Week 1: Redux

Holy Cow, how did the first week go by already? Last year, it seemed to stretch on forever, and we had so much extra time!

This year, with slightly shorter classes (due to it taking so long for us to rotate classes, walk our kids to lunch, walk them to rotation, etc) we have been behind all week!

Let's go over some changes from the last post:

Monday: I think we got most everything accomplished. 1st period was a mess, because the P and VP talked to the kids for ages before giving them to us. We didn't even get to finish supplies, much less get to the slideshow.
The rest of the day went smoothly. Everyone else got to the slideshow.

Tuesday: JEEZE these kids are slow writers! Here is what I gave them:

Then, I sent them to the labs to fill in the blanks by using the key.

We didn't have time for scripts OR for the cups. Oh well. They did pretty good for their first time doing stations.

Wednesday: WHAT where did the time go?
My first 3 classes got the Input/Output page, practice page, and rubric glued in. My last 3 classes didn't get the rubric in.

I'm learning that 4th period is loud because they come from lunch. 7th is loud because they come from rotation. and 8th is loud because they're ready to go home. I'm losing time to rotating classes during all 3 of these and so they're always behind everyone else. Plus, my 7th and 8th are inlclusion (I have 5 in each class).

No one got to cut/glue their procedures in today.

Thursday: Safety!
I wanted to continue getting our notebooks ready today, but I decided to go ahead and start safety. We spent the day going through the list of safety rules. I told them tales of my high school and college days, plus the story of the 2 7th grade boys who were LITERALLY ballroom dancing around during a lab last year. We also did get to do the Before/During/After. I decided that since they're such slow writers, I'm going to have to make ALL notes fill in the blank, and shorter than I had anticipated.

We didn't have time to draw the safe scientist today. I just BARELY had time to explain Science Safe-T for homework.

Here is the WS. This is the only place I could find it online: Picture Worksheet

Friday: THANK GOODNESS
Today we played catch up. We glued in our procedures (not 7th or 8th), drew our safe scientist, and did our table of contents
(1-4 are the table of contents)
5. Input Vs. Output
6. Notebook Practice
7. Notebook Rubric
8. Procedures
9. Safety Rules
10. A safe Scientist

Since I had to create that Catch-up day, I pushed SCOOT back to Monday.

So far this year has been so much easier than last. My schedule is great. Most of my kids are sweethearts. So many have told me that I'm their nicest teacher and they love my class. One boy nicknamed me Ms. Joy, because I remind him of Joy from Inside Out. I must be a darn good actress.

There have been a few hiccups, a few frustrating moments, but overall this year is better. I have things under control. I have time to myself. I have much more sanity and comfort.

This will be a great year = )

Week 1 August 24-28

Technically, school doesn't start until Monday. But if last year's experience is anything to go by, I won't surface for air until at least next Saturday. I figured I'd go ahead and post this week's lesson plans so that A) I can review what I'm going to do and B) If anyone out there doesn't know what they're doing this first week, they can maybe borrow from me.

There are a lot of new things going on this year.  5th grade is a whole other universe. Meet the teacher was packed! Our 5th grade is on the middle school campus (as our Elementary ran out of room). We are in our own little wing, tucked off to the side, away from all of the 'big kids.' We have a slightly different schedule from everyone else.

1st
2nd
3rd
Lunch (at 10:35AM!)
4th
5th
6th- Conference period for teachers, rotation for students. They go to PE, Library, Computer, or Music (which I didn't even know existed on our campus) on different days, and it changes ever 6-weeks.
7th
8th

In theory, it looks like a good schedule. All 5th grade teachers share a conference, which is nice. Classes are broken into small chunks thanks to lunch and rotation. Time to regroup, which I usually need!

Monday:
Our first day is a little funky.
1st period- Our students have the option of buying their supplies from a company that sells them pre-boxed...everything you need in one package. Each 1st period will collect the supplies that teachers keep (kleenex, map pencils, erasers, colored paper).
2nd period- Pass out agenda books. I'm ridiculously excited that 5th graders have agenda books! They're so helpful! I wish the 6-8th graders also had them. The kids pay $3 for them.

All classes:

I have a slideshow that I created that accomplishes the following:
1. Seating chart (desks are numbered, I project a list of students and their numbers, they go find the desk that matches their number).
2. What are we doing today? (so they feel a little less anxious about what is happening)
3. Basic procedures (entering and leaving the room, doing their agenda and bellwork, raising their hands, restroom policy, etc)
4. How class runs
     1. Grab science notebook
     2. Do bellwork and agenda
     3. Get out homework and red pen, grade
     4. Input (notes, videos, practice problems together)
     5. Output (labs, activities, projects, individual work)
     6. Put up journal, do exit ticket
     7. Pack up and leave

There are a few brain breaks plugged into the slideshow to keep the kids paying attention and get some of those first day jitters out. I'll upload this as soon as I have access to my work computer again. I completely forgot to upload it to google drive before I left = (

Tuesday:
Practice coming in, doing agenda, bellwork,  being ready to begin.
My main purpose today is to introduce the procedures that are specific to my class. To do this, the kids require information on how to work in a group. Yes, you must teach them how to do group work.

I accomplish this in 2 ways.
1. Group work script

I wrote 3 different situational scripts, and I'll have 3 pairs of students volunteer (or get drafted) to read them. The scripts have a sheet for Partner A and Partner B, each with their own parts.

How to have productive group work:
Partner A

You: What color paper do you want?

Them: I like green and blue. What color do you want?

You: Green is ok.

Them: Great! Now, what safety rule do we want to do?

You: Let's look at our list of rules in our science journal

grab the science journal and open it up

You: I like this one. “No horseplay in the lab.” We could draw pictures of people running, and poking each other.

Them: I think the one about always wearing safety goggles would be easier.

You: Easier isn't always better. All we could draw is goggles. We have to have two pictures. We'll get a better grade if we do a different one.

Them: You're right. Lets do the horseplay one.

Partner B

Them: What color paper do you want?

You: I like green and blue. What color do you want?

Them: Green is ok.

You: Great! Now, what safety rule do we want to do?

Them: Let's look at our list of rules in our science journal

they grab the science journal and open it up

Them: I like this one. “No horseplay in the lab.” We could draw pictures of people running, and poking each other.

You: I think the one about always wearing safety goggles would be easier.

Them: Easier isn't always better. All we could draw is goggles. We have to have two pictures. We'll get a better grade if we do a different one.

You: You're right. Lets do the horseplay one.

How NOT to have productive group work 1
Partner A

Grab the green colored paper

You: Here's our paper

Them: But I want to do blueYou: No, we're doing green!
Them: grab the paper out of your hand
Them: No, I like blue better!

Partner B

Them: Here's our paper

You: But I want to do blue
Them: No, we're doing green!
You: grab the paper out of your hand
You: No, I like blue better!

How NOT to have productive group work 2
 Partner A

You: So what should we draw for horseplay?
Them: Let's draw a person poking someone else with tweezers

You: This one time, I poked my little sister with tweezers. She had to get stitches!

Them: Wow! I had to get stitches once, when I fell off my trampoline.

You: I've never been on a trampoline.

Them: Really? I got one for Christmas last year.

You: I got a playstation for Christmas last year.

wait for Ms. Lynch to explain (we take this opportunity do discuss academic vs. social talk)

Them: Oh, we're off track. Let's get back to our project

Partner B

Them: So what should we draw for horseplay?You: Let's draw a person poking someone else with tweezers

Them: This one time, I poked my little sister with tweezers. She had to get stitches!

You: Wow! I had to get stitches once, when I fell off my trampoline.

Them: I've never been on a trampoline.

You: Really? I got one for Christmas last year.

Them: I got a playstation for Christmas last year.

wait for Ms. Lynch to explain (we take this opportunity do discuss academic vs. social talk)

You: Oh, we're off track. Let's get back to our project

 After this, I have a group of 4 come up and demonstrate working together. I borrowed this idea from the Science Penguin, who borrowed it from The Science Gal. 
Students use a rubber band and yarn to move cups into a pyramid stack. I want everyone to get the chance, but if we don't have enough time, it'll end up a demonstration.

Finally, once I have set expectations for groups, they go to the lab stations to complete their "Class Procedures" Foldable.

I'm still building my TPT library, so hopefully I'll be able to link things soon. This one is very specific to my class, though. Basically I created a 8-door foldable that has fill-in-the-blank style notes for the kids to complete. Topics include:
1. Bellwork
2. Makeup work
3. Exit Tickets
4. Pull a Slip
5. Science notebooks
6. NOISE level
7. Homework

After the kids complete the notes, they'll turn them in. I'm not having them set up their science notebooks until tomorrow so I don't want them losing this page! (trust me, they will).

Wednesday
Science Notebook setup day!
We will discuss the use of our notebooks today. My students may take theirs home, but I prefer to keep them in a bin (one for each class period). They get them when they walk in the door, put them up when they leave.

Here's what's going in today to start things off:
Title page
SKIP 4 sides (two pages front and back) for Table of Contents
5. LEFT Input vs. Output pages (we do input on the left, output on the right)
6. RIGHT Notebook practice page (I created it specifically for reviewing what goes where)
7. LEFT Notebook Grading rubric (which I made myself)
8. RIGHT Procedures foldable (from yesterday)

We are also gluing in:
Science Safety Rules (into the inside front cover)
List of common Science Prefixes/Suffixes (found here )
Types of Output (which also didn't make it onto my Drive. Includes, Acrostic, venn diagram, poem, draw a picture, data table, and others).

Thursday
We are deep diving into Science Safety. At our elementary, they barely touch Science. I'm under the impression that I should literally build from the ground up. Assume they have never heard of the Scientific method, don't know how to use a fire extinguisher, can't write a hypothesis, etc. Common sense isn't so common.

We're using this idea from the Science Pengin that she talks about in day 4 here.
I made my own "Before, during, after" sheet, and my kids will be practicing making detailed drawings. I'm also going to bring up the "diagram grading" system. (another thing I need to upload soon).

The kids will then complete a "What is Safe-T" sheet. I legit don't know where this came from, but I found it in a box of the prior teacher's materials. It has a list of statements like:

Find where someone is carrying a microscope incorrectly ________ (and then a blank for you to write a number in.)
The other page is a picture of a science lab, with students doing correct and incorrect things. Each object is numbered. This will be their first 'real' individual work in my class that isn't in their notebooks.

Friday
Today we will play SCOOT!
I didn't have time to make my own, so I'm using this one
We'll be playing scoot probably once per unit, so I might as well introduce it now.

Also, when we're done, I'm going to introduce our first Project of the year!
This is another freebie I found online. I'm going over the details of the project today, and introducing how to use the rubric to guide their work. The bookmark will actually be worked on on Monday.


WOO that seems like a lot to get through in a week. Hopefully we won't have much downtime, and we're not over-booked. I definitely want to set a precedence of constant hard work and forward momentum.

Also, please note that I didn't assign any real homework this week. Their homework is to get their science notebook numbered, anything they didn't finish (safe-t) and to get their welcome letters home to their parents so they can sign up for Remind.

I hope you all have an excellent first week!
~Kat

Goodbye, Summer

Here we are again, at the tail end of summer. I couldn't have asked for a better one. I played through a few of my stock piled video games, went to Universal Studios, Comic Con, and read a number of books.

And, to my own amazement, I planned through Christmas!

Yes, you heard that right. I have every page of notes, slideshow, foldable, warm-up, lab sheet, review, and test done through Christmas break. I'm exhausted just thinking about it. My goal was about 2 weeks of instruction for each week of summer break. It worked out perfectly.

And now, after a week of professional development, I'm forming the skeleton of my classroom. When I started last year, I had only a vague inclination of how to run a class. I know my content better than anyone, but the finer details were something I had to learn through experience. And learn I did.

I'd like to share a few of these that I've already set up, and am preparing to use this coming year. 5th grade is the only grade (pk-12) that I haven't had in some form, so I'm not sure exactly what to expect.

1. Noise level
     I had a basic noise chart last year but didn't use it enough. I'm going to be really thorough and consistent with it this year. I'm using this one. I printed the cards out, laminated (I taught myself how to use the laminator!) and stuck magnets to the back. The 5th grade hall was built in this century so it has magnetic white boards (!!!).

2. Objectives
     You're going to see a lot of The Science Penguin here. I would prefer to make my own, but there's no time for that, so I'm using Ari's brilliant mind and design skills. She has all of the 5th grade state standards typed up in to "I can" statements. I printed each out on green paper, laminated, and they'll hang right above the noise-o-meter, and right next to our Agenda (when I get around to making an agenda sign...)

3. Exit Tickets
     Last year, I gave up on exit tickets fairly quickly. I had 3 folders (got it, kinda, and what?) and kids put the exit ticket in the folder on the way out. Most just put it in got it, unless they were feeling cheeky and put it in what?
     New game plan.
     I cut large index cards in half and numbered them 1-26 (i shouldn't have more than 26 students in each class, each desk has a corresponding number). I laminated these too (I might be in love with the laminator). I also stuck magnets to the backs of these.
     At the end of class, I'll have an exit ticket question. The kids will use some Vis-a-vis markers (because they erase far better than dry erase) on their card then stick it to the correct class section on my white board. I sectioned a part of my board off using magnet strips with sticky backs. I then stuck ribbon to the sticky parts. I didn't want to use tape and risk ruining the board.

4. You may
     This is also courtesy of the Science Penguin. I used a few of the pre-typed cards, and then made a bunch of my own. When my kids are done with their assignments and have extra time, they can pick something from the "You may" board to do. Things include improving the quality of their science journals, reading a magazine (see below),  studying vocab, correcting returned papers, or helping me by stapling or cutting papers.

5. Science Magazines
     Among the wealth of other things I found in this room, there are approximately 50 different issues of a scholastic science magazine. Class sets of them. Most with a lesson plan of some sort. I took 2 of each and put them in this container so that the kids could read them when they want, along with a few of my own science books.

6. Lab roles
     It's always an argument when kids get into a lab and try to figure out who's doing what. This solves that problem. I printed out the cards, laminated, punched a hole in each and used yarn to make it into a necklace. Now, everyone knows what their job is, no one slacks, and there's no arguing. I'm assigning groups ahead of time this year and projecting the list/roles when we break into lab groups (as opposed to last year when I pulled Popsicle sticks. Lab Role Cards

We go back for more Professional development tomorrow, and then have another day and a half to get our rooms together before Meet the teacher night this Wednesday. I'll try to upload a few more pics when I get there!

Hope you're all having a great summer,
~Kat