It's Currently November!

Wow, what a wonderful weekend. My daughter's volleyball team just made it to state. I got my 385 report cards done, and I am even able to find some time for quiet time on the computer!  I almost forgot about the Currently fun that is had every month thanks to http://ohboy3rdgrade.blogspot.com/ .

Loving cranberries! Here is a great site for some cranberry recipes!

                        http://www.decascranberry.com/cranberry-recipes

Here is a shout out to the two posts before me... Amanda at First Grade Garden and Literacy without Worksheets have really yummy recipes that I could actually make!

Wish the Lumberjacks luck on their way to Green Bay this week for the STATE VOLLEYBALL tournament!!!! It has taken 30 years for volleyball to get there. We shall enjoy every minute of it!

3rd Grade Rocks

One of our FOSS kits is Earth Materials. We use it with our 3rd graders for ENCORE science. That means that I am a "specialist" who teaches our kiddos science for one hour per week. The teachers this year are to teach science in their classrooms using our theme or unit. Our district six years ago went to this model to give our teachers more prep time, and to get science to our students. In some rooms it meant more science and in others...less. This year, we have a new schedule that allows for our classroom teachers to enhance science in their rooms so I made this for my teachers to help me make.
We are learning about the rock cycle in our 3rd grade science classrooms. I made a little activity that helps our kiddos review the three types of rocks using a graphic I put up on the projector. We are in the middle of creating this book for review.  I will post pictures next week when they get closer to completion.  Check it out at TPT.

I  used the following resources to share with my classroom teachers:
http://www.learner.org/interactives/rockcycle/index.html

http://studyjams.scholastic.com/studyjams/jams/science/rocks-minerals-landforms/rock-cycle.htm

http://www.cotf.edu/ete/modules/msese/earthsysflr/rock.html

Our kiddos loved this song, they know the tune and can sing along!

Pumpkin Day Fun

How much did we have today! My after school class celebrated pumpkin day for our harvest of the month festival. We used some great resources from Mrs. Ricci's Kindergarten! We also read The Pumpkin Book by Gail Gibbons.



after doing a sequence activity and singing a song. Love this video!

Now, after reading the book and singing a song and even doing our sequence activity, we watched this great time lapsed video to watch the sequence in action.

We used this sheet for a cute book.

 Here is my little cousin in our after school class. You go Alli. Pumpkin Day rocks!

 Do pumpkins float or sink? Our little kiddos predicted, all said sink. We started with a small pumpkin...it floated. We put a medium pumpkin in the sink, it floated. Then, we put the big pumpkin in the sink, it overflowed and floated! The kids were amazed. We discussed why they float. We then cup open one of our pumpkins and it was HOLLOW! They got it!

Spooky Science

I am using these stations with my enrichment group this week and my after school class for my intermediate kiddos. Check it out.

We Flip for FOSS Catapults

Soooo, I was thinking. How can we make the FOSS lessons extend to really get our olders connected. How about frontloading the idea of medieval  catapults? I am giving my fifth graders a piece of tag board this week and as a team they must decorate the sheet to look like a castle. I am then sharing the following sites with them.

https://sites.google.com/site/physicsofcatapults/home/history-of-catapults

And a video of a catapult at Warwick Castle. Short and sweet.

After the students build there flipper system and you have them read about the physics behind the catapult, have them try to get them to get the silver ball over the castle they built. This will help them connect history to science! Or if you want to share another type of catapult at a circus perhaps, then this one may be the one for you.

Either way, this will help our 5th graders understand the flipper system a bit better. I sent along a tag board paper that each group is making that they will make into a castle. We will place the castles around the room and after we practiced the height and distance and recorded we will then have 5 chances to make it over the wall of another groups castle. They are super excited.

Over, Under, Around, and Through

Here is a little ditty to go with our push and pull lessons for kindergarten... sung to London Bridge

Over, under, around, and through
around and through,
around and through.
Over, under, around, and through...
now look behind you.

Looking left and looking right,
left and right
left and right
Looking left and looking right,
now sit down.


Here is a great book that works for our littles as they learn where they are.
How about giving our kiddos a paper carrot that they can place in different locations, sharing the words on the board for them to follow...

Push and Pull Unit: Cars Move

In our conversations during in-service this last week, we as a group of 8 science teachers all have a different feeling toward our kindergartners. So, in order to make it more STEM based or get them actively engaged and still keep us going ourselves, I made this quick lesson that you could use for lesson 3, Cars Move lesson. If you are looking to teach your kiddos a lesson on fast and slow, big and small, motion, graphing and science and don't know what I mean by lesson three here it is for you my new friends. This lesson connects to FOSS balance and motion and FOSS water. 

We are going to be using hot wheel cars to test the size of the slope.

I am going to be using the cars to cut out and make into a graph for them to predict if the low or high slope will make the car go faster.

Push Pull Cars Move