Rocket science

My darling Monkey made a rocket at preschool. While we were playing it got me thinking.

When I was teaching I liked to begin the year in science class with a real fun experiment. I am thinking this would be great for introducing the scientific method.
The rockets are made out of a film canister (or a pill bottle that is not child safe). You put alka-seltzer and water, then put the cap on fast. Then launch it.

We could measure how far from the launching space it goes, measure the amount of water in Milliliters, measure the amount of alkaseltser with a scale.

We could vary the amount of water, and vary the amount of alkaseltser to see how far it goes.
I know my 5th graders would flip over this project. I am sure you could do it at anytime in the K-5 just varying the hypotheses.

Math Games

I found this terrific site. It is called Guided Math.

I plan on printing the following games to use in my Math Stations.

1 Coverall

2 Gain and Loss

3 Baby Snake

4 Snake

I am going to print the game boards so that when I go back to teaching I will have them ready to be copied. I am also going create rule cards for the games. Then I will print and laminate, that way they are ready to go. 

Edited to add: Actually if you download them from Teachers Pay Teachers, (they are free just click her download link) the instructions are already there…YAY)

Apple Eve, writing lesson

I saw this darling post on Little Family Fun. The post was about creating Apple Buddies. Here is a picture from the site.

Check out the link above to see the full post.
It got me thinking that this would be a cool writing activity for the students. I am gearing it toward 3rd through 5th. Students would create the apple person, then write a story about the night the Apple came to life.
Wouldn’t this be fun to have on the kids desks for Open House!

Weekly Work for Word Study

I really liked these activities for word study.
Here is the link.
I can't find the actual website it came from though.
I am thinking I might use it as it is, or use it as possible activities for the Word Work Station. (especially some of the partner items).

Literacy Work Stations

Here is a link to a post about literacy work stations.
http://thefirstgradejungle.blogspot.com/

I think that is a good title for the older grades (3rd through 5th). Don't want the kids to think I am "babying" them!
I am thinking I would do the following stations:

Word Work- Students will have (I think) daily word study work to do, plus activities in this station, like spelling their words with foam letters, illustrating words, timed spelling with magnet letters, practice tests....

Computer - This could be literacy games (from teacher selected sites) or typing up their writing

Writing - Lots of options here from creative writing via prompts, pictures, also work on publishing and editing.

Reading- It could be independent or partner reading on the rug

Games - These would be file folder games, or other literacy games

Listening - This would be short stories, picture books, or even Harry Potter, and longer books like that. I think it would be free choice.

I really think these could be developed to make them applicable to any grade.

 My thought is that I would do 3 reading groups, then their one rotation students would do their word study daily work (more about that later), then they could go to computer games or listening, then another rotation would be writing, reading or word work.

Students would visit 2 stations per day. So every 6 days they would complete all stations 2 times. Sometimes the work would be choice, sometimes it might be selected by me.

She will return

One day soon, possibly 2012, or maybe later I will be returning to work. The goal of this blog, it to have a place to organize my return.
I know I want to teach either 3rd, 4th, or 5th grade. Obviously, I can't plan specific lessons just yet.  Since the grade is variable, and since each classroom of students is different.

However, there are some things I can plan:

1. Classroom Management
2. Reading Block (I want to do stations)
3. Guided Math (I really want to do more individualized instruction in math, so I think I will do something similar to this.)
4. Seasonal Activities

It might seem weird to you, but I love teaching and I will enjoy pulling all this together. Plus, I'll be ahead of the game!