Water Cycle in a Bag

In science class the other day, we did an activity based on the following YouTube video!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WQBtAJxMbY
- thanks for creating this video (side note)


The activity all together was fun, engaging, and the students really enjoyed it. It's a very cheap activity to do, and, I want to add, out of all of the content I have taught this year, I believe they understand the water cycle the most.

This is the order in which I conducted my activity:

1) I showed the first part of the video where the instructions were given.

2) I passed out zip-lock bags, poured water in the bags, and then went around with the food coloring.

3) As I was pouring the water and food coloring, I had 2 students assist in taping the bags to the window. (I only allowed four students at a time to go to get their bags taped.)

4) While the bags were on the windows, I had the students answer the following questions:
          -Write a hypothesis to explain what you think is going to happen to your "water cycle".
          -Draw a picture to represent your hypothesis.
          -Explain the reasoning behind your hypothesis.

5) I also had a mini-lesson explaining evaporation, condensation, and precipitation using a burner and a pot! They loved to see me make it rain with the lid!

6) We went to observe our bags and then had a discussion about what happened.

7) We finished the rest of the video and compared our bags to the video's bags.

Overall, it went well. Our bags never did much due to the fact that the sun was not out most of the time, it was cold, and I teach 45 minute classes! However, it made a GREAT discussion when I asked them why our bags didn't look like the video.

Number Lines

In math class the other week, my class did an activity that I really think helped my students understand converting fractions and decimals as well as placing them in order from least to greatest.

I cannot take credit for this idea because it came from our math book, but although it was very simple, my students enjoyed it.

My students were placed in groups and given a long piece of duct tape. They had to label the tape from -2 to 2 and count by halves. They were given several problems with about 5 decimals and fractions in each problem. Students had to convert the numbers into fractions or decimals to make it easy to place them in order from least to greatest. After they did the math, they had to physically show me on their number line the order that they would be in. They did a great job!

Great Start to the Year!

I am having a great start to the year! I just began the third week of the school year, and it has been a blast. I really wanted to share some of the things that are going on in the classroom.

The first thing I want to talk about is something that I haven't done this year, but I did it last year, and it was great! I definitely cannot take credit for it, but I will provide the link. 

http://www.geosociety.org/educate/LessonPlans/Layers_of_Atmosphere.pdf

Thank you to Jack Fearing for providing. This is a great activity!

This activity helps to teach the layers of the atmosphere. Students will have to graph points, which will ultimately show the patterns in the atmosphere. From that, students have to determine where each layer begins and explain how they can tell. It can be a little challenging for those students who cannot plot points well, but overall, it is a wonderful activity and visual tool to remember the layers of the atmosphere! I love it!

In math class yesterday, I did one of my "closures" at the end of class. It is called a "Snowball Fight". I have never in my life seen students so excited that they were able to throw a piece of paper across the room. Their faces were priceless, and they were SO into it! I had them to get out a piece of paper, write down a problem like the ones that we did that day. We were working on adding and subtracting integers, so they could have written 6 x (-7). They were not to write an answer, but then to ball the paper up and throw it across the room. They then had to pick another one up and answer it. I was so proud :)


I have created closure cards with 50 different closures, including the snowball fight! They are on sale on my TpT and TN sites. They are great for filling in the end of class and lesson plans!

The Most Horrible Blogger Ever!

I know that I must be the most horrible blogger ever! Once the school year was over, I vanished!

Well, I will just have to say that I had an amazing summer, and it was super busy! I got married!!!! It was fabulous! After the wedding, I also took on a summer job. With all this excitement going on in my life, I forgot to update my blog. I'm so horrible!

To make up for lost time, I will try to update more often this school year. I hope that I will have some very exciting things to share. I officially start back tomorrow. I can't believe it!!! I have been out to the school a few times already to make sure I'm ahead of the game. I got very lucky in that I actually got to keep the same classroom that I was in last year. That's pretty exciting! I tried to switch things up just a little bit because change can be good! 

I, of course, stole this idea from Pinterest! It is just so cute! You place two file cabinets back to back and cover with fabric and border. Then, you have yourself a magnet board! 

Above the file cabinets was my life saver my second year teaching. In the bins on the left, I place all of my "not graded" work, and then once graded, I place them in the bins to the right. They are also separated by classes! Simple and it works!

I decided to go with hot pink duct tape for my homework section this year. They can't miss that! The board is not quite done yet, but the hard part is out of the way.

This is the same from last year, different border, but it's my science word wall! You can get these at my TpT store.

I also decided to place my big ideas for math on my bulletin board this year. This was so much easier than taping like I did last year.

Don't forget that TpT is throwing a great sale, and my store as an additional 20%! 

Formula Fun!

I feel like such a horrible blogger! Preparing for testing, grad school, wedding planning, etc. has taken over my life! I have so much to catch up on to share with you guys! I really have a blast blogging, and I cannot wait to catch up in the summer!

I did want to share an activity that we did in class this week. After giving formula quizzes last week, I was a bit disappointed with the results. I had to do something, so we made a formula book! It's pretty much just flashcards, but tied together so that they would not be separated. I gave students the chance to decorate the front all beautiful so that it would be THEIRS and they would love it, and hopefully study it! We will see tomorrow because I'm giving another formula quiz! This was a last minute decision, but I have reflected on what I can do differently next year.

1) Use card stock or index card

2) Find a prettier colored string or yarn

3) Have students come up with the list of formulas (with a little help from me of course)

Overall, they did a good job, and I explained the importance and benefits of using these cards to study for their end-of-grade-tests. I hope taking the time out will be beneficial!

Here are my students beautiful formula card designs!

Play-Doh!

I am finally starting to get back into the swing of things. This week was the first week back from spring break. As always, I said that I was going to get things accomplished over spring break! That definitely didn't happen, but I relaxed and enjoyed my well needed break.

The first day back to school was my birthday, so of course, we had to have some fun, so I brought out the play-doh! We were covering cross sections of three dimensional figures. During the class work, I gave students some play-doh and floss. The play-doh was so that students could create the 3-D figures such as triangular prisms, pyramids, rectangular prisms, cylinders, etc, and the floss was so that they could slice it.

It was awesome! They really had a great time created the figures and discovering the 2-D shape of the cross section. They also enjoyed telling me stories about how they played with play-doh when they were little and how they thought play-doh tasted good! They are so funny! They really seemed to get it and enjoy it during the process. I had one student even make a cute little rose out of the play-doh. Off task, but cute!

M.I.A.

I have definitely been MIA for the last few weeks! I had a small surgery on my arm ,and there were slight complications. Nothing major, and everything is fine now. I'm just in the healing process, but feeling great! However, I have been so behind in my teaching, grading, and my blogging. I will be playing catch up real soon!

Sales Tax Fun!

Yesterday, I began my sales tax activity with my math students. I had given them a "mini-project" of making a sales paper to use for this activity. I gave them a week or so to complete it, and they really had a blast with it. They were excited about making their shoe stores, dollar stores, and "have-it-all" stores.

In this activity, they were to switch sales papers with a partner (I allowed them to use their own if they chose to). They would then GO SHOPPING! They had the opportunity to go shopping four times! They had to create four different shopping list, but of course, they just didn't have all of the money in the world. They were also given scenarios for each list. On the scenario cards, it gave students their budget and their sales tax rate. This gave them practice with different sales tax rates and also gave them a chance to relate sales tax to "real-life scenarios". It really blew their mind when I told them that they would have to put something back because their subtotal plus tax would be above their budget!

Here are some photos of our fun!

You can click on any of the pictures above to link to my TpT site to get this activity.

My students also really enjoyed the scenarios. Some couldn't believe that they only had $10.00 to go shopping, but then on the next scenario, they did not have any budget. They were ecstatic! 

Also, I will have to blog about my science class soon. We are learning about the reproductive system! That is always exciting!

Science is Awesome!

I have been having so much fun in my science classes the past few days. Some my students really have been getting into what we have been doing. We began our study on unicellular and multicellular organisms, and they really enjoyed the unicellular organisms! We watched several YouTube videos on the Volvox, Paramecium, Euglena, and Amoeba, and students had to take notes on what they noticed about each one. After this, I gave a lecture of my own. After a few days of learning about unicellular organisms, I had students create a "cartoon" dealing with these organisms. Here are a few examples of my fabulous students' work!

I'm just so proud of their work! Students can really surprise you sometimes! My students this year LOVE to color and create!

Today, we began our study of multicellular organisms. Before the lesson, I gave students several cards that said organelle, cell, tissue, organ system, organism, macromolecule, molecule, etc, and students had to put them in order in what they believe is the way that the body is organized. After students got it in the order they believed was correct, they raised their hands and I came to check. If it was correct, students could glue them onto a flow map that I already had created. This flow map could go into their interactive science notebook. They had a ball! I made sure that students had the correct order by the end of the activity. Here are some pictures of the beginning of our activity.

My students love to cut and glue!

I actually have this "body organization" activity on my TpT and TN account. Click the image below to go to the TpT page!

SNOW!

What a fabulous Saturday it was today! It decided to snow here in NC, and this is something that never seems to happen here! We get a little (A LOT) excited around here! Today was the first time that my dog Swirly seen snow, and it was hilarious. She would run, stop, and eat snow, and then she would do that all over again.

Since it was cold outside, and I couldn't really go anywhere, I sat down and thought about my plans for school next week! We have started an enrichment period once a week with a select few students that we feel need a little extra support. We have to use one of our planning periods, but I'm sure it will be worth it for the students in the end.

NC is new to common core, so it has been difficult to get the resources that I need to prepare my students for the end of grade tests. We don't even have textbooks to go along with the common core. I decided, today, that I am going to start creating practice "cluster" sheets to help my students prepare for these test!

There are fifty questions in all that will help students to master concepts need to succeed in the common core cluster: the number system.

I believe that practice makes perfect!

I can't wait to begin these packets with my students! There will be more to come!

You can find this at my TpT store and my TN store.

TpT: 7th Grade Common Core Cluster: The Number System - Review

TN: 7th Grade Common Core Cluster: The Number System - Review

Valentine's Day

I am already expecting an eventful day at school today! I love the middle school madness! I just found out that one of my students just broke up with his girlfriend yesterday, the day BEFORE Valentine's Day, and he is already flirting with another girl...ooohhhh! I'm going to have to be on the look out today for some girl drama. Gotta love it!

Check out my teacher's notebook site today. I'm throwing a Valentine's Day sale today just because. EVERYTHING is 15% off!


HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!!!

Can't Wait!

I had to leave my students today :(. I took a half sick day to go to a dentist appt. today! 

I'm really excited to see how my students did on a simple interest activity that I left them. They have done one on writing and solving proportions, and they absolutely loved it! 

Students solve the problems in the work box and then they can cut the answer out of the answer sheet and glue it to the correct question!

I even had one student that told me she was engaged in her work. I was really confused...Do students really talk like that too? 

I was so glad that she was! I think the lifesaver with this worksheet is that students know if they got an answer wrong, because it wouldn't be on the answer sheet! They automatically know that they made a mistake. There is no more doing busy work and missing every problem! There are definitely more of these to come!!!

If you are interested in checking them out yourself, I have them on my TpT and TN account! The links are below!

TN Writing and Solving Proportions

TpT Simple Interest

First Post

This is my first post! This is actually my second blog, but I kind of just quit the other one! I really wanted to start another one so that I could share my fabulous experience teaching middle school with the rest of the world! I also need to catch up on the blog thing! I'm young, I can do it!

I am a 7th grade math and science teacher. This is my second year teaching! It has been a MUCH better year than the first year! If there are any first year teachers out there that are feeling down and out, it does get better!

I am also learning that there are ALWAYS things to improve on, but overall, this has been a FABULOUS year! I can't wait to share this with all of you out there!