Get 'em Up!

I've always been a huge fan of using stations around the classroom.  It gets the students up and moving and is far more interesting than the typical sit-and-get instruction.  Even if it involves a reading passage at one station, answering questions, and an activity at another, the students prefer it because they are changing what they are doing every 5-10 minutes.  Those ADD tendencies and teenage boredom barely have a chance to set in before they've moved onto another thing.

And the best perk for us science teachers, is that we can become more of a facilitator/coach and our students can take greater ownership in their learning.  If we truly want our students to become more independent, they must learn to use what they know.  Without having the chance to have these meaningful conversations that support their thinking with each other, our students will fall short.

This type of activity also frees the teacher up to check on the students that typically struggle more than others.  You could also incorporate a station into the mix where students come to you and you do some more targeted interventions.  

One great way to easily incorporate this into your classroom is with the use of task cards.  They are basically cards with questions, activities or short passages that students read and then record some sort of answer onto their answer sheet.  They can be used in stations, hidden around the room or the school campus (like a scavenger hunt), in small groups or with individuals.  If you want to read up on various ways to use them, check out Rachel Lynette's Task Card site.

 I just added a new task card set to my Teacher's Pay Teachers store, titled "Atoms and the Periodic Table."  Click HERE to check it out. 

Here's a preview of the new product!

 

 

Saving my Voice and a Classroom Scavenger Hunt

I just wrapped up my 2nd week of school.  The first week was spent going over classroom expectations and procedures and setting up our Interactive Science Notebooks.  I am always amazed at how much time it takes to do both of those things, but I honestly can't imagine NOT doing them.  I think that going over my expectations and how I want my classroom to "run" is muy importante.

In the past years, I would spend about 2 days going over expectations and procedures and by the end of those 2 days, I was usually without a voice.  Seriously, I can't believe how much I talked on those days (and for 6 different class periods)!  And apparently, the whole "no voice" thing wasn't a big enough clue to me that I was doing too much teacher-talk, because I just kept doing the same thing year after year.  No lie, I had to borrow a microphone and speaker from another teacher to amplify my whisper, just so that my students could hear me!  This year, I finally got the hint and I did things differently.

This year, I created a Classroom Expectations, Procedures and Safety Scavenger Hunt around my classroom.  I had 31 task cards in various locations around the room and the students had an Interactive Science Notebook booklet that I created for them to answer questions in.  The students were instructed to roam around and find all 31 of the cards.  When they found a numbered card, they opened their booklet to that same number and found a related question that could only be answered by reading that specific card.  This forced the students to be moving around (not sleeping at their desks, while I mindlessly fed them information) and they had to read (which is never a bad thing.....painful for some of them, but that's a different issue.)  And the best part.....  I still have my voice.

This scavenger hunt freed me up to facilitate and assist any struggling students (although there weren't too many problems).  I was able to take care of a lot of that first week paperwork and I knew that my students would still be prepared for my class and the very picky expectations that I have for them.  The activity still took 2 days, but for this, it is always time well spent in my opinion.  Of course, I still went over a few of the really important ones (like my homework policy, late work policy, what to do when you're absent, what will happen if they are disrespectful with a sub, etc...), but it was quick because they already knew the answers.  I could just ask what the expectation was and they quickly gave me an answer.  It was wonderful!

Here are some pics of the Task Cards I used:

And a few pics of the student Scavenger Hunt booklet that accompanied the task cards:

If you are interested, I have created a product that will give you access to the task cards and Interactive Science Booklet I created to go along with them, in addition to editable versions that will allow you to customize both the task cards and ISN booklet to your own needs.  You can access it HERE in my Teachers Pay Teachers store.

September Currently Link up

I am linking up with Farley at Oh' Boy Fourth Grade... for her September Currently.  So many things have gone on this week....school started, my daughters started back to 3rd grade and pre-school, I went back to being "single mom" while my hubby coaches cross country, my in-laws went on a trip to Canada so I've been feeding cows, watering plants, and taking care of things at their house....  Should I continue?  Needless to say, I definitely needed the 3-day weekend.  Tomorrow, it's back to life, back to reality (did anyone else just sing that song in their head??)

I wonder how all these teacher bloggers keep up households and blogs and TpT stores (all at the same time!)  I need some of whatever they're having.  For real!

Join the link up!