Foss Friday and Peek at My Week

It has a busy week in the Science School Yard. It is Farm to School Garden time and three new FOSS kits are starting this next week. Busy...busy... I am linking up with my blogger buds at

 Mrs. Laffin's Laughings and  Mrs. Will's Kindergarten for this linky party!

This week in the School Yard:
Kinders- What are seeds? We are starting with a poster entitled...Seeds with the words CAN, ARE, HAVE, NEED. Our kinders don't seem to know much about seeds. They say that seeds have stems and flowers. That my cuties is a plant. I then hand out the variety of seeds I have that we plant in our school garden. Our garden is cleaned out and ready to go! We then go back to the poster where we now add what we know about seeds. I read the story The Garden We Grow. Or kinders will be planting a kinder"garden" starting next week. They are growing a pumpkin patch for next fall where they will be able to see how they grow and the plants grow too. It takes time to get big doesn't it. I read the story and add in our kinder"garden" after each page...until we pick the pumpkins...in first grade. They love it. I get to practice on one class before the start of next week. It went well.

Firsties- are using the FOSS kit insects, but before we get our meal worms and painted ladies, we need to know what an insect is. We read the book Do You Know about Insects? But before we read it, we add to a poster what we know and our misconceptions...then we learn from the book and add what we learned. As I read I sing the song head, thorax, abdomen to head, shoulders, knees, and toes. Cute stuff. We also chant, egg, larva, pupa, adult. Yea! They remember then! We then make an insect, but remember what everyone of our insects must have when we make it. We build a bug and add it to our board. We finish with a bug hunt outside.

2nd graders- Plants! I love this unit. It sure helps when we grow our own garden at school. I am using our Plant Unit that I made with two other science teachers to incorporate NGSS and FOSS. Plants: A Comprehensive Unit. I will start with building a greenhouse. We want to also know what plants need. We will use the story A Seed Is Sleepy to learn about seeds first. We will be opening up a seed and taking a look inside. I will add a sheet next week that I am adding to the unit.

3rd graders- Sound is the name of the game. We learned about the difference between pitch and volume. We will be reviewing with a quick quiz to check for understanding. We will continue by watching Study Jams Sound. The new words we will add vibration, frequency, decibels, hertz, and echo. Quick quiz time again. Students then will do stations that deal with vibrations, decibels, and frequency. Slinky model and sound waves and pitch.... long gong.... tuning fork in water. We will wrap up with all the words while showing the amplifier.

4th graders- we will continue to learn about the solar system. We are finishing up on what we learned about the Earth, Sun, and Moon. We are working on fact building with stations. We are using a matching activity from the Science Penguin, then a quick quiz to see what they remember.

After they are done with a quick review...we are working on the concept of cycles around us. Tides, seasons, day and night, and lunar cycles. We are finishing up with this great rap and start of the lunar model using Oreos and this great free download from Balancing Everything.

Fifth graders: Oh, My, Gosh...I am so excited about their cardboard arcade games. We started them this last week for about 10 minutes of supply getting. Some groups are already almost done. These games will be played at our Title 1 night: Hmong Heritage Celebration and 5th Grade Cardboard Arcade. The game with the most tickets gets featured at our school carnival that weekend! When students are done with their game, they are working on the past, present, future lesson in the Cardboard Arcade Simple Machines Unit. I love this unit! We did the scavenger hunt and vocabulary matching. The kids were completely engaged in the activity! They now are understanding simple machines even better!

Have a great weekend!

Our Finished Food Chain Art Project

Mother Nature...Where is Spring?

So, last night we rode back from Milwaukee with the fear that we were driving north to meet up with another "winter" storm. As we pulled into our city over 4 hours of driving... we drove into one of the most beautiful scenes I had ever seen. It had rained a few hours before we drove in and every tree was covered with magic. I mean beautiful glassy, shimmery ice. I tried to capture it this morning as the ice was still on the trees. Okay...so I am hating snow...I mean HATING snow at this point, but this was something special and about an hour later it warmed up and was gone. So was the magic. Still have now only a foot of snow in our yard and a great idea for a writing activity for next week's i/e group though.

Here is the link to the to the writing activity I am going to do with my i/e kiddos...

                                       Mother Nature We Need Spring

We are going to persuade Mother Nature to help the snow melt here in Wisconsin. We shall see what the kiddos say. One last funny note...I took my own 2 out of 4 kids to the beach over vacation...take a look at the winter jackets. Lake Michigan was COLD! I needed to get rocks though for a school garden project for later. Hopefully, spring is right around the corner. Hope my students can persuade Mother Nature to agree to help us out. 

Currently April 3rd already!

Currently, I should be socializing with relatives, but I need to connect with  Farley over at Oh' Boy 4th Grade.

Why do I always want to do currently on the first of every month, but every time it takes me at least three days to sit down and do what I need to do. I am here in Milwaukee, finding time to link up as we share some quality time with my husband's sister and her family. Love antiquing and trying to find some treasures for my daughter's new apartment. Found a free mirror in my sister in law's garage.

Currently, I am linking up and knowing that our three hour ride will help me continue to work on my farm to school after school activities. I am also happy that my husband currently is figuring out a way to see his brother who we haven't seen in a few years. It makes me happy currently.

I am also currently interested to see when everyone is done with school and what time everyone starts and ends there day. I hope that those of you out there that are on vacation this week are enjoying your days off. Vacation sure is going by fast.

Happy April. I was hoping March would go out like a lamb...but the lion is still roaring loud here in Wisconsin. Wish I was somewhere warm, but currently I am toasty inside.

Hop on Over Again!

So today, my son and his friends went to an indoor water park. It is very interesting riding in a car with four boys and what they talk about. For 20 minutes I listened to them discussing their new names...one of  my favorites...Nemo Shamu. Cute, huh? As I sat at the water park, I got a new TPT pack done. I love it. It is for Easter and it reviews some of the FOSS vocabulary that the students have used in prior units. I wanted something that didn't cost much...some eggs, plastic Easter eggs (got a ton in my basement), and solvents around the house. I figure kids could bring in some liquids if they wanted to add to what I would bring in. I love the peep idea, but I wanted it to be relevant for my students after finishing the variable and mixtures and solutions units. Check out my new Easter Science Stations... I can't wait to share them with my students and you!

Easter Science Stations On TPT

Hop On Over

I am enjoying my time off...vacation rocks. Here was the first line of business yesterday...

Sock Searching Took Over an Hour

Then...the wash...

Finally, my son's science fair project...velocity of a baseball...Look at that form!

Today, looked a bit different. I woke up and my goal was to finish some new products I needed for our last quarter. Frogs!

I am looking forward to using this with our first grade teachers and students. Check it out at 

The Life Cycle of a Frog Thematic Unit on TPT. We have ordered painted ladies...so on to the butterfly unit. 

Spring Break...Peek At My Week

I am planning for the week we get back from break, but boy is my head not in it. I can't wait for some time off. There is still about three feet of snow, but rain today. So melt, snow, melt!  Our big plans...water park...trip to Milwaukee to see relatives...and painting and sewing some things for my daughter for her new apartment. That is the goal. I also want to finish some of my TPT items. I am sure I can get something done on our 3 1/2 hour trip to Milwaukee.

Thanks to Mrs. Laffin's Laughings and  Mrs. Will's Kindergarten for this linky party!

Peek at My Week:

Kindergartners:
We are learning about weather yet, so we are learning about different types of weather that effects them in Wisconsin. We are making headbands that were featured on A Kindergarten Smorgesboard.  He has the symbols the students will need to make them. We will then create tornadoes in a bottle and practice what we do in the case of an emergency...tornado drill review. Students will then use the symbols to understand In like a lion out like a lamb on our chart, then share how you can be like a lion and lamb...of course after hearing the book...


We will finish up with a tornado in a bottle demonstration for them to make. For those of you that live in the Midwest...you know that on a given day in fall we can be in our basements or at school huddled in a bathroom due to a tornado warning. We will then review weather that is like a lion and a lamb. Our big idea is how weather can be classified.

First Graders:
We will be finishing up our Balance and Motion Unit this next week. First, we will review with a FOSS lesson, rolling wheels and rolling cups. We will finish with a review test that I was going to post, but in my haste to get out the door for spring break I didn't download it. When the kiddos are done they will be doing a quick friction fun activity by testing how their cars are slowed down at different rates by different surfaces. I shared the sheets on a previous post. We will test counters, steel wool, carpet, and sand paper.

2nd graders:
We will be reviewing the food chain. We will focus on last week's vocabulary: food chain, consumer, producer, omnivore, carnivore, herbivore, as well as what a food chain looks like. Students will be getting a sheet that has them matching vocabulary as well as creating food chains from different ecosystems. They will finish up with the art activity that we wanted to do last week. I guess I planned too much.















3rd graders:
We will be working with sound once again. We will focus on sound through different matter...air, liquid, and solid. Students will determine using FOSS which matter allows sound to be heard best. We will be using the FOSS lessons to create stations for the students to use along with a reflection sheet. The last station will be a helpful sheet from my sound sheets:

4th graders:
We are working on the earth yet. My kiddos really didn't know how seasons are related to how light and dark it gets in Wisconsin as the year progresses. They couldn't answer questions about day and night, let alone rotation and orbit. So, we will be reviewing in the form of stations. I am using several sheets from the Science Penguin, as well as using the ipads and the app The Day and Night World Map. This app allows students to understand the concept of day and night better using this visual aid. They will also create a model using a lamp and a styrofoam ball. We shall see what they can do. Then a little bitty quiz to check for understanding.

5th Graders:
Will be working on their Simple Machine Cardboard Arcade Unit. We will share the best invention ever made. We will then use the scenario cards to build a simple machine that will help build our arcade. They will create a mini version of that machine.

Happy Spring Break...if you are on break, or I hope your break was what you hoped it would be. I have a to do list that is pretty long. We shall see if I can tackle even some of it.

Peek At My Week

It is Tuesday, and I am sorry to not have posted about what my week looks like. It sure helps me in my own head! Lots of other stuff going on though. Got a call Sunday...my uncle died after a battle with Alzheimer's. Then, a call to tell me my closest cousin is coming home for a funeral of her own...her father in law, not to mention that her husband has skin cancer. Two funerals in one week...ugggghhh and cancer....YUCK!

My uncle lived next door to us when I was growing up. My favorite memory, you will all be jealous! is that he worked for Sundrop. I always had soda in a bottle after school. My dad delivered bread, so we always had sweet rolls, and their best friend worked for Frito Lay. Chips and soda for an after school snack. Not the healthiest of choices, but for a kid...YUM! He had a jute box and pool table in his basement and it was always fun going over and playing the songs. My favorite was TUSK by Fleetwood Mac!

Onto my week...
Kinders:  are working with air. We are doing the air sheet from the last post and reading the wind book. We added making fans to show how air molecules move and watching a wind song...

First graders:
We are focusing on how toys are modeled after things in nature and things in nature move just like toys. Seeds can move! They can glide, fly, slide, bounce, jump, roll, spin, and zoom! We read a great book that helped us connect FOSS with seed movement! I wanted to add some more vocabulary to their list, but still teach the FOSS lesson. I read the book and made helicopters. We copied the chart in our notebook and illustrated. Then we finished with a video clip to wrap up!

Second graders:
We are working on how to connect the worm unit to our FOSS plant unit. We are using the food chain to do that. I used the activities from TPT. First, we read What Eats What? We followed it with a vocabulary activity as a large group. We then moved to shoulder partners to share examples and ideas. We then sent them back to the tables to do some connection activities. We will finish up after vacation with an art project.  I used the STEM MOM pictures for my board activities...
Art Activity modified from Science For Kids...OCDiva's Food Chain Pack for the worksheets in their science notebooks. Thanks to all the fun freebies, TPT!

Third graders:
Sound discrimination is the lesson of the day. We reviewed the vocabulary...followed the FOSS lesson for the spelling game, figured Neha made a better game... and finished with this fun sound game!

Fourth graders:
Started their Solar System unit today. I am using the following lessons to the unit started. I also gave the kids a quick pretest to see what they know and what they want to learn. Why do they always want to learn about aliens? I also modeled seasons using myself and a student to demonstrate seasons and overhead projector and myself to demonstrate day and night. We discussed what the demonstration illustrated...they drew pictures...then they discussed the limitations of the demonstration. We followed up by having the kids check out the website to see if they can take what they learned. Both link sites are on my school link below.

Fifth graders:
We are continuing to learn about simple machines. We are using Caine's Arcade to learn about simple machines. We will be using Chrome books and my school blog to get them to focus on their lesson. I posted their lesson and sites on my school blog. Check it out!

http://mrshsciencecenter.blogspot.com/