Science Archives - Page 2 of 5

Sparking Student Motivation in Science: Light and Reflection!

February 21, 2015

It’s been a hot minute since I’ve blogged! But I had to share this fun lesson with you, and of course link up with my bestie, Joanne from Head Over Heels for Teaching for her fun linky!

We just finished our light unit, and I always like to do fun activities and experiments to help the students apply what they’ve learned. Plus, it keeps them motivated during the lesson knowing something fun will be happening at the end! I like to use my light interactive notebook activities with our science textbook during my lesson to help keep them engaged, too.

Light Interactive Notebook Activities with Ideas by Jivey

The lesson idea I’m sharing with you goes with reflection. I teach them about the law of reflection and how the reflected light bounces at the same angle as the light shining on the reflective object.

To apply this information, I grouped my kids in my classroom and gave each group a flashlight and 5 mirrors. Each group had to stand facing each other (3 on each side per group in my class). The first person on one end shines the flashlight at the mirror across from them, and the goal is to try to hold the mirrors so that the light reaches the last mirror on the other end. The reflected light bounces between all the mirrors to the last one! They have to make sure they hold their mirror still (and the flashlight) once they get the angle just right or it will mess up the next person trying to angle their mirror at the next mirror! I’m so mad at myself for not getting any pictures, but hopefully you can take my word for it when I tell you, they were all successful in getting the light to the last mirror!

Plane Mirror Activity with Ideas by Jivey

Image from Our 2nd Grade Journey

Another idea that I just thought of (and so now we’ll have to “review reflection” next week just so I can try it!) is to have them figure out how to arrange themselves so that the person with the flashlight actually ends up with light shining on their back! (They wouldn’t stand in a line for this- they’d almost stand in a triangle or square shape to bounce the light around.)

Also, here is a fun computer game from Math Playground they can play!

Computer game from MAth Playground with Ideas by Jivey.

I hope this gives you some good ideas! Make sure to check out the other great ideas in Joanne’s link-up!

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Sparking Student Motivation: Inquiry Circles

November 8, 2014

This week was a bit crazy, but it was so much fun for me and my kids in science!! We have been learning about the solar system, and this week, my kids got into inquiry circles to learn more about a space topic. My kids have never been more excited about science, so of course, I’m linking it up with my BBB Joanne for Sparking Student Motivation!

My students gave me their top three solar system topics that they were interested in… I put them into groups of 3 or 4 students based on their choices. Then, they came up with three questions that they could research. They used books I had checked out from the library, and they got on our district’s Online Research Library to find the answers to their questions.

What makes inquiry circles so great is that the students are so engaged because it’s a topic they chose and want to know more about! EVERY kid was totally involved in researching and finding answers. It was amazing!

The fun part of inquiry circles is that the students get to be creative and come up with a plan as a group to present the information to the class. Some groups made posters, some made models, some wrote a play, and one even wrote a song!

The students came up with these ideas all on their own, and even brought in supplies from home! Their motivation to do these projects is unbelievable! If you’ve never heard of inquiry circles before, check these sites out: Prezi Overview / Video Showing Inquiry Circles.

My students will present on Monday, so I don’t have any finished products to show you today, but I will be back next week to share. :o)

Oh and PS… I’m super excited to share something with you on Sunday (and you should be, too!!)… but you have to wait til tomorrow to see what it is!! :o)

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Sparking Student Motivation: Fun Informational Passages!

October 19, 2014

Let me tell you what I LOVE.

I LOVE tricking kids into thinking working is super fun. 😛

My kids were begging me last week to learn more and write more. Have you ever heard of such a thing???

I shared with you last week that I am working on getting my students to respond deeper using Jennifer Findley’s Rigorous Reader’s Response Letters. We are also working on reading informational paired texts… and we were working on some skills with Stellaluna this past week… so I decided to write some articles about bats for them to use for close reading and annotating, and for them to use for their response letters! The first day, I gave them the first article on Kitti’s Hog-Nosed Bat- the smallest mammal in the world! We did some close reading, then I had them practice their first independent response letter using the same checklist from last week. Seriously, with their excitement level, you would have thought I’d just given them candy. They could not WAIT to write about what they had learned about these bats, and what they could infer. Some of them are seriously impressing me with their inferring skills too! Check this one out:

Spark Student Motivation with Ideas by Ivey

As I was peeking at some of their responses, a few were still not going as deep as I wanted, so on Friday, I had a few students share (including the one above) and then we did another class shared writing response. Here is what the students suggested I write:

Then, I let them know they were getting another article about bats that day- they cheered! One of my students said, “Ms. Ivey, can we do more articles next week about other animals? This is fun!” I swear, I am not making this up!! (I actually thought to myself at that moment- I can link this up with Joanne!! Ha!!)

They did the same thing as the previous day with their new passage about a megabat- the Spectacled Flying Fox. I will most likely use these responses for a grade since we have practiced a bit now.

I decided to take these articles a step further and add some paired text multiple choice and constructed response questions…. then I thought, if they liked these articles so much, I’m going to need more… so I made some for owls and spiders, too! (‘Tis the season after all!)

And of course, you know I can’t keep them all to myself… you can get them in my TPT store!

For the first 48 hours, this product is 20% off! I hope you enjoy!

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Five For Friday: Weather Edition!

September 20, 2014

This week, my teaching life revolved around weather! Here are some of the super-fun awesome things we did this week!

I used Can It Rain Cats and Dogs? this week for my nonfiction mentor text. My kids were obsessed with it! They wanted me to read the whole thing, but we only read about what we have covered so far in my weather unit. I will read more next week when we get into fronts and weather maps.

Can It Rain Cats and Dogs and non fiction mentor sentences with Ideas by Jivey.

You can read more about how I used this book, as well as Come On, Rain! in reading this week in my Workshop Wednesday post!

My mentor sentence this week was from the book, Come On, Rain!

(Need more info on mentor sentences? Check out this post!)

Come On, Rain and mentor sentences with Ideas by Jivey

My kids have gotten really good at imitating the week’s mentor sentence! It’s getting hard for me to pick only four for the wall. They are also loving our interactive notebook activities for language arts– this week’s was all about vivid verbs.

We also did interactive notebook activities for our weather skills!

Weather interactive notebook activities with Ideas by Jivey.

And we did interactive notetaking with a passage from the website, k12reader.com. This is my go-to site for leveled articles on all kinds of topics!

Interactive notetaking with Ideas by Jivey.

We also made cloud models!!

And last, but not least, we made our own weather instruments!

Want the directions to make these in your classroom, too?

Freebie Make your own weather instruments with Ideas by Jivey

Get them for free here! :o)

I hope everyone enjoys the weekend!! :o)

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Sparking Student Motivation: Owl Pellets!

May 31, 2014

Getting students’ hands dirty and really INTO science is the BEST way to motivate kids to learn! So I’m linking today’s post with my BBB Joanne for Sparking Student Motivation!

We ordered owl pellets again this year- the kids just love it, once they learn it’s not POOP! And honestly, it’s kind of funny when you think about how awesome the kids still think it is to find bones of dead rodents in a “hairball” …because it’s still pretty gross. 😛

We spent an entire week learning about owls through nonfiction texts and websites while using my OWLS Common Core Nonfiction Unit!

If you are planning on dissecting owl pellets, make sure you visit the website, KidWings! It’s very informative, and really cool the way the kids can interact with it!

Before dissecting the pellets, the kids had to learn about important vocabulary, how owls are different from other birds, and also how owls hunt, eat, and digest! We read Owls by Gail Gibbons as well as this very informative website for this info!

Then finally, the moment they’d been waiting for all week… getting to “dig in” to their owl pellet! I learned a funny prank from Joanne, and I did it this year… I smooshed up a brownie and wrapped it in foil. Before giving my kids their pellet, I told them I wanted to demonstrate how to dissect one first. (Are you seeing where this is going??) I unwrapped it, sniffed it (all the kids made a face), then took a bite, shrugged and said, “not bad actually.” The room was SO quiet. No one could even speak. I don’t think any of them could actually believe I’d just done what I did. I couldn’t even contain my laughter for three seconds! The minute I started laughing, you heard a big “whoosh” as they all sighed with relief, knowing it couldn’t be real. I told them of course, that it was a brownie, and NOT TO EAT THEIR PELLET!! 😛

Here are some of the treasures my students found:

I would highly recommend doing as much hands-on as you can with science, even if it means getting your (and their) hands dirty! Your kids will always remember it, and of course, we know that’s the best way to learn! :o)

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Must Read Mentor Text: How Do You Burp In Space?

May 18, 2014

Sunday already? Eek! This week flew by, and so did the weekend. This is upcoming week is actually my last week of school! To keep the kids entertained while still teaching “bell to bell,” we’ll be doing some fun review of our year. One of the units I always wish I had more time to teach is the solar system… I picked up this book from Scholastic a while back and my kids actually fought over who got to read it first!

Scholastic says… This handy book contains all the info necessary for planning a space vacation, including:

What to pack (hint: no bubble bath or juggling balls!)
What to expect from accommodations (a sleeping bag attached to the wall)
What to do for fun (leapfrog on the moon!)

Which got me thinking… how fun would it be for the kids to create a travel brochure to go visit another planet? Which then got the ol’ wheels turning, and I decided to have a whole day devoted to outer space!

We’ll start off the day with the solar system passage- do a bit of close reading/interactive note-taking. Then, I am going to set up stations that the students will rotate through for almost the rest of the day. I have printed in color and laminated three sets of the fact cards. The comprehension questions that go with the passage will be a station, the Venn Diagrams with a set of fact cards will be a station, the Planetary Problems with a set of fact cards will be a station, the weight activity will be a station, and the brainstorm for the brochure will be a station (I will have a set of the fact cards there and the How Do You Burp In Space? book as well so students can use them to brainstorm). Then the last hour or so of the day, the students will create their travel brochure! You can grab the unit if you’d like from my TPT store!

If you want to create this travel brochure in your room, you can grab the brainstorm page for free here!

Have a great week next week! :o)

Sparking Student Motivation in Science: Light and Reflection!

Sparking Student Motivation: Inquiry Circles

Sparking Student Motivation: Fun Informational Passages!

Five For Friday: Weather Edition!

Sparking Student Motivation: Owl Pellets!

Must Read Mentor Text: How Do You Burp In Space?

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