![]() Hi everyone! It has been a bit since I have updated the blog. It has been a pretty busy week for me. I have been continuing to volunteer at the school I did my first Practicum placement at since I completed first year Teacher's Ed. I have been going back to volunteer once a week or as my schedule allows me. I will be in for about a week and a half to help scribe for EQAO testing. Today I attended my school for a different matter. Today, my little Grade 2's had a lovely treat with the Scientist in the School program visiting to prepare exciting Science activities for the students to explore. I really enjoyed taking my Science course in school this past first year. You can check back in my blog history if you want to read up on some assignments I completed for class...ha ha....I cannot go a paragraph without a shameless plug ;) Science is such an amazing subject to allow students to explore, question, and experiment with the world around them. During my Practicum experience, I was able to teach two and a half Units of Science; I taught Grade 1 Five Senses and Living and Non-Living Things, and almost half of Grade 2 Matter. I loved to incorporate the use of the Smart Board and hands-on activities for student engagement. My students enjoyed our activities such as the Floating and Sinking experiment and our Exploring the Senses activities with the Mystery Sock. Today, it was so great to see the students predicting, questioning, and discovering the world of Matter. Our presenter had many exciting activities to show the students. Our first activity was to experiment with temperature. Some of the students had cups of ice and other students had cups of ice with salt. Over the course of 6 minutes, students needed to record the temperature change, or lack thereof, in each cup. Some groups found the temperature rose while others found the temperature dropped. This activity helped students learn to read a thermometer, and make predictions for what would happen to the temperature next. The second activity was very delicious! The students combined ice and salt in a cup with our "space tubes" to explore properties of freezing. After stacking ice in our cups and adding layers of salt to the mix, our "space tubes" froze into yummy freezies! The kids loved eating their special treat. Next, the students learned the difference between a solution and a mixture. Each student had a cup of water and a smaller cup with either sand, soap, sugar, or oil. We mixed the water with our special ingredient to check if it formed a mixture or a solution. We concluded that the sand and oil formed a mixture, and the soap and sugar formed a solution. The most entertaining activity of the day was making our own bubbles. The students mixed together water, soap, and corn syrup to make a simple bubble mixture. Then, we experimented with putting soapy fingers inside the bubbles, and trying to form a large bubble as a group. The kids were so excited to blow large bubbles and try to manipulate them into a group sized bubble. I remember doing a similar activity during Teacher's College in my Science and Math class. My class threw a Science Fair at an Elementary school where we each created Science-based activities. My friend Riley and I made Shape Bubbles using a similar formula. I was surprised to learn our presenter used to teach at that very same school we held our Science fair at! It goes to show it is a small world! The final activity was a floating and sinking experiment close to the one I did with my own students during Practicum. Instead of using various objects, we used Plasticine scrunched into balls. The students had to predict if the ball would float or sink. We made our predictions and tested them out. It sunk! After, we flattened our Plasticine balls to test if they would float. The students made little cups or boats to try and float in the water. Overall, it was an excellent afternoon of Scientific exploration. I truly believe that young kids learn much better with hands-on activities. The concepts just come to life in their hands. That will be it for my blog post tonight! I hope you enjoyed reading about our Scientist in the School day! Follow me on Twitter>>> @cstar012 for more blog updates and constant tweeting :) Until my next posting, take care! Happy end of May! Miss. Starkey
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Hello and Good Morning everyone! I hope you all enjoyed your long weekends (for those who happened to be on them). The day has barely begun and I have already had a lot of fun hanging out on Twitter! Today, I had the privilege to host/moderate a Breakfast Chat at 5:30. Ouch! Getting up that early on my summer vacation was tough. However, the amazing discussions were well worth it! For those who do not follow @BFC530 on Twitter (please do!), it is an online chat forum organized around 5:30am in different time zones. A new question is posted each weekday from Monday to Friday. Teachers and followers respond to the question using the #bfc530. It makes for great morning chat for those getting ready for the day. You can submit question on the BFC website (bfc530.com/chat) with hopes your question will get chosen for that week's topics. I was so touched when my question for picked for today's discussion. Today's chat just wrapped up, and I am very grateful to have a whole new set of resources to use in my future practice. The question I asked was, "what are some good book recommendations for Junior grades 4-6?" I really want to build a good list of resources for the Junior grades especially since our next Practicum placement will be in a Junior class. I also wanted to build a list of resources for my fellow teacher candidates to use in their future practice too. All the participants today were amazing with giving great book titles, taking screen shots of covers, and linking very helpful websites. Below, I have listed all the great titles that came from today's discussion. There was also a similar question posed on one of my Facebook groups too. I have included those titles towards the beginning of the list: The Day the Crayons Quit and The Day the Crayons Came Home by Drew Daywalt The And Then It Happened series by Laura and Michael Wade Chicken Soup Series The Book of Awesome (and others in the series) by Neil Pasricha Wonder by R.J. Palacio In a Glass Grimmly by Adam Gidwitz Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson Fish in A Tree by Lynda Mullay Hunt Out of my Mind by Sharon M. Draper Because of WinnDixie by Kate DiCamillo 39 Clues series by various authors such as Gordan Korman, Judy Blundell, Jude Watson, etc. Ok for Now by Gary Schmidt Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld Holes by Louise Sachar Shiloh by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor The Absolute Value of Mike by Kathryn Erkskine I Will Always Write Back by Caitlin Alifirenka and Michael Ganda The Turtle of Oman by Naiomi Shihab Nye Rules by Cynthia Lord The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maude Montgomery A Snicker of Magic by Natalie Lloyd The Giver by Lois Lowry A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren Grimm series by Adam Gidwitz Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling The Thing about Georgie by Lisa Graff Blood on the River by Elisa Carbone Iron Thunder by Avi Land of Stories series by Chris Colfer Crash by Jerry Spinelli Joey Pigza series by Jack Gantos Bella at Midnight by Diane Stanley The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate Flipped by Wenedlin Van Draanen Here is a list of my favourite books for Juniors: Wayside School series by Louis Sachar The BoxCar Kids series by Gertrude Chandler Warner Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maude Montgomery I really enjoyed this chat! I am most excited to check out Fish in a Tree and I Will Write You Back. I was also given a great link to a website specializing in choosing read alouds for all ages. A great budget friendly tip for teachers is to shop for books at used book stores. It is a great way to save money. Plus, some used book stores may allow for you to trade in old books you don't read anymore for store credit!
It is so important to engage students with reading. It will create great discussions amongst students plus promote the importance of daily reading. Even older students enjoy to be read to. It gives their brains a chance to relax and listen to a great story. I hope you enjoy today's blog post. Please comment below or Tweet me with anymore Junior book suggestions! Follow me on Twitter>>> @cstar012 :) Have a great day! Miss. Starkey :) Wow! Two posts simultaneously!? I am giving you all lots of reading over the long weekend, ha ha ha! I was continuing to explore my assignments from the year, and I came across my group Health Lesson Plan regarding Fire Safety. For our Physical Education course, we were assigned to either create a Gym Lesson or Health Lesson. My group decided to do a Health Lesson based off Fire Safety. We planned a lesson where we talk with the class about what to do in the case of a fire, and have them create and present their own fire escape plans. This lesson is great in engaging the students in the class, and asking them to think critically about a safe escape plan. The teacher can circulate the room while students are working in groups and ask for higher order thinking by suggesting, "what would you do if you come across a door that feels hot to the touch?" The teacher can also ask, "what would you do if the smoke starts to build up around you?" A great way to test the fire escape plans would be practicing them at school. Have a practice fire drill with the class and create a classroom exit plan. I really enjoyed presenting this lesson to my class with the rest of my group members, Caitlin and Olivia. A great added touch would be wearing fire hats and having the students create fire safety officer badges. Our class was very engaged with the lesson. I have included the link below with our full lesson plan. Please comment below and let me know what you think. I have also linked the template we used for our fire escape plans. I hope you enjoyed this blog post! Be sure to follow me on Twitter>>> @cstar012 and tweet me your ideas for future blog posts :)
Until the next blog, Miss. Starkey :) |
AuthorCaitlin Starkey is a Teacher Candidate from the University of Ottawa. She loves to read, watch movies, and drink lots of hot chocolate. These blog posts are a glance at her lesson plans, personal reflections, and ramblings about everyday observations. Archives
February 2017
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