We really POPPED last week!!

Before everyone went their separate ways for the Thanksgiving holiday, Miss O'Clair and I really wanted to leave the kids with an awesome set of experiments!

The first experiment we conducted is called Elephant Toothpaste! Using yeast, hydrogen peroxide, dish soap, food coloring (optional) and water we found a very cool reaction. You will also need an empty water bottle and something to catch the product of these materials. The result is very messy, but mostly based in soap it will wipe away easily! That said, watch how much food coloring you use- that will, of course, not be such an easy clean. My hands were yellow for a few hours after, but it was worth it. :)

The next we compared the results of putting Pop Rocks in soda and in water. The carbonation had an interesting effect of the "snappiness" of the Pop Rocks.

Working in pairs gave each student an opportunity to combine materials! We got some great thoughtful answers about predictions 'why'!!

Next we got moving a little bit and went outside. Usually vinegar and baking soda are combined in the belly of a model volcano, however we experimented with these materials in a sandwich bag! It took some time but when the reaction happened it was very cool!

As the reaction progressed the bags became varying degrees of dense; eventually popping!

Some of the bags did not get as dense as others, so we have discussions wondering why the reaction wasn't the same as their peers. 

And of course the grand finale!! 

Have a tremendous Tuesday everyone! 

WE MADE KALEIDOSCOPES

The students had a great time creating their own 'scopes Monday afternoon! This activity allowed the students to pick their own reflective instruments of place inside the tube. I apologize for not having the experiment cards prepared- here is the link to the experiment!

http://www.ehow.com/how_6339395_make-toilet-paper-roll-kaleidoscope.html

In my personal experiment, I did find that if the shiny side does not face out the light will not reflect nearly as well. The side I faced out was just a bit more matte than the opposite. Another observation I noted were the objects used at the end of the kaleidoscope. I used fewer and "chunkier" items; my prediction is that had I used much smaller and a higher quantity of objects would have created the result I was hoping for!

Go ahead, make a mess :)

Make a prediction!

With these materials, what could the outcome of our experiment be?!

                              

Getting our hands on Science!!

We had a great time Monday during our first experiments! Miss O and I were able to find two different varieties of Goo that we were able to allow the students to test. The first was made with Borax, white glue and warm water! The students made a beautiful array of colors mixing a variety of food colorings.

The students gathered around the trash can are squeezing the excess water out of the Borax/White glue Goo. The original materials called for two total cups of water, but we were left with too much water during our trial. We used nearly one cups less for the students and it made that recipe a little less messy! Meanwhile the Cornstarch results in a much runnier consistency than the first goo, it was a much messier process!! When pressure or motion is applied to this goo is appears dense until motion is ceased at least; very interesting reactions from the students!

We're looking forward to our next experiments! 

I hope everyone enjoyed their weekends :)

Volunteering at OTES Library!

Hope everyone is having a terrific Tuesday! The sun has finally broken through those rain clouds and is giving us great weather to lie around with a great read!!

I spent the morning helping out finding homes on the shelves as books made their way back for the summer time; even got some practice checking books in and out. OTES has a beautiful collection of books that could interest any reader. I love moving throughout and seeing the books of my childhood. I look forward to being able to help out more with the library this summer and find more great reads for our eager readers!! 

Follow the library's blog at http://justimagineyourlibrarian.wordpress.com/ to keep up with everything they are doing!!

The lessons of science should be experimental also. The sight of a planet through a telescope is worth all the course on astronomy - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Recently, I was recommended to work on a telescope/astronomy project for Old Town Elementary School. I have been putting together an instructional booklet to help those at home attach and adjust the additional features properly! The idea is that students will be able to check-out a kit containing a table telescope- Galileo, a moon map and a 20mm lens! 

 This program provides such a wonderful opportunity for students to become acquainted with our solar system and everything within. I remember when I was young my family was lucky enough to be gifted a fantastic telescope. The feeling of being an astronomer and identifying the North Star, Leo (my astrological sign), Orion's belt, and checking out the moon with my dad was so much fun! Not only did I get to spend that time with my father, but I felt like I was discovering things; this is when my interest in science really began to develop. Science, including astronomy, is often not "right or wrong", like Emerson said "the lessons are experimental".  

I can't wait for this project to move forward and have students become "Experienced Astronomers" and earn the opportunity to check out a second kit that has been put together! The second kit has an EZ Finder, a Moon Filter and a 10mm lens. The Moon Filter is a very neat tool; when the Moon is at its brightest, it will block more of the light and make the lunar surface appear sharper. There are so many brilliant features of the lunar surface to look at and this tool helps to make those appear sharper! 

Looking forward to getting all these great tools out to the kiddos!!

Enjoy your Memorial Day weekends :) 

New experiences!

Happy Friday all! 

I have been lucky enough to be granted substituting opportunities in First and Kindergarten classrooms at OTES. It was great to be walking the halls of the school; I have missed being there since the completion of the first portion of my student teaching experience. It was also good to be in those K and 1st classes; it has been a great while since I've taught that age group. 

My first day of subbing in the1st grade class went swimmingly! The students were great and so excited to show me their classroom guests- baby chicks and eggs in an incubator. One of the chicks had hatched over night and one had even begun to make his way our right before lunch time! During math, we practiced telling time with an analog clock and placed the hands to tell the time when read from a digital clock. 

This classroom utilizes the Daily 5- what a great program! The students are able to select which of the 5 they wish to work on- reading (to self or buddy), writing, and even math. Allowing the students to select what area they wish to work and even move a little in the process is a great way to heighten engagement. The most I needed to remind the students was about their volume. 

My experience in kindergarten was a little different in that I was a floating sub while the teachers needed to be else where. In the first class I was in the kiddos were learning about the animals that live on the farm. They had drawn secret animals that were put in the barn and they needed to write three clues about what animals they drew. In the second classroom we had the opportunity to get together with three other kindergartens and do some moving; which was excellent timing because after was library time! The Liberians said they were the best kindergarten all week! After the kiddos got a read aloud from Peter Brown's You WILL be my friend and picking new books, we moved into the computer lab and used BookFlix! 

Overall it was a great experience in all the classrooms and I am so grateful for the experiences!

The cat is leaving the Dishwasher!!

As my second student teaching placement comes to a close, so of my girls have been getting sneakier and sneakier. I started hearing them whisper "the cat is in the dishwasher!" and "don't press start!". Now we're here on my last day and the cat is leaving the dishwasher :(

I'm so sad to be leaving, this has been a fantastic experience working with these kiddos. This sassy bunch helped me to learn to teach this age group. Intimidating at first, but having fun with them and treating them like the teenagers they are growing quickly into created a funny connection between us all! 

I truly hope this is not the last time I work with these kiddos! They are a great group and I am so thankful to have been given this opportunity! 

Thank you all so much!!

Tuesday touches on Taxonomy!!

In order to compare the native peoples of the Caribbean with two very diverse groups of learners, I heavily considered the student's responses on the VARK questionnaire. The first group is much more independent and kinesthetic therefore I opted to have them compete in groups. Prior to setting them loose on the articles, I used a familiar class expectation list for group work. It was especially important to reinforce this right after vacation; a little extra never hurt anyone! It was actually a lot of fun; we did the activity as girls vs. boys. They had to highlight important information from a variety of articles, group share, and finally record on the board so both teams would be able to get an overview of both groups. 

The second group is, surprisingly, much more auditory. I decided to change gears and read the articles aloud. Every time a student heard something they thought was important, they would raise their hand and we would discuss their fact. This was actually a great way to do this activity because we were able to touch on some higher level thinking skills such as inferring, predicting and comparing. 

We used a couple of different graphic organizers to structure the learning of these Caribbean groups. I used 50 Literacy Strategies, by Gail E. Thompkins, and Classroom Strategies for Interactive Learning, by Doug Buehl to help guide me while trying to make the information relevant and as organized as possible for the students. Positive reinforcement helped me, in both classes, encourage participation from some unlikely sources. Rather than say "Bobby and Ricky, make sure you raise your hand next time", I tossed a mint or expressed a lot of excitement about their fact or word choice. One of the students in the second group has difficulty focusing, but positively contributed to discussion and the comparison! Another, who is a doodler, was able to paraphrase very well and still hit on the focal point of a paragraph. 

Yet again a great day from 6th Grade!!

6th grade Takeover Week

Today marks the day of my first complete day of teaching solo in grade 6! A coincidence, that a great friend of mine would only say was meant to be, is the word of the day today is respect; fueling my excitement about this week!

We are opening the week by learning about the three types of Caribbean Islands by using the Jigsaw method. I want to keep the student's noses out of textbooks as much as possible! We will be spending the second half of the Language Arts periods in the library where the students will share their favorite reads of the year thus far with each other! During the week the students will write reflections to me using Google Docs summarizing their reading and sharing how they connect with a particular characters story! In the afternoon, we will be figuring out which islands are which using Sheppard Software for practice. By this point the students should be labeling examples of which islands belong under the three different categories of islands!

Off we go :)

What we've been up to...

When I came to the class last week, the students were wrapping up their cell posters and analogies. They all did such great work! Mrs. Townsend had me set up the bulletin board in the hallway to display the work for everyone to see. 

Hallway Bulletin  board

Using a resource I found on EdHelper, I organized, laminated and bound the resource into a collection of books that the students will use alongside a worksheet to work more with Mitosis! To help the students (1) practice their non-fiction skills and (2) to give the students a science resource. There is no science textbook used so the students don't get the opportunity to have a physical resource unless they get on the computer to research; that can get iffy often however, unless provided with a safe site. 

Mitosis: Cell Division by Cindy Grigg

Up this week in Sixth Grade!

The class has been learning about Cells, and until this point they have learned about Animals cells and the organelles within! This afternoon I am doing a mini lesson with the class to help them to understand the differences between plant and animal cells. 

Image captured from http://leavingbio.net/cell%20structure_files/cell%20structure.htm

We will be doing a vocabulary pairing activity. During which the students will each have a card that has either a word or definition and they will have to find the match among their classmates. When all the words have been paired with definitions, we will match the organelle with the word using Cells Alive. When we come across new organelles or functions, we will pause to clarify why we have not heard of that organelle yet. 

During class Wednesday, I will introduce the idea of Mitosis -- the asexual reproduction of cells to form tissue. Learning about Mitosis will help the students move from basic cells to specialized cells that join to form tissues! I will screen a short Youtube video about Mitosis, while watching the clip the students will label the phases of Mitosis on the worksheet. I created a short quiz on Quizlet that, prior to taking the student can review the flashcards, the students will take. Afterwords we will review the worksheet and the phases. 

By the end of the week we will have introduced and completed a Webquest!

Keep moving forward!

Today is the day! On Friday I completed the first half of my student teaching experience at OTES. Today I have begun the second half of the experience in Mrs. Townsend's sixth grade class; a big jump, but I am excited all the same to work with an older group.

They are working with cells right now and will be working their way to organ systems and disease! I look forward to getting right into the science activities.

Maine Peace Poetry Project

A week ago I introduced the Maine Peace Poetry Project, and four different styles of poetry: Cinquain, Acrostic Alliterative and Riddle. The students took a particular interest in the Acrostic and Riddle. Here are a couple of examples that I really enjoyed... 

This student did such a great job using the Riddle style!

and Brooklynn made such an awesome Acrostic!

 Izzy was the only student in the class who accepted the challenge to write in the Cinquain style! This style includes the title as the first line, a description as line 2 using two adjectives, line 3 is an action about the title using three verbs, line 4 is a feeling the writer has about the title written in four words, and line 5 is a synonym of the title!

Such a great work by Izzy!

The student's poems have all been submitted and will be bound into a book of Peace Poems! It is always exciting to see your work in print. 

Service to OTES!

Part of my work as a student teacher is to make a positive addition to the school! Our classroom doors have three 17"x17" windows on one side of the door, which creates a lot of visibility into the classroom. Conveniently, we select three students from each class each month to be a part of Student of the Month! I decided for my service I wanted to brighten up these windows and put a little spot light on our hard workers. So I took a picture of each student holding their awards and did a mini interview to put in each of the windows. 

Here is an example of one of the windows! The project is still a work in progress as I try to individualize each set of windows for various classrooms.

The interview questions are pretty straight forward. The first questions is "What behavior did you have in the last month that you feel earned you Student of the Month?". The three questions in the green box ask what the students favorite subject is, what their favorite genre is to read and what they like to do outside of school!

Our students have every right to be proud of the honor of Student of the Month. 

Giving them a little glory time is just fine! 

How Technology can Extend the Learning Experience!

This past week, I participated in a Webinar (an online seminar) about 10 Different Ways to Participate in Digital Learning Day, presented by Pearson Online Learning Exchange and hosted by Richard Byrne! Where I didn't actually participate in DLD yesterday, I felt that this conference would be a great way for me to take steps towards reaching my goal of including more technology in the classroom!

              Mr. Byrne suggested some great ideas, my favorite being Flipping the Classroom. This strategy suggests recording the lesson and posting it to an online resource (a blog, etc.) for the students to later reference while doing homework. That way more class time can be spent talking WITH the students and doing activities rather than talking AT them. What posting the recorded lessons also provides, is a place for students to post questions or responses to their peers questions; thus promoting high level thinking skills! 

              Something else he suggested that I really liked was having the students create their own blog! The site Mr. Byrne suggested, kidblog.com, does not require the students to have a email but it does help them think about what they are learning! They could do posts between Reading Buddies to share their thoughts, feelings or predictions about their reading. Even sharing predictions and comparing results with a sister school! Getting students onto computers also provides an excellent opportunity to share appropriate internet behavior with the students and lets them learn new technologies with having to play computer games. 

I am so glad I participated in this experience; I was able to gather so much from it. I truly thank Richard Byrne and OLE for providing this opportunity!! 

Multiplication!

       This week we are learning more about Multiplication! On Monday, we played Multiplication Bingo; the students loved it and it was great practice! To keep a gauge on which squares students had covered (since, of course, all the Bingo grids have different facts on them) and decided which equations to call out from that judgement.
        When I called out an equation, the student's multiplied in their heads or used their grids to find the product. Which they them covered with a plastic piece. To guide myself, I used a copy of the student's Multiplication Chart and recorded which problems I had given for the students to solve. That way when someone called "Bingo!" I had a point of reference. 

           This link has great Learning games that are a great resource for more practice at home! I played around with the Multiplication Bingo game and this would be great to have your students work with to improve their math skills; the difficulty level can be adjusted by 3 levels!


Today we will be introducing Number Stories with Parentheses. The main understanding for Parentheses is that they show what needs to be solved first. E.g: (18 - 9) x 4 =  36.  Another sort of equation the students will come across is 19 - 11 x 3 = 21 and need to place the parentheses. Two options to place the parentheses are:

(19 - 11) x  3 = 21       or       19 - (11 x 3) = 14

In this case they would be given the answer and would need to do the math both ways to find the correct placement!

Making Circuits

On Thursday we were a little limited with what we could do with the power out. However, conducting this science experiment was perfect on a day like today! The students made circuits in small groups with a D battery and small light bulbs. It was fun to test what the light would look like using two batteries! The students loved seeing how much brighter it got. 

Here are Brooklynn and Walker....

and Maddie and Max putting together their circuits!

A little about myself!

Some of your students may have come home saying 'we did this or that with Miss Farrell today!' I just wanted to quickly introduce myself...

I am in my last semester at the University of Maine. For my final semester, I am student teaching for seven weeks in Mrs. Meserve's classroom! I will complete my experience in 6th grade at Leonard Middle School in Old Town. Throughout these seven weeks, I will plan reading groups, a science unit and for the last week of February I will be taking over completely. In that time we are going to be doing some great activities! 

For the last few weeks I have been teaching a Science unit on Magnets and Electricity! The students have completed many very cool experiments! We have Tested the Force of Magnets, Making a compasses, and yesterday we made Circuits; which was fitting with the power outage! The students loved the idea of making light in the darkness. We will also be making mini motor's in the next week! I am excited to have the opportunity to learn alongside your students!!

Definitely strong enough for a school of our own!

Breaking the Force!

A little delayed in posting BUT this was a very cool experiment and the students did a great job working together to gather results!

Back in January, while we were in the Magnet section of my Magnets and Electricity, we conducted an experiment called "Break the Force". For this experiment, the students worked in groups to find out, using a balance, how many metal washers it took to break apart two magnets. Before starting the experiment, the students made predictions on what they thought would happen. We also tested how many washers it would take to separate the magnets when there were plastic pieces between the two magnets! After the experiment, the students recorded their observations beneath their predictions.

Max, Izzy and Avery are hard at work recording their data! 

This is the worksheet I created for their predictions and observations!

Brianna and Walker working so well together!