Hallway Display

I found out last week that I was assigned a bulletin board in the school for this month. I had seen a picture of a cute Facebook bulletin board that a teacher had done for her class and I essentially copied it :)

It was a huge hit in the school because of the interactive "status update". Parents, teachers, and students are encouraged to post updates throughout the week.

Sketchy Science II

Thanks to all the participants in our Sketchy Science contest at the Secret Science Club's Kickstarter party. The challenge was to draw the “Future of Science,” and sketchers envisioned oversexed computers, jellyfish-powered vehicles, scientists wet-wired to their iPads, and scary robot monsters. Congratulations to our winner, Aaron Lampell!

Scratched Constellation Designs

I taught my constellation activity today. It didn't go as well as I hoped (Monday???). One class didn't finish. The other class did with lots of complaining (about coloring)!

I took an idea I found on the internet (see this site) and modified it for the class. I initially wanted to use the cards and hole punch like the website but my hole punches wouldn't reach far enough in. I saw this idea on the web and thought of using it as well but couldn't find any jumbo push pins.

I remembered an old Girl Scout craft where you colored one color underneath a darker color (crayons) and scratched out a design and thought that would work.

The students really had to color hard with both colors - yellow on the bottom and blue on top (hence the complaining). It did not work well with generic crayons (Crayola worked best). Time wise it took about 20 minutes for the entire class to finish. We scratched out the constellations using paper clips.

The right hand side of the notebook held the lyrics to a constellation song on YouTube. You can download the lyrics HERE. (The kids loved the song. We listened to it and sang it about five times). The left hand side held the finished scratched constellations.

Constellation Activity

I am teaching a fourth grade class about constellations this coming week and came across this adorable idea (picture above) from this blog.

Sadly I don't think I have time to do this activity with this class (the lesson is on Monday and today is Saturday) but I might run it by the teacher to see if we can make it happen.

Sharing the idea because it was just too darn cute not to :)

Pop Culture Points

A teacher in one of our district shared this YouTube video on letting children earn "Pop Culture Points" in the classroom. I love it! One of my favorite things about teaching is when a child comes in and has made a connection to what we are learning in class to what they are watching on TV, reading, or listening to.

We all know that making connections is powerful and helps students remember. This teacher now assigns points for it. I like what one of the interviewed children said, "It makes you think about learning when you aren't normally thinking about learning."

I saw this video a couple of days ago and really started looking for points of reference in the shows I watched. In this weeks Warehouse 13 the dangerous artifact was a pair of binoculars that were on the Enola Gay, the plane that dropped the first atomic bomb on Japan. On Eureka the entire town was focused on an upcoming launch to Titan, the largest moon on Saturn. I thought both worthy of Pop Culture Points and related to content we teach at the elementary school level :)

The Secret Science Club presents the Census of Marine Life with Jesse Ausubel, Wednesday, September 14, 8 pm @ the Bell House, FREE!

Step into liquid, and explore strange blue worlds where no one has gone before . . .

Dive beneath the waves at the Secret Science Club with Jesse Ausubel, co-founder of the Census of Marine Life. For an entire decade, 2,700 scientists in 80 countries conducted an unprecedented exploration of the oceans, studying undersea ecosystems from hydrothermal vents to the icy Arctic. Their results reveal an astonishing diversity of life, as well as an ocean biosphere dramatically impacted by humans. Dr. Ausubel shares their amazing findings, among them: 

--More than 1,200 ocean species completely new to science, including the hairy-clawed Yeti Crab living 7,200 feet down in the South Pacific, a Darth Vader-shaped deep-sea jellyfish in the Arctic, and a new genus of “zombie worms” that feed on bones of dead whales

--The “White Shark Café,” a mysterious open-ocean hangout between Baja and Hawaii where these cartilaginous creatures congregate for purposes that remain unknown

--An almost incomprehensibly vast world of microscopic life, including tiny microbes forming ginormous mats on the Pacific seafloor, one of which is the size of Greece

An environmental scientist and recipient of the Peter Benchley Ocean Award for Excellence in Science, Jesse Ausubel is director of the Program for the Human Environment at Rockefeller University, and vice president of programs at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Following the completion of the Census of Marine Life in 2010, a newly discovered genus and species of deep-sea lobster was named in Dr. Ausubel's honor: Dinochelus ausubeli, which roughly translates as Ausubel's terrifying-clawed creature.

Before & After

--Sway to sea shanties and the murmurs of mermaids

--Stick around for the salty Q&A

--Try our wet and wild cocktail of the night, the Deep-Sea Vent. (It’ll take you down… down…)

This undersea edition of the Secret Science Club meets Wednesday, September 14 @ the Bell House, 149 7th St. (between 2nd and 3rd avenues) in Gowanus, Brooklyn, p: 718.643.6510  Subway: F to 4th Ave; R to 9th St; F or G to Smith/9th.

Doors open at 7:30 pm. Please bring ID: 21+. Free!

Photos: Jellyfish photo by Kevin Raskoff; Yeti crab by Ifremer/A. Fifis.

Unusual Spaces

This teacher has a very small room with not a lot of wall space. I loved that she thought out of the box and used her desk to have students make their lunch choices on. She put the students names on magnets and they move them over when they come in in the morning.