Science Notebook Posted

This school year flew by and now I am done for the summer. Phew! I am sorry that I have neglected this blog, please refer to my website for all up to date information for what goes on in my classroom.

My 5th grade notebook is updated and posted, as well as my planbook:

http://www.middleschoolscience.com/notebook-2010-2011.htm

While the interactive notebook worked really well these past two years, for September I am going back to using a 1/2 inch binder and numbering the handouts as I hand them out to keep the consistency of a notebook.

The main reason I am switching back is purely the amount of paper and glue that is needed to upkeep these notebooks. It is also harder to recycle the notebooks once they are done with them.

Over the summer, I plan on reorganizing my handouts and photocopying mini-units for the kids to place directly into their binders to maximize using the front and back of every handout.

After 3 years, I have the 5th grade program fleshed out and exactly how I want it, so there may only be a few minor changes next year.

Pics: Last Pages of Notebook

Earth Science Notebook pages can be printed out from the following web page: Notebook #3

Acids & Bases Venn Diagram, Notes

Group SmartBoard Activity (25 minutes): For this activity, I broke it up into 5 parts.

Part 1: General Discussion about acids and bases, pH, and indicators.  Most 5th graders didn’t really have a lot of prior knowledge on this topic.

Part 2: Explained how they were going to watch a BrainPOP movie on acids and bases, and to listen for facts presented in the movie.  Using the list of facts on their handout, they were to write an “A” next to the facts that related to acids, and a “B” next to facts that related to Bases.

Part 3: Gave the students about 3-4 minutes to compare their fact lists with their lab partners. They may not have all the facts categorized, and that was ok.

Part 4: I explained how one person from each group was going to come up to the board and drag one fact into the Venn Diagram.  If they were correct, everyone wrote that fact into the Venn diagram on their handout.  Students had to choose who would go up for each turn, and what fact they would place. It was a good opportunity for collaboration and coming to a consensus. If the answer was incorrect, they had to drag the fact back to the bottom of the board.

Part 5: Go over all the answers, make sure that their notes reflected the  notes that were on the board.

The activity worked really well, the students were on task and it was a nice way to introduce new information in an interactive way.

I uploaded the notebook file to SMART Exchange, not sure if its fully functioning yet, here is the link.

Notebook/Links:

BrainPOP Movie – Acids and Bases

pg. 112 – Acids/Bases Venn Diagram

pg. 113 – BrainPOP – FYI – Gastric Acid

 

Updated Notebook Pages

Here are some updated pictures of the notebook that we use: 

Notebook resources:

• pg. 84 – Color the Periodic Table Notes, PPT, and Periodic Table (kept in folder)
• pg. 85 – Read About it: BrainPOP- Mendeleev
• pg. 86 – Shells and Valence Electrons Study Guide Notes, PPT
• pg. 87 – Practice: Periods & Groups
• pg. 88 – Atoms Vocab pg. 1
• pg. 89 – Atoms Vocab pg. 2
• pg. 90 – How to Draw Bohr Diagrams: Notes, PPT,
• pg. 91 – Practice: Bohr Diagrams
• pg. 92 – Lewis Structure Notes Booklet/Foldable Pgs 1, 4 & pgs 2, 3, PowerPoint Lesson
• pg. 93 – Practice: Lewis Structures
• pg. 94 – Ionic and Covalent Bonding Notes, Smart Board File
• pg. 95 – Practice – Ionic or Covalent Bond?

Cut-n-Paste Vocab Template for MS Publisher

I’ve had a few requests for a cut-n-paste template to use for vocabulary, so I made a generic one that can be modified using Microsoft publisher. I do not have a template for word, I find its so much easier to use publisher for this application.

There are three pages.  You can fit up to 12 vocab words and definitions in one document. To change the word, click on “Vocab” and enter the word you would like to use in each box.  Click on “definition” to type your definition.  Replace the picture with a picture of your choice or you can leave it blank, the kids can draw their own picture in that space.

After you have created your vocab set, you can save it as a pub or pdf file. I usually save it as a pdf, its looks more finished and can be opened by anyone if they don’t have Publisher to open the original file.

Let me know if you use it, would love to post a copy of it on this blog! Thanks!

http://www.middleschoolscience.com/vocab-cut-n-paste-template-isn.pub - when prompted to, save it to your computer.

D and T Activity

We just completed the D&T activity in class and it was fun to see the kids work together and come up with their final hypotheses. To summarize this activity: Students took turns taking words out of an envelope and had to create a story using only those words. They had to work together as a team, brainstorm, and agree on one hypothesis for each section of the activity.

Left Side Activity:

I broke the classes into groups of 4-5 students and each group represented a different country, symbolizing how scientists all over the world work in groups and share their findings with each other. We then discussed the process and how even though we all had the same information, each group processed that information differently. We also discussed how scientists are always getting new information and have to make sense of it. With new information, theories are either updated or thrown out and therefore new theories are made. We also discussed the new findings on a predecessor to T-Rex that was only about 9ft long and had tiny forearms, making scientists rethink their theories about the evolution of T-Rex.

Below are the hypotheses that my groups came up with:

USA
A big fat white dog walked into the little house on the prairie and ate his bone carrying the bowl of red turnips.

France

The big fat dog carrying his white bone walked into the little house on the prairie and ate a bowl of red turnips.

Australia

The fat dog ate the red and white turnips and the big bone walked carrying his house into a bowl on little of prairie.

South Africa
The white fat dog carrying his little bowl of the turnips into a big red prairie house ate the bone and walked on.

Brazil
A big fat dog ate the red turnips carrying his bowl of the white bone and walked on into the little prairie house.

India

The little dog walked into his big house carrying the white bone and ate a bowl of fat red turnips on the prairie.

Germany

His big fat red white prairie dog walked into a house  carrying the little bowl of the turnips and ate on the bone.

Russia

The big red dog ate fat turnips on a little white house and his bone walked into the prairie of the carrying bowl.

China
A dog on the little prairie ate his white bone and walked into the big house carrying the bowl of fat red turnips.

Right Side Activity:

Students had to write a 3-5 sentence conclusion/reflection about this activity and then draw a scene from their story on page 13 of their notebooks.

If you complete this activity, please let me know what your groups came up with!

Mystery Footprints

My 5′s completed the Mystery Footprint Activity (ppt) and it went really well! We talked about what an observation is, what an inference is, and how they really have to be careful- they often wanted their inferences to be their observations!

After a brief introduction/ discussion, we filled in their notes. Then I had them close their eyes and I slowly read the three sample observations: I hear people screaming, I see a lot of people around, and I smell cotton candy, popcorn, and hamburgers. When they opened their eyes they wrote down where they pictured themselves-which is their inference. I had students raise their hands to tell me where they were – these are some of their responses:

• a circus
• a fair
• a carnival
• a theme park
• on the boardwalk or at the beach
• at a sporting event

I asked them, “Did we all have the same observations?” And most said no. Then I repeated the observations – people screaming, a lot of people around, smelling cotton candy. Yes, we all had the same observations, BUT our inferences were different. We used our individual experiences to process the information and formed our own conclusions. Ohhhhhh!

I then showed the slides for the Mystery Footprints. Frame 1: One student’s observation was, “I see an animal running”. I said, “I don’t see an animal running, I see tracks that start off close together then become farther apart.” I then explain that I can infer that the animal was running, but I didn’t see it happen, I just see the tracks that are left behind. Some observations are that the background is yellow, there are two sets of prints, the tracks are coming from 2 different directions, the red tracks are close together, etc…

We viewed each frame and discussed our observations and then shared our inferences. When I showed the 3rd frame, a lot of the students gasped, they were so into it and when they saw the red prints missing, they were quickly writing down their observations and inferences!

Some great inferences the kids came up with:

• the animals were fighting and one ate the other (most common answer)
• one animal bit the other animal and carried it away to eat it somewhere else
• the animals were eating food off the ground, one walked away while one stayed behind to eat more
• the animals fought over the food, and the loser walked away
• the tracks were made at different times and ate the same food that was on the ground
• one animal flew away
• one animal jumped onto the back of the other animal
• the animals were dancing until one walked away

We went over the homework assignment and I really stressed the difference between observations and inferences. Observations are pieces of information we obtain by using our senses, and inferences are like a “story” that we can make up based on our observations.

First Day!!

Today was the first day of school! We had a modified schedule so I didn’t have as much time as I had hoped, but it still went really well! A lot of excitement in the air, positive energy, and the kids looked happy to be back.

I introduced some power teaching methods: the rules, class yes, and my yada, yada, yada scale. Will introduce the 10 finger woo soon, scoreboard next week, I think. I introduced them to their notebooks and explained it just briefly, don’t want to throw too much info at them at once, and we started the scavenger hunt. Having the kids do the scavenger hunt lets them get out of their seats, move around, and explore the classroom. But what I really love is seeing how they work together and to observe the group dynamics, tells me so much about the kids.

Setting up notebooks

Labor Day – I went into school for a few hours today, thought I would be the only one in the building, but there were a few of us milling around getting ready for our first day back on Wednesday. Tomorrow we have a new student orientation and picnic for grades K-8, that will take up most of the day, so not a lot of prep time.

I set up all of my student’s notebooks. It didn’t take as long as I thought it would. I photocopied everything I needed, used the paper cutter to cut those pages that needed it, lined the notebooks up like an assembly line and went to work!

I have the inside cover (rules and grading), the back cover (science buddies), and pages 1-9 glued in (except for the SpongeBob safety challenge on p 8, that will be glued in when we do the lesson). I almost finished a bottle of glue, which I bought for only 30 cents! Needless to say I stocked up.

I know that the time I put in today will save a ton of class time and we can get right into the notebook and the activities. I will have them fill in the table of contents and start numbering the pages on the 1st and 2nd day.

Lewis Structures/Electron Dot Diagrams

1. What is the formula for the Lewis Structure above?
2. What elements are represented?
3. How many of each?
4. How many electrons are drawn?
5. What type of bond does this molecule have?

Left Side:

For my lesson on drawing Lewis Structures, I made a booklet to follow along with my PowerPoint and classwork. On the first page of the booklet, I have fill in the blank notes and inside the booklet, I have elements #1-20 for the students to complete either independently or with a partner.

For this lesson, I model the first problem and we do the Lewis Structure for Carbon, going over the steps one at a time and explaining the process.

I then have them try Hydrogen on their own. We then go over the answer together. Depending on how comfortable they are, I have them do one more and then we go over the answer together. Then I give the students time (maybe 5-10 minutes tops) to work on the rest of the problems while I walk around and monitor/answer questions.

Once everyone is done with the practice problems, we go over the answers using the rest of the power point. The students can then work independently or with a partner to complete the rest of the elements inside the booklet.

SmartBoard: If you have a SmartBoard, you can pull up the pdf file and enlarge the view, that way students can come up to the board and draw in the electrons for the elements when you are going over the answers. The rest of the students can then self correct their work.

Just added: Another option is to slightly modify this SmartBoard file. Have the students drag the electrons into position around the corresponding element symbol.

Right Side:

I made a homework sheet for the students to practice finding the elements on the periodic table, writing/reading the element symbols, finding the group number, determining the number of valence electrons, and drawing the Lewis Structure.

Handouts:

• Notes: Front and Back of Booklet
• Classwork: Inside of the Booklet (Photocopy these two docs front/back then fold)
• Lewis Structures homework/practice
• PowerPoint for lesson

Answers: how did you do?

1. CCl4
2. C = Carbon, Cl = Chlorine
3. C = 1, Cl = 4
4. 32 electrons
5. Covalent, both are non-metals