Energy and the Water Cycle Project

This week I assigned a project to my students on potential and kinetic energy.  The project came from a set of questions they were answering after they read a short 2 pages on mechanical energy.  I decided to elaborate on the questions and turn it in to a project.  I am hoping that the students do a good job with the project! I tried to provide the students a few ways of presenting their project.  They can do it as a story, or complete it in a more straight forward paragraph.  Each will be accompanied by a picture they create.  They may create their project by hand or by using a computer.  Here is a brief description of the project. 

Students will be using the concepts of potential and kinetic energy to describe the path a water droplet travels through the water cycle.  Students will need to describe the path of the drop of water from the time it falls from the sky as a raindrop until it reaches the ocean.  In their description, students need to include a swift mountain stream, a still lake, a slow-moving river, and a waterfall.  Students will need to incorporate how the potential energy and kinetic energy of the drop changes along the path.  Make sure to include ALL parts.  Each student has 2 options as to how they would like to present their water droplet's journey. 

Option 1: Using a plain piece of white paper, illustrate the entire journey of the water droplet.  On a separate piece of paper, neatly write or type your water droplet's story; be sure to include all the requirements of the journey and what is happening to the potential and kinetic energy at each point along the journey. 

Option 2: Using a plain piece of white paper, illustrate the journey of the water droplet as a comic strip story.  Include each separate "destination" as its own box on the comic.  In each box, creatively include a description of the journey and what is happening to the potential and kinetic energy. If you would like to do this digitally, let me know and I will give you access to BitStrips.

   

TpT Back to School Sale...

Teachers Pay Teachers is throwing a back to school sale.  Don't miss this chance to get products from all your favorite sellers at discounted prices.  This is a great chance to get all those products you have put on your "wish list" all summer :-)

Click HERE to visit my store. 

.

Scores are in...

Test scores have come back, and I have to say that I am VERY pleased at how my students scores turned out.  I still have a lot of sorting and reflecting to do with scores, but still very happy overall.

Tomorrow is Test Day...

Tomorrow my students are taking the state math test.  They have worked hard all year and I am very proud of them!!!  There is nothing more any of us can do, and I do not look back on a single part of this year wishing or thinking I should have/could have done more.  I simply hope that they all are calm, and focused tomorrow.

Kids and Technology

I was so proud of some of my kids today!!!  We are doing this project for a science grant.  The kids have to do a ton of independent work, thinking, and are using technology like crazy.  The kids are working in small groups and each student has a specific job (team lead, data analyst, and communications officer).  So far they have had to research a company (3M) and create a slide show using haiku deck.  Haiku deck is quick easy way for kids to make a presentation.  (It is sort of like a Prezi...)

Today, the kids started to complete their experiment for the company.  The kids used their personal phones and ipods etc. to take pictures of the experiment during the day.  They are using Google drive to share their pictures and data with their group and the class.

My proud moment today...

As students finished the lab today a few of them brought me their devices to show me something.  Some of the groups had taken all their lab photos and used flipagram to make quick videos.  Some of the students even added music.  I never suggested to do anything like this, they just knew the technology existed and decided it would be fun to try.  What a cool moment for me as a teacher.  I was so happy to see them enjoying themselves and being creative with technology.  Some of the videos were really neat.  I just can't express how happy I was!

We are in test mood all over the building and the stress can be overwhelming, but moments like today make everything worth it.  It seems like a small thing to be proud of but it was awesome!

Rolling Through the Rock Cycle

Last week, we wrapped up our unit on rocks and minerals.  I played the rock cycle game with my students and they LOVED it.  The game got them up and moving around and they got a kick out their individual paths.  Some of the kids got stuck in one spot for multiple turns.  They did awesome and realized just how long it could take for parts of the rock cycle to happen.  I was very pleased with how well they did with the activity and unstructured nature of it all.

After the game, students used a comic strip website (pixton.com) to make comics depicting their individual journey through the rock cycle.  Students could be as creative or straight forward with their journey as they wanted.  The kids really enjoyed the comic strips as well.  Most of them had never used the program before and it took some getting use to, but they are kids and catch on pretty quick when it comes to technology.  ;-)

I have uploaded the PDF of my Rock Cycle Game to TeachersPayTeachers .  Check it out HERE.

Hunger Games - Final Round...

Our Hunger Games Competition has gone so well.  The girls won all three of the rounds so far.  Our forth and final round leading up to testing is not going to be girls vs. boys.  Instead, each student is going to be competing for themselves.  I have set a goal for each of my students.  If they are not are not currently on grade level than their goal is to get to grade level (no matter how many grade levels that is).  Students that are on grade level or above have a goal of increasing another grade level.  Their prize... once each student individual student reaches their goal they are exempt from homework for the rest of the year.  I hope that this final round is as successful as the rest have been.

Bulletin board used to track tributes

"Undercover" Mission

Hello All...

I want to make sure my students have the materials they need to succeed and we have recently added 2 new ChromeBook carts to sixth grade. However, in the crazy world of sixth grade, no matter how careful we are, accidents happen.  I have recently created a new DonorsChoose project in order to try and get covers for the computers.  I had so much support from friends and family with my project earlier this year and I am hoping that this one is just as successful.

I'm asking for donations of any size to help my kids. For the next week, any donation you make to my project will be doubled by Anonymous Donor (up to $100). If you know anyone who is passionate about education, please pass this along. Your donation will brighten my students' school year, and you'll get photos and thank yous from our class.

To have your donation matched dollar for dollar, enter the promo code

INSPIRE

on the payment screen. This awesome match offer lasts through March 16th.  

My students and I greatly appreciate your support.


The link to my project is below.... check it out if you have time. :-)

"Undercover" Mission 

Girls Won...

My girls pulled out a win in round 1 at the very last min.  I am very proud of them.  :-)  Round 2 started Monday.  I am impressed at how motivated they are staying.  I am really hoping the time they are spending pays off and fills in some of the learning gaps from along the way.   More importantly I hope the kids realize how much they are growing.  I want them to be proud of themselves and see that hard work pays off.

Some of my lower kids are doing so much better with their basic math facts.  They have been working so hard on Reflex Math and now Moby Max.  It is great to be teaching math and have the kids answer me quickly when I ask what is 8 x 6.  We aren't held up trying to solving math facts and counting on our fingers so much any more, making us able to tackle more of the grade level specific content.

Hunger Games Math Competition is in Full Swing!!!

The Hunger Games math competition that we started a few weeks ago is in full swing, and is going so well!!!  I am very pleased with my kids progress.  The kids are really getting into it and working really hard.  Over the last 3 weeks the kids have solved 19,540 problems, completed 486 lessons, and mastered 448 standards.  My girls are losing to the boys right now, but they are working hard to change that.  I am very happy with how things are going so far :-)

Hunger Games Themed Math Competition

It has been quite a winter so far, I have been sick with mono, broken my foot, and we are on our third or forth snow day.  All this "down time" has given me some time to work on school stuff. I use the word "down time" loosely since in a teacher's world there doesn't ever seem to be true down time during the year :-).  For me though this down time as come from less time at the gym, Christmas break and snow days.  During this time I found a program on the internet called Moby Max.  It is a math and reading program geared toward identifying student gaps and providing lessons and practice right in the same program. Best part of all, the basic version is free!  Although I am excited about the program I really struggle with how to get the kids motivated to want to participate.

My teaching partner and I have decided in order to get the kids motivated we are going old school...  BOYS VS. GIRLS.  We are using Hunger Games as our theme for the competition.  Each student is a tribute and earns tickets to a drawing to have a chance to shoot at a target for points for their team.  In our case being a tribute with your name in the drawing a lot is good thing, not a dangerous thing.  They earn points for their team through various means built into the program like percentage of growth.  Each student also can earn bonus points for certain amounts of correctly answered questions in the program.  Again, the program tracks this. We are still working on a few things, but I am very excited!

Going Google in Sixth Grade is Funded!!!

My Donors Choose Project is funded!!!!  I am so excited and thankful to the many friends and family members that donated to my project.  I can't believe how quickly my project was funded.  It only took 2 days and then Donors Choose shipped my computers over night.  The computers arrived at my school today!! YAY :) My kids are so excited to have 3 Chrome Books that will be for our classroom.  They all wanted to use them this afternoon, but I had to get them all set up first... they will have to wait till tomorrow.

Going Google in Sixth Grade - My Donors Choose Project

Hi Friends,

I want to make sure my students have the materials they need to succeed. So I've created a classroom project request at DonorsChoose.org, an award-winning charity.

I'm asking for donations of any size to help my kids. For the next week, any donation you make to my project will be doubled by Anonymous Donor (up to $100). If you know anyone who is passionate about education, please pass this along. Your donation will brighten my students' school year, and you'll get photos and thank yous from our class.

Here's my classroom request:

Going Google in Sixth Grade!

To have your donation matched dollar for dollar, enter the promo code CHEER on the payment screen. This awesome match offer lasts through November 17, 2013.

My students and I greatly appreciate your support.

Solving Word Problems

Every year, one of our biggest struggles is problem solving skills.  Word problems are intimidating for a lot of students.  My kids always struggle with knowing what to do or where to start.  This year, I made a poster with some key words for my students.  I used math operation symbols and inside of each typed words that help indicate which operation to use. My hope is that it will be a starting point for them as they develop these skills.  I copied the poster for my kids and they cut in apart and glued the images into their composition book.  We included an example problem with each image.

All of the reading in word problems is an immediate problem for students.  They see all the reading and automatically shut down.  I hope that having a few strategies will make them less intimidating from the start.

The Amazing Race

Last week, my team organized an Amazing Race for our kids.  We had clues throughout the school that students had to find and interpret.  My favorite clue was probably the one with a riddle that led them to a locker in the building.  Then they had to solve 3 math problems to get the combination to get the next station card.  This card was really hard for them, but I liked it.  The clues sent them a variety of stations setup in various rooms around school. All of our stations were somehow academic.  For math we had a giant Sudoku station and some logic/math puzzle stations.  Our students just finished maps in social studies so they had to solve some riddles to identify note worthy attractions around the world, like the Eiffel Tower.  They then had to find the location on a map and provide the longitude and latitude.  The students even solved tangrams up in the office with the principal.  It was a fun way for them to move around the school and interact with him.

Overall, students did well.  The hardest part for them was understanding that they had to solve the riddles to get clues and not just pick up cards anywhere they saw them.  We had the kids in groups and each group was a different clue "track" so that we never would have more than 3 groups at a station.  This got a little messed up when they started picking up random clues...

This took a lot of set-up, but I am hoping now that it is finished that it will be easier next year.  All the cards and things are in a box stored away till next year.

Clue Cards and Station Cards

another clue card

Clue Envelopes 

group envelopes... they kept their clues and score cards in here.

giant Sudoku cards

station manager cards

more station envelopes 

The F word...

FRACTIONS...  Every year my students dread fractions.  When I tell them that is what we are working on they all gasp and moan.  Of course it is never as bad as they imagine it will be.

For multiplying  fractions this year I created a graphic organizer with my students that had all the steps they would need to solve a problem.  I use steps in my classroom whenever possible.  My lower students will jump at the chance to have steps and then they follow them religiously.  The steps to working out the problems make them feel successful.  They can participate in class conversations and always can relate to where we are in a problem.  If they are lost I can simply tell them what step we are at and they can pick it right up with us.  It helps them to not make silly mistakes as well.  Once they have the steps mastered the students are more confident to move on to more grade level appropriate and challenging problems with the steps as a guide.

Multiplying fractions isn't a sixth grade skill, but applying fractions to other problems, like word problems, is a sixth grade skill.  I often find that the basic skills need reinforced/taught  before we can get to the higher level thinking.  The the steps seem to be a very efficient way to get us successfully moving forward.

I created an anchor chart, to hang in my room, that matched my students graphic organizer.  Unfortunately, the laminator machine ate it!!! :(  I got a picture before I sent it through... so you can see what it did look like.

I don't really want to devote an entire new entry to dividing fractions, but this is what kids glued into their composition books for steps to divide fractions.  It is hard to see, but this graphic organizer focused a lot on the vocabulary.  We stuck with the traditional "Keep it, Change it, Flip it" but also added some technical terms to it.

This was our graphic organizer for
dividing fractions...

Mystery Samples

Today, my students completed one of my favorite labs of the year.  The students take film canisters (you know, from back when we had rolls of actual film for the camera) that have mystery items sealed inside.  They shake each canister and make an observation about the sound it makes.  Then, they test to see if it is magnetic.  Finally, they make an inference about what is in the canister.  This lab is so fun to watch, and the kids guesses are awesome!  Sometimes they are right on and other times they are very off, but creative. :-) Inside the canisters are items like paperclips, rubber bands, marble, button, eraser, paper, and toothpicks.  I have 15 canisters and they rotate in groups about every two minutes.  They have to work quickly, but that is part of the fun.  If you don't know what is in the canister more time isn't going to help.

The lab comes from the book Picture Perfect Science.  We do the whole observation and inference section in the book.  I love that I get to read "kids" books to my 6th graders.  They always get pretty excited about the fact that they get story time again.  They all gather around on the carpet at my feet while I read.  Some are too "cool" to act excited, but they love it too.

Skittles Lab

We did a Skittles Lab this last week in science. Our science blocks are pretty short, so it took us about 3 days. I absolutely love this lab!!! It incorporates so many different skills from both math and science. 

Kids start by making a hypothesis about how many total Skittles and how many of each color they think there are in a fun size bag. Then, they open their bag and fill in a data table with their information.  Next, students go around to each other and collect others Skittles data. Once they have all their data, students find the average of the total Skittles in a bag as well as the average for each color. Next, students make two bar graphs, one of their personal data and one of the class averages. Students have to identify the independent and dependent variables and write a strong a conclusion. Finally, students find the median, mode and range of the data for each color of Skittle.

Students collecting data

calculating averages

student data table

counting Skittles

happy hump day...

Parent Flip Book

A few weeks ago I mentioned that I had made a flip book for my parents and students to have as a resource at home. The idea was that they could have all the really important information about sixth grade all in one place. I included homework policies, schedules, each kids individual logins (this took awhile to personalize each book), and contact information for each teacher on our team. I got the books handed out the second week of school or so. I am sure not everyone uses it, but I know it has been helpful for some.

I have seen these flip books a few blogs including this one (Just Reed) ... I love her paper. It is much happier than the options that I had, but I made do.

This is my finished flip book...

The template was by far the hardest part for me, I have added the template to my TpT page if you would like to check it out. It is a word file so you can edit it to make it your own. I have the sections made and labeled for easy layout.