrap-up to a solid, liquid, gas unit. Have your little scientists add a solid and a liquid to a baggie and then watch the bag get bigger and bigger and bigger as a gas is produced! This one never fails to amaze and delight!

And for your middle school classes, check out Tangstar Science's Properties of Matter Task Cards.

These 32 FREE Task Cards with editable template provide a great activity for student centered enrichment or review. It is a handy tool for early finishers or as an independent study or group activity. This hits common core standards for reading, listening, writing and speaking.

And from my own store, Teen Students in Science Clip Art.

8 different images of students in the lab and using technology.  Each image provided in both color and black and white line art.

We'd love to know what you think!  If you have a product you'd like to see featured on the Science Showcase, please email me at TeacherTM@aol.com.

Kindergarten Teacher in Disguise

Welcome to Strawberry Shake!  I'm excited to be a part of the Best for the Best blog hop sponsored by Amy at Teaching in Blue Jeans!

The activity I'm sharing on this blog hop is one of my favorites.  There are color and black and white cut/sort/paste activities for your students, words for your word wall, and trading cards to give your students as rewards for a job well done.  And there are additional pages for students to review the concepts they've learned by coloring and writing the names of living and non-living things in the pictures.

Though I've been teaching high school science for more than 20 years, it's time to face the truth.  I admit it, I'm a kindergarten teacher at heart.  I love the natural curiosity of kindergarteners, the fearlessness, the silly things they do.  I also love to be crafty and creative and silly, too!  I like science.  No, I love science.  I want to know how and why everything works the way it does.  I love animals and plants and nature and figuring out how they all fit together in this amazing world.  And, I want to share my excitement and enthusiasm and wonder with kids of all ages!

I hope to be able to use my knowledge, experience and expertise, along with my crafty, creative self to make fun and engaging science activities for kids.  I've had so many elementary science teachers tell me that science is their least favorite part of teaching.  That makes me sad.  I want to make teaching science easier for elementary teachers who may not have liked getting their hands dirty or investigating living things when they were young.  Science shouldn't be scary or difficult to share.

I hope you'll enjoy looking at this product, and that you'll come by my store to see what else you might find useful.  Follow my store so you'll be the first to know when there's a new product.

All of the adorable graphics in this product are from Thistlegirl Designs.

Enter to win this product and more using the Rafflecopter at the bottom of this post! Then continue on The Best for the Best Teacher Appreciation Blog Hop by clicking the picture below.

http://applesfora.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-best-for-best.html

Thanks again to Amy at Teaching in Blue Jeans for putting this hop together!  The days I get to teach in blue jeans are always good science days!

  a Rafflecopter giveaway