Week 20

I can't believe I've finally learned how to *mostly* keep caught up on my planning and copying. I've been ahead enough that I've had all of a week's work planned and printed the week before. Yay me!

Here's what this week looks like:

Monday: Cell vocabulary
Here's our vocab words: Cell, Cell Theory, Prokaryotic Cell, Eukaryotic Cell, Organelle, Chromosome, Mitosis (we're saving meiosis for genetics), Tissue, Organ, Organ System, Organism, Stimulus (we're touching on it here and coming back to it for Teks 7.11)

Tuesday: Cells Introduction/ Cell Theory

We discussed the history of cells, how they were discovered, what they actually are, and Cell Theory. We then covered Prokaryotic and Eukaryotic cells. We compared and contrasted them using a Venn Diagram.

Wednesday: Organelles
We took notes using this as a template: Oodles of Organelles. I modified it a bit, and made it 3 pages (because we're learning 15 organelles).

We also watched this video Organelles Rap. My 8th period is so squirrelly, I have to break up all notes with other things, so we watched an extra video in their class Organelle Song. Both were catchy, and the kids enjoyed them. My 5th and 6th periods actually sang along with the first song (hilariously off key, might I add).

Thursday: Cells Lab
I've set up 6 microscopes, each with a different slide. I've used An insect wing (I think it's a fly), Human blood, bacteria, an amoeba, plant epidermis, and a starfish arm. The kids are going to be looking for different types of cells and trying to associate what they look like with their function. I wish I had some bone cells, cause the kids are amazed by them. I spent a solid 2 hours organizing our slide collection and putting them into groups (all the mosses here, plants here, fungus there). We have a good variety, but I might have to ask for a few new slides if we have extra in the budget = )

Friday: Vocab Quiz and Organelle Matching Game
My kids are going to take their vocab quiz first.
I've begun something new with each unit. In an effort to help boost academic vocabulary (which is what the whole district is working on at the moment) I'm starting to add Prefixes/Suffixes/Root words to our vocab set. This unit, we have 7. Cyto-/Cyte-, Pro-, Eu-, Meta-, Ana-, Telo-, and Lyse/Lyso. We've been using them for 2 days now every time they come up, and the kids are getting pretty good at recognizing them.

I bought this resource on TPT because I reeeeealy didn't feel like making my own. I've gotten to the state of mind now where I will in fact pay to free up a little of my precious time. These are far more than I'd need, but I was able to cut and paste and only use the cards we really need. Organelle Matching Cards

After this, we're about half way through our cells unit. I'm never certain how much detail to go into, but hopefully between this and next week we're covering everything that needs to be covered and not going too deep into anything.

The 50 fetal pigs in my cabinet send you a tiny stiff salute.

~Ms. Kat

Back in action

Either I have jumped through time, or I've been a sleep for 4 months. Goodness, how the time passes. I can't believe it's already mid-January!

I survived the first half of the year!

Terribly sorry for not updating. Between Drill Team and Science UIL, my life was not my own for a solid 3 months. But after a refreshing winter holiday, I'm back and have at least a little more free time.

In the interim, my class covered physical/chemical changes in digestion, Force and Motion, Earth Systems (natural disasters, ecoregions, watersheds), and Space.

We started back on the 6^th with Organisms and their Environment. Biomes, touching on adaptations, Biotic/abiotic factors, and Succession. Here's an overview of this unit so far.

WEEK 17

1/6
Ecology Vocabulary.
Biome, Habitat, Microhabitat (Niche), Abiotic Factor, Biotic Factor, Limiting Factor, Adaptation, Succession, Taxonomy, Climax Community, Biodiversity

1/7
We took notes on the names we give different areas of land. Biome, ecosystem, habitat, microhabitat/niche.

1/8
Students went to the lab stations to do research on the first 3 land Biomes (Tundra, Taiga, Grasslands). I put out info cards, and the students rotated between the 3 stations to fill in their data card. When they were done, we discussed the climate of each Biome and where they were located on Earth.

1/9
Students researched the other 3 land Biomes (Desert, Tropical forest, Temperate forest).

WEEK 18
1/12
Students did the same as last week, and researched the Aquatic Biomes. We did Salt, Fresh, and Estuaries. We created a giant concept map to tie all of the biomes together.

1/13
My kids took their vocabulary quiz. I was surprised how poorly many of them did. I'd been very careful to use the entire first half of our vocab list and even reviewed with them right before the quiz on the words we hadn't relly talked about yet. I think it's partially because we just came back from the break, and partially because we're getting into the harder, less well known words now. After, my kids finished up some of the Lesson Reviews from their book.

We also completed this Biome map sheet and taped it into our journals. I pulled this out of an old Science Explorer book I found lingering in my dusty old closet.

1/14
Adaptations day. Because adaptations is in another unit, I didn't want to spend a whole lot of time on it right now, but I felt that it would really help them distinguish between Biomes if we talked about the adaptations of animal TO THOSE biomes. We did Innate and Learned behavioral as well as structural.

I started off class with a matching game. The kids matched the animals to their adaptations. We took our notes, and watched a few videos. Available for free here: Adaptation Cards

The kids absolutely LOVED the spider and bird videos. They were fascinated and practically rolling on the floor at the dancing spider. It was a great day in Ms. Kat's Science Class.
Dancing Spiders
Birds of Paradise

1/15
We did a lab on Biodiversity. I used a lab setup I found online and modified it a bit to better suit our purposes. Here's the site for the original idea.

I set up 6 boxes, one for each land biome. I already had a bucket of centimeter cubes out and separated into baggies by color, so I used those to represent our organisms. I divided up the cubes into the boxes and labeled them. The kids rotated between stations and found the number of species (number of colors), and the number of individuals (total cubes). They then divided species by individuals to get the biodiversity index.

Here's the site I got the idea from Biodiversity lab

After, we discussed why biodiversity is important. How ecosystems that are more biodiverse are more stable, and can recover more easily than those that are less biodiverse.

1/16

We took some notes on primary succession. The kids made a small comic strip illustrating the various stages in Primary Succession.

I was in a very Frozen mood (there was in fact Ice on my car that morning) and I actually started singing “Do you wanna build a snowman” except I changed the words. Do you wanna build an ecosystem wasn't nearly amusing enough to them. I think I'm going to have to write the whole song and sing it for them next year.

We also devoted a good 20 minutes to putting together our Science Journals. We kind of slacked on them last year, so I'm making up for it this year. 2 weeks in and we already have 7 papers taped in (between notes, labs, vocab, and diagrams).

This coming week looks rather boring by comparison.

1/19
Teacher work day

1/20
Secondary Succession

1/21

Succession Lab. Students draw a modern ecosystem used by humans. They then pretend humans abandoned that area and follow it through the stages of secondary succession. I pulled this from our Fusion Lab Manual.

1/22

Ecology Unit Review
I put together a slideshow with questions and answers. I'm going to attempt to have us play a game I read about online. I just never felt like our smartboard review games were engaging enough for all students at the same time. I had tried using a board game during the Earth Systems unit (they didn't finish the game, not enough time) and I also tried Kahoot (turns out our computer lab doesnt have a projector so I had to read the questions and answers to them. Gave up on that really quick).

This game is a little more competitive and inclusive.

Students get into groups (I 'm going to try groups of 3). On the board, each group starts out with 10 x's. Group 1 gets a question and they may work together to decide on an answer. They have 15 seconds. If they get it right, they get to steal an X from another group. If they get it wrong, group 2 has an option to steal the question.

Any group that gets a question right has the opportunity to shoot a basket. If they make the basket, they get to steal another X from any group.

1/23
Ecology Unit Test!

That's all for now. If you'll excuse me, I have to go plan our Fetal Pig Dissection. The kids aren't nearly as excited about it as I am!

Week 3 and 4

I feel like this needs celebrating...

We have AIR CONDITIONING!

Technically, it's at 50% functionality right now, but that's far better than 85 degrees with 100% humidity in my class every day.

Week 3 began our first official unit that wasn't process-centered: The Flow of Energy.

Monday:

We used a foldable to help us learn our unit vocab. We spent about 10 minutes discussing the words together before I set them free to do their foldable. They were very familiar with this vocab, so I didn't want to spend an eon discussing it. I handed everyone two of the following...

If you google vocabulary foldable, this is the first link that comes up. It actually comes as a front/back page, but I wasn't yet proficient enough at front/back printing with our old risograph printer when I printed this, so I simply gave them a one-sided sheet.

The kids wrote the word and drew a picture on this front side (yes, they had to color).
They wrote the definition on the back side in the right hand column (on the reverse of where their name/date is).

Tuesday: Photosynthesis
I used a prezi to outline the ingredients, products, and process of photosynthesis.
http://prezi.com/opfbxgq8yqdv/photosynthesis/

The kids had a similar-looking notes page which we taped into their journals.

They took a few notes on this page as we went through the prezi.
Bottom right: Roots-absorb H2O/Water (filled in the molecule with HOH)
Trunk: Xylem-tubes that carry water from roots to leaves
Top Left: Leaves take in CO2/Carbon Dioxide (filled in the molecule with OCO)
Top Right: Glucose=Sugar C6H12O6

After the Prezi, we did an activity on the back of this sheet.

The kids were broken up into groups and given a baggie with centimeter cubes in it (because I lack snap cubes). The bag had 12H (red) 6C (orange) and 18O (blue).

I told the kids that the top 6 molecules were H20 and they filled those in. The next 6 are CO2, and they filled those in as well. We discussed how these, plus sunlight, are the ingredients in photosynthesis.

They had to build 6 water and 6 carbon dioxide molecules using their cubes.

Once they had that done, we labeled the Glucose molecule at the bottom. They broke apart their ingredients and made the glucose...and figured out what they had left over (Oxygen).

I had a number of Ah-Ha! moments when they realized that THAT is how trees give off oxygen!


Wednesday:
We played catch-up on a lot of things that we'd fallen behind on. We taped a few pages into our journals, finished up some lesson review pages out of our (Consumable) textbooks, and studied vocabulary

Thursday: Stomata Lab
I used my (semi) free time on Wednesday to set up their stomata lab. I had intended for them to do the setup but we needed Wednesday to catch up. Plus, as I discovered, the peeling of nail polish off of leaves is rather tricky.

The stomata lab exists in different versions. I decided to do it this way:

1. Paint a swab of clear nail polish on the underside of a few leaves (still connected to the plant).
2. Wait for polish to dry (this requires a lot of patience)
3. CAREFULLY peel the polish off and place it on a microscope slide...add cover slip
4. View on low>medium>high power and draw stomata

My original intent was to have them view stomata from a plant that had been in the dark, and some from a plant that had been in the light. However, I must have removed the "light" plants too early from the outdoors as most of their stomata were still closed. I wanted the kids to see both open and closed and compare them, but apparently I get to work too early *overachiever*

Still, they had fun, and got a better understanding of what a stoma is.

Friday:
The kids took their Vocab Quiz.
After, we talked about producers, primary/secondary consumers, and decomposers. We practiced picking them out of sample ecosystems (desert, arctic, and forest).

Week 4

Monday: Compost Lab
The kids were split into 4 groups, and each had a 2 liter bottle, potting soil, salad (from the school lunch on the previous friday, kept in my fridge over the weekend), apples/oranges (also from friday's lunch), and some plants from my garden (that my mother had pulled over the weekend).

They layered the ingredients in the following order (top layer on top, bottom on bottom)
Soil
plants
soil
apples/oranges
soil
salad
soil

My compost bottles from 5 weeks ago are looking great! They're almost completely composted. Here's a pic lab station 1's bottles

Tuesday: Food Chains
We spent the day talking about food chains.

I had the kids set up a page in their journal for all of this week's notes. They divided a page into thirds. One per day we spent talking about this stuff:
1. Food Chains-show the flow of energy from one organism to another
[   ] > [   ] > [   ]
The kids filled in the boxes with Producer, Primary Consumer, Secondary consumer.
We took a few minutes to point out what the arrows mean. I had seen a STAAR question about that and wanted to drive that point home. They DO NOT show you what is eating what. They show the direction of the flow of energy!

Wednesday:
2. Energy Pyramids-show the amount of energy that is transferred from one level to another
We drew an energy pyramid, filled it in with Producer, Primary Consumer, Secondary consumer. We talked about the 10% rule.

To help them visualize it, I separated 500 centimeter cubes into bags. I used the C-scope 10% rule activity sheet as a guideline. I showed how much energy goes to the following:
Unused sunlight 20% (yellow cubes)
Photosynthesis: 30% (green cubes)
Reproduction: 30% (red cubes)
Respiration: 10% (blue cubes)
Stored in body: 10% (passed on to primary consumers) (45 white cubes, 5 black)

We talked about where that 90% energy was going, and how the 10% is what we'd get if a rabbit ate the plant. We then took it one step further.
Now that the rabbit has that energy (50 cubes)...
10% respiration
20% digestion
30% reproduction
30% movement
10% stored (passed onto secondary consumers) (5 cubes left)

The kids were shocked at how much energy is lost along the way!

Thursday
3. Food Webs
We're discussing this tomorrow. After, I plan on having them making a food web poster, using whatever animals and plants they want. I'm going to ask for 2 producers, 3 primary consumers, and 3 secondary consumers, plus 1 decomposer. They must have their web labeled and colored.

They'll finish these up on Friday.

It's 7:30 on a Wednesday and I'm just about ready for bed. Ms. Kat is pooped! And sore from Drill Team practice yesterday = )

Peace, Y'all
Ms. Kat

Week 2

Has another week already gone by? I think someone must be tampering with the time/space continuum.

This week was a little rougher than the first. The excitement over starting school has worn off, and the kids are settling into their 'oh we're going to be here for a loooong time' mentality. They're a little more grumpy this week.

As a department, all 3 science teachers decided to devote this second week to the Scientific Method. We thought this might be a good idea to prevent us from having to introduce it each and every time we do a lab.

Monday (holiday)

Tuesday- We covered Empirical Evidence, and scientific Explanations using our textbook. We also talked about good and bad sources (books, websites, journals, blogs, etc).

Wednesday- We discussed what Scientific Laws and theories are. We used a set of self-made cards with different laws and theories on them, and the kids had to sort them into stacks. We made a venn diagram in our science notebooks to compare and contrast the two. We also talked about what models were, and looked at the benefits and limits of using them.

We watched this mythbusters clip and the kids picked out the benefits and limits of the model they used. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cu0uNPFCf68

Thursday- The kids designed an experiment to test how plant seedlings responded to light. The kids already knew that plants grow toward light. The purpose of the lab was to teach scientific method, to make them actually go through the steps.

I had the kids bring in small cardboard boxes (shoe boxes, cereal, cake mix, snack bar boxes) and I grew about 30 cucumber seedlings in plastic baggies. The seedlings were planted about 1 week before the experiment, and most were about 7 inches tall by this time. I transferred them to cups to separate them and help them stand up.

The kids were tasked with cutting a hole somewhere in the box and positioning their plant-in-a-cup.

I had them write up their lab like this:

Plant Growth Lab

Hypothesis: If _____________ then ______________________.

"If we place a seedling inside a box, with only one hole where light can enter, then the seedling will grow toward the light."

(I ask my kids to use If, then statements for their hypothesis)

Materials: small box, cucumber seedling, plastic cup, scissors, sunlight

Procedure:
1.

2.

3.

(I had them write their procedure within their group)

Data:

Here I had them draw two boxes. They had to draw a before and after picture.

Conclusion: When we ______________ to ________________, _____________ happened. My hypothesis was (correct/incorrect).

"When we placed our seedling inside the box and left it outside, the plant grew toward the hole on the side of the box. My hypothesis was correct.

This is the form I generally like for their hypothesis to be in. It provides a summary, tells me their results, and goes back to their hypothesis.

We set our labs up on Thursday, and I put the boxes outside that afternoon. I retrieved them Friday morning and the kids did their conclusions Friday. I really should have left them out there for another day (moved what we did Wednesday in-between the two lab days) so the plants had more of a chance to grow. Oh well, lesson learned!

I will upload pictures of our plant labs, as well as the Law Theory cards soon. They're on my work computer and I completely forgot to bring them home!

Peace, love, and Science,

Ms. Kat

Week 1

Oh my Glob!

School began a whole 4 days ago. We are already almost done with the first week of school! Time is passing with a quickness I had not anticipated. I can't say that's a bad thing though.

Both my new 7th graders and I are still getting into the swing of things. Each day goes a little better than the last, which is excellent.

To sum up the week so far:

Monday- I had students fill out their About Me pennants while I told them about myself. We went over some of the classroom expectations and procedures. I broke the kids into 6 groups and sent them to their lab stations, where they were to study a sheet about one of the major procedures in our class (make-up work, rewards, consequences, class library, NOISE letters and Exit Tickets). They then had to present that procedure to the class. We finished up with a few more basic things like the No Name board, how to enter and leave, and how to get my attention when they needed help (more on that later). We finished up with a video from John Green: http://youtu.be/x78PnPd-V-A

Tuesday- We started Lab Safety. I passed out the Science Is A Blast sheet (from C-scope) and had the kids work in pairs to identify all of the lab rules being broken. They circled each one and numbered them. Then they wrote on the back which rule was being broken. we went over it as a class, and I collected this as their first Daily Grade!

Wednesday- We watched a Video by Hank Green, found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRWRmIEHr3A (also available on Schooltube).
We then used a set of matching cards to match a scenario to a lab rule. They had 10 rules and 10 scenarios in a plastic baggie, and worked in groups (each set of tables was a 'group,' from 4-6 kids). We finished up by talking about our Unit Project: Lab Safety Brochure. I gave the kids a rubric and explained how it worked. We folded our brochure and went over exactly what needed to be in the brochure.

Here are the instructions I gave the kids for setting up the brochure:

Fold a sheet of paper (we used neon color paper) into thirds. I had them hold it so it was landscape, then bend the left side over a little more than half-way, bend the right side over on top, even the edges out, then Smush!

The front is the title page. They need to have a title about lab safety, and it needs to be easy to read and big enough that I can see it from a few feet away.

I had them flip over onto the back and write their name down at the bottom. On this same side, I had them write the number 5 at the top (in either corner).

Once they opened up to the middle, I had them number the left column 1, the middle 2, and the right 3. Then they folded that right panel in, and gave it a 4.

They're going to finish their brochures Thursday. They'll be due Friday before they take their Lab Safety Quiz.

Until later,

~Ms. Kat

Exit Ticket and No-Name Update

The new school year is just around the corner, and if your school is anything like mine, you're knee-deep in professional development. We've got 9 straight days of it, and I'm awash in a sea of activity, but I wanted to take a moment to share a few things.

First, an update to my No-Name board. I finally figured out how I was going to physically use the letters. I used double sided sticky pads to attach the letters to a poster board, and glued clothes pins along the bottom.

My school colors are actually Orange and White but I made the letters a few months ago before I got this job. There's no washing the PN-G Pride out of us life-long Indians!

Second, I wanted some type of Exit Ticket system. This is what I came up with.

I have little baskets set on each pair of desks (since my desks seat 2). I plan on putting an exit ticket for each student in these baskets. When the kids are walking out the door, they slip their exit ticket into a folder. Got it means they completely understood. Kinda means they are in the process of mastery, but need more work. What means 'jeeze Ms. Lynch I have no idea what any of that means!'

This is a very quick way to see if/how many your students understand the content, and how comfortable they are with their understanding. The exit tickets don't have names or numbers, so it's entirely anonymous.

Alright, back to constructing/planning/organizing for the coming year.  2 weeks til we begin!

~Ms. Kat

Compost bottles Prep

Happy August, Internet!

I've been up to my neck in busy since landing my job. I had the entire first 6 weeks of school rigorously planned out, powerpoints made, labs planned, activities designed....

And then my principal called and asked me to teach 7th grade instead of 8th!

Honestly, I don't mind. I actually prefer 7th grade as it's mostly Life Science (and I majored in Biology). Plus, I had about 6 weeks of lessons already planned for when I was trying to get a job at my Student Teaching school, so it's not nearly the hassle it might have been.

I'm writing today to share my summer prep on a lab we'll be doing mid-September. In the middle of our "flow of Energy" unit, we cover the following...
TEKS 7.5 (B)...demonstrate and explain the cycling of matter within living systems such as in the decay of biomass in a compost bin

I recall my mentor teacher's neighbor taught a class of 7th grade, and they did compost bottles early in the year. I decided it would be an excellent activity for my kiddos. I'll publish the powerpoint and journal pages later when we actually get to the lesson, but there's a little pre-planning and work that I need to take care of first. If you're planning on doing compost bottles, you might want to follow my lead on this.

Composting takes time. Like, weeks of time. I didn't want the kids to go through all the work of making these compost bottles only to move on to another unit before they could see in any results. So I decided to make a few compost bottles today, allow them to do their thing for 5-6 weeks, and bring them up to school during the "lets check our bottles" day I have budgeted (about a week after the kids do their bottles). This way, the kids could see what will eventually happen to their bottles without the hazards of time travel = )

There's tons of resources out there on how to do compost soda bottles but here's my take.

I pulled the labels off of 2-liter coke bottles and used an x-acto knife to cut the top off...at about the first ring...where the bottle curve turns into being straight sides.

I then rounded up my ingredients.

I found the following in the bottom of my fruit/veggie drawer in the fridge:

 Two immensely rotten (and fungus-y) cucumbers and some half-rotten radishes.  BLEGH. I have a traditionally strong stomach, but even that made me queasy. Had to clean out the whole drawer, and promise myself to be far more vigilant with respect to that drawer in the future.

Since I don't believe in coincidence, I took this as a sign that I was supposed to be making compost bottles today (tomorrow is trash day and they would have gotten thrown out).

I was also fortunate in that my mother pulled weeds from the fence-line and garden a few days ago.

I also had a half a bag of potting soil from our spring gardening at my disposal.

I wish we still got the newspaper, because I would have loved to use that. And if I'd thought about it, I'd have used our coffee grounds from this morning. Things to remember in a few weeks!

At any rate, I layered soil, rotting veggies, watermelon rind (from lunch!), grass, and mists of water until the bottle filled up.

Once full, I shoved the cut off tops into the bottles. I used my x-acto knife to poke small holes along the sides so we could get some air in there. I plan on shaking them once a week to aerate.



If all goes well, the kids will have three 5-week old compost samples to compare theirs to. Here's hoping!

I also found this cool game, and I plan on letting the kids play after we finish up the lab. http://compost4fun.recyclenow.com/


I'm not sure if we'll have computers at every desk like I'm used to, but even if we don't, I can run the game and they can tell me what to grab. They'll enjoy it regardless.

Hope August is treating you all well!
Ms. Kat