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

Interesting toy inspires lots of creative thought!

So I found this new toy in the Target Dollar Spot last night.  Turns out its not really a new toy, it's just "new-to-me."  It's called ZOOB.  And ever since I found it, I can't stop thinking about how I could use it in my classroom.

It seems I am constantly showing my students new applications of the idea that a molecule's shape influences its activity.  But since we can't readily SEE molecules, how can we even appreciate that they have shape?  We teachers usually compare molecular shape to things that CAN be easily seen - locks and keys, hands in gloves, satellite dishes - anything that works with something else that only comes in a specific size and shape.  I've used colored pipe cleaners with beads, some foamy bendy stuff or we refer to Lego or pop beads and all kinds of other fit-together items that students might recognize and understand.

The ZOOBs are really interesting and cool because of their different designs.  Unlike Lego that stack together but are just basically the same shape over and over, the ZOOBs have different shapes.  Unlike K'nex that comes in different shapes and colors, the ZOOBs can move once they are snapped together.  So you can string a set of ZOOBs together like a protein's primary structure, then bend it all around into shape to show secondary and tertiary structure.

That's just one of a million ideas I have coursing through my brain since I discovered this toy.  If molecular shape is important in your class, you might want to RUN to Target and pick up some ZOOBs.  There are 15 in a pack for just $3.  And although this is cheaper than any online site I've seen, you can get them on Amazon or Ebay if there isn't a Target near you.

I'll be developing some science activities to use with these really cool toys.  Watch for them!

I'd love to hear how you use a toy in an unexpected way in your classes.

Recording Reptiles and Amphibians

Yesterday was a beautiful day in northeastern Pennsylvania!  Lauren, Steve and I had a great time learning about reptiles and amphibians from John Jose, a field biologist who worked for 8 years in our county before moving to Vermont.  After a short introduction to the kinds of frogs, salamanders and snakes we might encounter in our community, we headed out to the Hemlock Farms trail to see what we could discover.

We learned that it's really important to consider an animal's preferred habitat when looking for them, so we'll be more likely to find them, and know how to identify what we've found.  John had described all sorts of characteristics from physical characteristics to sounds and calls, and we tried really hard to keep it all in mind as we searched.

The first place we looked was a pretty dry and rocky area on the edge of the woods.  After turning over just a few rocks, our group discovered this beautiful specimen!  It's a Northern Ring-necked Snake, Diadophis punctata.

It was maybe a foot long, and Lauren loved holding it!  John explained that it was fairly easy to find this guy because we chose the right spot - a place where there were lots of flat rocks to hide underneath.  Snakes love to lie under flat rocks because they heat up and warm the snakes.  These snakes like to eat salamanders and slugs, so it was likely we'd find salamanders nearby.

We walked up the trail into the woods.  The ground became wetter - more suitable for salamanders.  After upturning only a few rocks, we found several of these Eastern Red-backed Salamanders (Plethodon cinereus).  Slimy!    

We learned that it's important to keep them from drying out, so we couldn't hold them or keep them uncovered too long.  And we learned the right way to return them to their hiding places.  Return the rock to its place, then put the salamander beside the rock so it can find its way underneath on its own.  It can take a really long time for the microhabitiat to form underneath a rock or decaying log, and we shouldn't go disrupting it and leaving it disturbed.

Closer to the edge of the stream we found this Northern Two-lined Salamander, Eurycea bislineata.  It was under the rocks in the water saturated soil.  Our guide was careful to keep it on his net that he had soaked in the water, so we could keep it out long enough to be photographed so we could document having found it.

A little further along the stream, we found this gooey glob of eggs.  They're yet another species of salamander, the Spotted Salamander, Abystoma maculatum.  We didn't see any adults, but we know they've been there!  John waded out into the stream to scoop these eggs up gently with his net, and it was all I could do to keep Lauren from following him into the water.  She was a very eager student and wanted to see and do and hold everything.  All the hands you see in these photos are hers!  Even around the gooey mass of eggs!

We'll be spending a lot of time in the woods and at the streams looking for reptiles and amphibians.  Maybe the most important thing we learned was about how to report our findings to PARS, the Pennsylvania Amphibian and Reptile Survey.  PARS gathers information from its "army of citizen scientists" to help determine the distribution and status of these important members of our ecosystem.  Reptiles and amphibians can be important indicators of the health of our natural surroundings.

To learn more about the Pennsylvania Amphibian and Reptile Survey, visit their website at http://paherpsurvey.org/

Thanks to John Jose, proprietor of Otter Creek Environmental Education Services, for his interesting and inspiring workshop.  http://www.ottercreekenved.com/

Wordless Wednesday: Unusual Life Cycles

What life cycles (besides butterflies and frogs) do you teach in your classroom?

WIN lots of free teaching materials!!

My store is one of fifty fantastic Teachers Pay Teachers shops featured in the 200 Followers Giveaway by Creative Teaching Supplies!  The prize from my store is WINNER'S CHOICE.  You can choose from these products, or pick something else that you might like!

   

Click the giveaway logo to enter!