Middle School Science Blog

Through the Middle School Science Teacher group I belong to, I found out about PageFlakes, a FREE website for RSS or XML feeds. You can customize your Pageflakes to whatever topics you are interested in.

I added the RSS or XML feeds from my favorite science news sites so we can keep up with current events and I can use them as examples in class discussions. Instead of going to each separate news site, I can quickly see all the latest news headlines from all my favorite sites in one spot!

Lets say you are doing a weather unit, you can have the weather for selected US cities or foreign countries all on one page.

If you are doing a space unit, you can have feeds for phases of the moon, constellations visible that night, or other astronomy/space information.

You can list podcasts that you want your students to listen to. On my site, I have a link to a great news feature called 60-second science podcasts from Scientific American.

Most websites have an RSS or XML feed. When you click on either one, it will give you a web address that you can copy and paste into your Pageflakes page.

If you already use Pageflakes, how do you use it in your classroom?

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.

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.

In my room I have a challenge board where students can work on science related puzzles. The kids can work on them when they are done with their work or when we have some free time between lessons. They earn points which they can turn in for a free piece of candy, an eraser, one extra day homework pass, etc.

I love to play Scrabble, so I made some fun science puzzles with a Scrabble/Science theme. Each word is a 7 letter science vocabulary term that is scrambled up and the kids have to find 3, 4, 5, & 6 letter words using those letters. They also have to figure out the 7 letter science word.

I used a Scrabble-like font for the tiles, which is easy to find if you do a quick search. (the one I used is called Scramble, similar to this one) Looking through the glossaries of Physical Science and Earth Science Textbooks, I found a ton of 7 letter science words, and some 6 letter words that I just added an “S” to!

The answer to the 7-letter term is the name of the file I saved it as. I also use this website to see how many word combinations are possible for each word.

Once I made a template in word, it was very easy to make a large batch of them at once. (If you don’t see the word ‘template’ in scrabble-like tiles, you will need to add the font to your computer)

Master List – vocab words in alphabetical order

#’s 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15,
16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25,
26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34 , 35,
36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45,
46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55,
56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71

If you notice any typos, please let me know! =)

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.

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.

I am thinking about incorporating some power teaching methods, or whole brain teaching, (the site is temporarily down, they are upgrading it) this year to help with classroom management. There were a few things I wanted to work on, and one of them was chattiness. Last year’s class was really chatty and I want to nip it in the bud for this year’s class.

Jeff B’s blog on whole brain learning has been really helpful. This year one of the things I am going to try is the Yada Noise Control Scale. I am slightly modifying his scale to the following categories:

• Rock Concert – out of control, way too loud!
• Recess – loud, excited voices
• Conversation – normal voices
• Spy Talk – only the person next to you should hear you
• Pharaoh’s Tomb – not a peep! (Egypt is a huge part of their social studies unit)

I am making a display with the following handout, which will be laminated and posted vertically as one long banner next to my chalk board. When I am done, will post a picture of it.

With my classes, we will practice what these different levels sound like so they understand what is expected when we calibrate our noise levels.

Some other methods I am going to incorporate are the rules, class-yes, & scoreboard.

If you have used any of these methods, would love to hear from you!

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

I stumbled upon this website from Holt that included free downloadable interactive graphic organizers. What I love about these is that students can type their notes directly into the pdf file, print them out, then glue them into their interactive notebooks.

Some examples of graphic organizers are:

• Venn Diagrams
• Fish bone
• KWL Chart
• Word Map
• Cause & Effect

Here is the link to the Holt website