Clip Charts

I absolutely love the clip chart behavior system.


I am going to also be using it in my after school program as well. Since I mainly focus on science themes, I figure that my charts should be science related, well I came across this fabulous one with frogs!  Well that is a given!  I got this from Over The Moonbow

The other once I wanted to have science related clip-art from Thistle Girl Graphics.  I have recently seen many creative ideas for "theming" them up.


So I need to "theme-up" one for science.

outstanding               (super scientist)

great job                    

good day                     (Science Fair)

ready to learn             (Scientist ready) 

think about it             (Analyze your data)

teacher choice 

parent contact       (Report Your Data)

Yeah, I am so not happy with those, they aren't really good.  So here's the deal, if  you could help me figure out some awesome science words for my clip-chart, I will share it when it is done. :)

NowI have been thinking and cleaning... and *POP*  what about if I use the Muppets! Namely Dr. Bunsen Honeydew and Beaker!! I collect Muppet Figures, so I can have them there too :)  There is a new Muppet movie coming out, so that is  awesome!!!!!

Specimens

I created this sheet as a sample for the scientists to follow- I traced a Frisbee! 

One side was what they saw, the other side was what it was.

 Here were the slides we bought.

 This was an app on my iPhone:

 another photo from my iPhone app.

The app is called Magnifying. Unfortunately, I can't get anymore info on it either :(

Science

I am planning for my science units next year.

I found these awesome materials through Zully:

Ant Farm

Now I must figure out what to teach and where to get the ants. 

 Constellations- we did space this year, but not the stars, so I will be on the lookout for 

star materials this summer.

Ladybug playground- 

So what great ideas do you have? Where should I get my insects from? Does anyone have any experience using these things?

Wet Pet

We read the charted story of Wet Pet in the ASP.  It all came from this book:

They didn't know what the book looked like, so they HAD to use their imaginations.

Zeds have one blue hair upon their heads.  Yink's drink pink ink!

Food Chain

We are talking about food chains this week.

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Volcanoes

Soon we will be studying volcanoes. I am fine with the idea of them, but then someone thought it would be a good idea to see one.... In my lesson plans for the objective, it says for me NOT to loose my mind!!!

We bought this volcano model:

on the left, it lists what each part is, on the right, it just lists the numbers that correspond with. In the front of the photo, you see the tube where you add the mixture. There is a tray to catch the "lava." I tried to convince my teaching partner to do this on Monday as a a kickoff but I don't think that will be the case!  lol It will be the culminating activity.

Animals in Winter

This week was rather odd.  We had no ASP on Monday so on Tuesday we used Monday's plans. I learned to about different kinds of snowflakes. We read the chart as a news reporter.

The first graders worked on a snowflake book.

We had early release on Wednesday and no school on Friday! So we had only one other day, so we talked about animals in winter- do they adapt/migrate/hibernate? I read the book Animals in Winter to the K-1 children and then we put the animals in a pocket chart. (No photo :( I am bummed) Then the 2nd-5th grade children had to read the book and find out which animals did what.

I did get my pictures from ChalkTalk.

I had one third grader literally flip through the book and tell me he couldn't find the answers. Um  really? I told him I would give him $10 if he couldn't find any answers. Another third grader said how about a gift card? I was like I will give you $100 gift card if you can't find any answers or you give me $5 lol I get so upset when capable children don't even try. :(

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May 17th- Rain Forest

We are taking a trip to the Rain Forest. This unit will finish up our ASP time. We will turn our hallway into the rain forest. Here is my unit on the Rain Forest.

May 3rd- Ocean/Sea

We will dive into the Ocean this week. Here is my unit on Ocean.

With the K-1 children we did a graph.

April 26th- Amphibians & Reptiles

So my theme is frogs, but I have never done anything about teaching about them. I have frog stamps, frog decorations, frog... yes pretty much everything!!!

This week we will hop to it and learn all about frogs and maybe some other amphibians too. We also learned about reptiles. My friend is part of our local Herp group. It is like a humane society for reptiles and other creepy crawlies. He brought in several creatures. This is TOTALLY out of my comfort zone. My students enjoyed it immensely.

This is an American Alligator.
A 66 pound tortoise.
A corn snake that weighs about the same as your pencil.
A bearded dragon.
A boa constrictor. They even put several animals on the floor to show us how they move. Very exciting!

Seeds

I had the students predict which seeds would grow first. We had marigold, popcorn, and wildflowers.

April 19th- Plants/Soil/Worms

When I picked this topic many months ago, my main thing that I really wanted to do was do worms, namely taste them! Yes, we will be tasting worms of the gummy family! We will be looking at them, smelling them, and finally tasting them. I have a sheet for the students to fill out.We also made gardens of items that we could plant here where we live. We also got to be "Plant Designers" and design our own plants.

Okay so this plant is named after me! lol
Not sure why it went crooked :(
Love this one, a diamond plant!
Great job of a local garden.

The K-1 children drew their own flower then had to label it.

Earth Day

We only have one day for the ASP this week. Since it is Earth Day, I was going to have all of the children color a badge, but that would NOT be very Earth friendly! So instead, we will be reading a Dr. Jean song book. We will be sorting graphics that can be recycled into different categories. We will also be singing some songs. These include: R-E-C-Y-C-L-E by Tom Chapin and songs from Songs 4 teachers.

We will also create a BB of things that we can do to help the Earth.

Life Cycles- April 6th

We will discuss different life cycles. I have several sets of life cycle stamps that the children can stamp in the correct order. I wish that we could do things in the computer lab, so that the children could go to on line activities plus be able to create their own.

Stamps

Alligator- from a great book that has about 40 different life cycles!
Frog my favorite!
Fish- after the children cut out the pieces, they put them in order, then had to draw what came next. Then write a sentence to go along with what was in the picture.
A 4th or 5th grader who didn't follow the directions! lol
We also have books about whatever we are talking about to go along with the theme. This was perfect for the student's illustration.

Eggs- March 22

This week we are so "Egg-cited." We will decide what comes from eggs, what doesn't.

We will use hard boiled eggs (for my sanity) to do some experiments. Such as floating/sinking, size, and weight against different items.

This was our Egg Graffiti wall:

We write down every letter of the alphabet and using books, the children try to find a theme word for each letter.

Water Cycle- March 15th

Topic: Water Cycle

I have tons of materials that I got from the California Water Department. It includes printed materials, posters and a DVD. The student's LOVED this DVD, they were actually glued very intently to it, amazing! This is the only video I have showed myself, but they have watched others from other staff members.

This paper turns into a booklet when you fold in half and cut on the dotted line.

Wind and Wind Power- March 8th

This week's topic is Wind and Wind Power. We used saltine crackers to make our own pinwheels. We made large pinwheels. We also made anamonmeters.

Storms- March 2

This week we learned about storms. The younger children completed a chart together about storms, the 2-5 grades did their own research.

Photos to follow.

Rainbows- February 22

Who would have thought that this would be the most difficult week for the teachers! We haveliterately no books on rainbows in our school. I talked with the other first grade teachers and no one had any books on rainbows. There were TWO in the library- and they weren't even that good. We did get a MSB one on rainbows, that was pretty good.

We did an experiment using a mirror, water, and a flashlight. The next day we used CD's, flashlights, and white paper to make personal rainbows. That really worked well.

I had the older children write books about rainbows, so we would have them for next year.

We listed things that were rainbow colors. I skipped Indigo this day, but did talk about it during the rest of days. Even the upper grades really got into it. I wasn't planning on doing that with them, but they were bummed out, so I couldn't say no! :)

Here is a chart that everyone added to. I drew and labeled things of every color (except indigo, because I didn't have that color marker!)

Weather- Feb 15th

This week was all about weather.

In K-1 we filled in a sheet with 6 different boxes about weather.

We made a bulletin board of weather words plus what we would wear and what we would do in that kind of weather.

Photos to follow.