More Technology Camp + an Updated Freebie!

Remember this product? I posted about it 2 summers ago.

My "Science Sentence Starter" freebie is one of my most downloaded products. Wellllllll, since it is so popular, I decided that it deserved a facelift and an update! (And don't worry, it is still free!) Here it is:

At least the cover is much cuter, right?? ;)

I updated the fonts and even added a little bonus activity.

Whenever I teach Technology Camp, I want the kids to have fun but I also want them to learn and have a great educational experience. On the first day, we discuss how we are all scientists and talk a lot about what scientists do. We also discuss how scientists share their findings with others. To introduce how scientists can speak with others, I use one of my favorite things--QR CODES!!

I made each sentence starter a QR code. The students use an iPad to scan each code and then record the sentence (if you use the recording sheet on the left) or a missing word from the sentence (if you use the recording sheet on the right).

(This also introduces the kids to using QR codes because most of them have not had experience with them before they come to camp.) They always LOVE this activity and it is WAY more fun that just reading the sentences together, one by one. After everyone has had a chance to scan and record, we then discuss each sentence starter and when/how we can use them. I print and laminate a copy of the sentence starters and display them for the rest of the week. We use the sentence starters in our discussions about our experiments/investigations and in our class discussions. Love them. Here are two examples of how students use them in their camp science journal:

Don't you just love "a little less than medium"??! Lol. Anywho, the sentences can really help scaffold their thinking and explain just what they are trying to say. Click below to download your free copy: 

ENJOY!!

Plants, Plants, Plants!

This is a JAM-PACKED plant post--are you ready?!?

Plants unit, week 2 ended yesterday! We have had some GREAT fun so far and have learned so much about plants! The kids have just been so excited about it all--makes a teacher feel pretty good!! ;)

In this unit, we are covering not only plants and their parts, but also some ELA objectives, such as main idea, making inferences, compound words, expository text, parts of speech, research, letter writing, revising and editing, and media and its purpose/techniques.

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LAST WEEK
2 weeks ago, I introduced our new unit (we had just finished penguins) to my students by doing this:

Before the unit introduction, I checked out some plant books from our school library and displayed them on one of the counters in our classroom. I also put the plants book box from our classroom library on the counter next to the library books. Here are just a few selections of the many great plant books that we will be using during our unit!

The kids noticed the books early in the day.

I also picked some pieces off of the bushes outside my classroom door and put them in a tote bag to use for our lesson. We passed the tote bag around and felt inside the bag without looking. 

The students quickly started making inferences about what we would be learning about next! The plant books around the room (which they know I do for every unit) and the familiar feel of the items in the tote bag led them to believe that we would be studying plants--and they were right!! :)

Below is a little freebie page for recording inferences that would work well with this lesson that I used in a previous inferencing lesson.

We made a schema chart that we add to/adjust daily.

We will also keep track of new words that will eventually move to our vocabulary wall.

After we made the schema chart, we grabbed some hand lenses and our journals and went outside to write/draw about the plants at our school.

We used a classic book, Chrysanthemum, to review main idea. Main idea is SO hard for most of my kids. We have been working at it for a few months now and are getting better and better! Here is an image of the flipchart I made to go along with the book based on a lesson plan I found online.


We did the flipchart together across 2 days and then spent the rest of the week reading/studying short fiction and nonfiction passages about various plants for main idea. Again, we are getting better and better at it.

We also briefly discussed living and nonliving. I used this fabulous PBS video to kickstart a discussion about what those words mean.

We then did this super-fun activity that I posted about on Instagram a few days ago!

We made little cards that said "living" and "nonliving", went outside, placed the cards on living and nonliving things, and took pictures using an iPad. This was great fun! The kids then shared their photos with a partner and the whole group.

I wanted to print some of these pictures so we could add it to our living and nonliving anchor chart, but we (currently) do NOT have an easy way to print photos on the school iPads. We also had to turn them in right after this activity. Oh well.

THIS WEEK

This week's plant fun was motly about main idea (still) and the parts of a plant. We read this WONDERFUL Eric Carle book to jumpstart a discussion about parts of a plant (seeds):

This book is also for teaching about the life cycle of plants.

We drew what we already knew about plant parts...

...and then studied the parts of a real plant! The kids really picked them apart--they wanted to see and know everything about them.

We concluded the lab with drawing another diagram of the parts of a plant, in case they learned anything new.

The next lesson was about comparing the parts of different plants. Does every plant have a stem? Does every plant have roots? Does every plant grow the same way? This is a great book to start with:

We headed back outside to compare the parts of flowers to other kinds of plants, like grass, trees, and bushes.

Friday's activity about parts of a plant that we eat was fantabulous--we had a Plant Tasting Party!!

We sorted several types of plants by what part of the plant they are and then got to eat them! They did an AMAZING job at this and were obviously elated to get to eat and learn at the same time! :D

We concluded thew party by watching this book on TumbleBooks and discussing why the bear kept feeling cheated. We will read it again next week.

Finally, we planted some grass seeds and are hoping that they turn out as great as these ones did last year!

NEXT UP

Next week we will start a big plants research project that will include some wormy fun! I made a little journal for us that I will share after I get it just how I want it...

Soooo, what fun things are you up to in your classroom?

Sweet & Simple Saturday Post #3

Happy Saturday!! Hopefully you have many more Saturdays left before school starts back up!! :)

This Saturday's freebie is NOT for math, but for science! :) While searching my hard drive for potential freebies I did find a bunch of math ones I could have posted, but I refrained from using one... ;)

This freebie is from my 4th grade days. This was used to introduce/spur a discussion on the sun, light, and shadows.

Click on the picture above to download! Enjoy, and please, leave some love if you grab the freebie! :)

See you next week for Monday Made It!!! :D

I Like Rain Because...

This post is wayyyy overdue, but hey--it's here!

We studied weather in science way back in September. When talking about precipitation, we did this fun little activity about rain. First, we used TumbleBooks to view this book:

Some of the content was a little above the kids' heads, but it was a great read anyway! They really enjoyed it (of course, they enjoy every book we read on TumbleBooks)! After reading the book, we discussed why we liked rain and then recorded some responses on an anchor chart. Finally, the kids wrote their own sentences about why they liked rain. I don't have any close-ups of their writing (bad blogger) but I do have a picture of the bulletin board I made out of the prompt PLUS a copy of the prompt for you to download (redemption)!

I made the umbrella out of butcher paper and the clouds are just cotton balls glued onto cardstock. I know--fancy.

Click on the image of the document below to download a copy of the raindrop! Please comment if you like it enough to keep it--lets me know that someone is out there reading this little blog! Enjoy! :)

Bananapillars!

Last school year, we covered various life cycles right near the end of the year. Since summer was right around the corner I absolutely had to ensure that my lessons were extra engaging! I chose the butterfly's life cycle for the extra activities. We made the ever-so-popular life cycle models using pasta. This was a big hit with my 4th graders!!

This activity fell in the middle of our life cycle unit, so the kids already had quite a bit of background knowledge about life cycles (not to mention what they bring in from previous grade levels). I began by giving them the plate, paper, pasta and leaf and told them that we were going to model the life cycle of a particular being, but didn't tell them which one. The groups of students studied the materials, discussed it, and eventually figured out that it was the butterfly's life cycle. This sparked some great discussion and thinking in them! They were so happy once they figured it out.

 Note that the above one says "Life Cycle of Pasta". {le sigh...}

Much better!! ;)

After we finished the above activity, I decided to continue the fun and have the kids make "bananapillars".

Again, I gave the students all of the materials (banana, 2 raisins, and a few pretzel sticks) at the start and told them that we were going to make a model of one particular stage of the butterfly's life cycle. All together, they figured out that it had to be a caterpillar because of the shape of the banana. Then, they told me how it should be constructed (and they were right!). This was also a big hit!

Note to self (and the reader, for that matter): Don't forget your regular popsicle sticks at home so the kids don't have to use the colored sticks that bleed all over the banana. Lol.

And here is my model of the project:

The final thing we did was learn and sing the "Butterfly Life Cycle Song". Yep, 4th graders! They ate it up. I did this activity with Head Start kids a few years ago and my 4th graders enjoyed it just as much as the Head Start kids did (if not MORE!). 

Head over to one of my stores to get a free copy of this activity, song, and life cycle template. (The template includes 4-stage and 5-stage life cycles.)