Scientific Saturdays: Week One Plans

We finally started school last week and we had students for three days.  The kids spent the week adjusting to their new school and classmates.  This week, I will be starting science class this week with my two fifth grade classes.  I can finally start taking photos and post things happening in the science classroom! 

Day One: Setting up Notebooks

• Science notebook covers
• Science Interest Inventories
• Making table of contents in front/vocabulary bank in back

Day Two:  Think like a Scientist

• Looking at science photos (printed photos from the web)
• Creating science talk sentences and questions and share

Day 3:  What is a Scientist?

• Brainstorm "What is a scientist?" (talk about stereotypes)
• Read "S is for Scientist"
• Create list of verbs that scientists do

Day 4:  Working as a Team

• Roles and rules of team  members in science labs
• Cup Challenge

Fabulous in Fifth's Friday Finds

Mini Chart Stand

How to Make Symbols on a Mac

Quinoa Enchilada Casserole

Giant Pool Noodle Pencils

Love this quote!

Mathematical Mondays: Free Math Fonts that Create Symbols and Manipulatives

Do you like to use cute fonts?  Do you try to make math materials and don't have the symbols you need?  

I stumbled across these math fonts on Sunday while looking for some regular fonts.  You can create bar models, numbels lines, fractions and so much more using your keyboard.  Check out the following links to get Free fonts for your math sheets.  

(School started today and I'm a day late with this post…so this needs to be short and sweet today…sorry!)

http://www.dafont.com/kg-teacher-helpers.font

 

http://www.dafont.com/kg-fractions.font

http://www.dafont.com/kg-math-bar-models.font

 

http://www.dafont.com/kg-traditional-fractions.font

Scientific Saturday: Music in the Classroom

I have started collecting videos and music to incorporate into my lessons.  Here are a few to start the year.  I am saving them in my Live Binders with each science unit for easy access.  Live Binder is a free online file system.   You can "pin or tab" links on the web into your files.  

 The songs are for matter, scientific method and water cycle.

This is the same matter song but just lyrics.

Fabulous in Fifth's Friday Finds

Link to Fraction Number Line

Link to Teacher Survival Kit

Link to State Plate Project, Use for Science Projects

Link to Extra Work Folder…Made mine already 

Link

Throwback Thursday: Creating Bulletin Board Letters

Here is a post from August 21, 2012…It was a technology tip for a linky party.

I am sitting here wracking my brain about what I can share with teachers using technology.  I am not an expert, but I do okay. I couldn't come up with anything.

 I decided to share how to make great looking letters for bulletin board using your computer...that counts right???  Many people now use die-cut machines like Cameos and Cri-cuts.  You don't need fancy tools to create something like this....

1.  Choose a bold font that you like.  I set the page as landscape, I used SAF 

and size was 550.  You have to type it in yourself...my computer only goes up to 72.

2.  Type out your words, highlight and click on text effects, the outlined blue A on the tool bar.  Choose outline and line effects.  You can also right click, go to fonts and click on text effects at the bottom.

  

3.  Click on text fill and choose no fill.  Click on text line black.  Click on weights and arrows. I chose solid line and 4 point, it is your preference on colors and lines.  I choose thicker lines, so I can cut them out and still have some black showing.

5.  You are ready to print!  I added some scraps of paper and stitching using a sharpie marker.  I made this on foam board.

I hope this technology tip will help someone out there!

Mathematical Mondays: Math Talk

To help children build their mathematical comprehension, we need to give them more opportunities to talk about math.  My school system will be adopting "Go Math" this year, and they have built math talk right into their lessons.  It is something that most teachers do naturally, but I think it is an area that we can become more conscious of, and try new ways to include it in our lessons.

There is a great article called "Math Talk 101" on Scholastic.  It shares ways to get started with math talk and how to become more conscious.  There are free printables for your room.  The one below is available as a poster or bookmarks for students.

I found another website, "The Cornerstone" with more suggestions to get kids talking about their math. One idea I would love to try is some videotaping of my students explaining strategies.

You could create an anchor chart to hang in your classroom.  There are many great examples on Pinterest.

Link