Stocking Up!

I made my yearly trip to Target to take advantage of their super cheap prices on composition books. I was joined by several other teachers and before I knew it, notebooks were the focus topic. Should we use spirals? Composition books? Will spirals last longer? What will be more convenient for making and inserting copies? What will be easier to lug back forth from classroom and home? Which will hold up better to middle school kids? How many notebooks will each student need this year? What's being used in high school? What's being used in elementary? What to do, what to do? 

Well....It'll be composition books for me this year. I just got a couple of boxes donated, so I'm excited! Super grateful for all of the donations that are given to me. Only 10 more days until all of the happy little junior high faces make it to my classroom!

Fourth of July Sale!

SAVE 20%!

I'm having a Fourth of July Sale! Head on over to my store for savings on all of my products!

Fourth of July PowerPoint Templates

What better way to spend the past week's worth of triple digit weather than creating PowerPoint templates for the next school year. I've got both pre-titled and generic templates for sale in my Teachers Pay Teachers store. Check 'em out!

'Bout Time!

Geez! It's been almost a year since my last post...not good. Oh well, I'm going to chalk it up to working full time for the first time in at least 5 years and being a mother to a 3 and 4 year old. The good news is that all my hard work will pay off in the form of some personal time next year (fingers crossed) since I've got a rough outline of a pacing guide put together. No more reinventing the wheel for me!

Things I am excited about:

1. I just finished presenting at a week-long NGSS summer institute put on by the California Science Project. I really enjoyed talking about interactive notebooks and their benefits to science education (actually any form of education, for that matter). I got to work with some of the most amazing people; it'll definitely go down in history as an amazing experience. 
2. While in the the NGSS institute, one of the teachers shared a site that she uses in her class. The site is called Newsela and it is awesome. It is a collection of current, relevant, and interesting articles in any content area for students to read. You can select an article and either print it off in 5 different Lexile reading levels or assign it to students according to their reading level  online using the online class feature. I'm super excited about this and can't wait to use it in my classes next year. I see it being particularly useful when we conduct Socratic Seminars.  
3. My best friend is now our district's literacy coach. I can't wait to work with her in developing strategies to build science literacy as well as encourage dialogue within my science classroom. 

I still have a while until school starts, but it's nice to have some things to look forward to. 

Busy Little Scientists

Remember how I used petri dishes for one of the Icky Sticky Fingers experiments? I loved them because they got my kids really excited about the experiment. Yesterday I opened the freezer to find one of the shelves covered in petri dishes that contained an assortment of materials. My 3 year old son came running around the corner frantically telling me to close the freezer. I asked him what he was doing and he replied, "I'm doing really cool experiments, Momma!" Needless to say, I am one happy "Momma" right now as I watch my kids explore the world around them. I'm a big advocate for getting science equipment into the classrooms because kids get so excited about it and what they are going to learn with it. Let me know how I can help you do this!

Charlie's experiment consisted of seeing what would happen to water, sand, rocks, leaves, water with paint in it, and grass if he put them in the freezer. 

Icky Sticky Fingers-Final Thoughts

We ran the Icky Sticky Fingers experiment 4 times using 4 different mediums (regular ol' wheat bread, preservative free wheat bread, homemade nutrient agar, and cheap ol' white bread). The results were somewhat surprising and as an added bonus, I now have a 2 year old and a 3 year old who are very good at washing their hands...no more nagging from me!

Let's go over the results, shall we?

Icky Sticky #1

Plain ol' wheat bread...nothing special, except that IT NEVER MOLDED! Well, at least not in the 17 days I had it out in the garage. This stuff has some serious shelf life! I wouldn't try this one in the classroom because of the time needed. Even though kids are learning about patience, theirs might just run out (and yours too) during this experiment with this type of bread.

Icky Sticky #2

Preservative free wheat bread. It got moldy really fast (about 3 days), which is great in terms of classroom time, however the results weren't very reliable. My control (which was not touched) grew the most mold and Charlie's clean bread sample grew more mold than his dirty bread sample. This experiment might yield better results if the kids had washed their hands better (but let's face it, sometimes getting a 2 and 3 year old wash their hands at all is a major feat in itself). 

Icky Sticky #3

This was, by far, my favorite experiment. The nutrient agar turned out great and it introduced the kids to equipment and terms used by scientists in the field. The petri dishes sat in our laundry room for about a week (~78 degrees Fahrenheit) and produced some of the best results. Did I mention that there was no odor? The kids were very excited about this experiment and when it was all done, they were a cinch to clean up (yes!). 

I'll post the nutrient agar recipe below with a list of supplies and where they can be purchased. I would highly recommend this experiment for your students! It's cheap, easy, and yields great results. You can't ask for more than that!

Nutrient agar recipe: click HERE

Materials needed for nutrient agar: 

• Beef broth (bullion cubes, canned, or granules), water (unless using canned, prepared broth as I did), unflavored gelatin, and sugar.

Petri dishes (size 100 x 15mm): 

• Amazon: $9.95/20 petri dishes (click HERE)  
• Seargent Welch (accepts P.O.'s): $8.95/20 petri dishes (click HERE)

Possible alternative petri dishes: foil cupcake cups placed them in a zippered baggie for storage during the incubation time. I've never done this before, but I'd love to hear how it worked out for you.

Each student will need two petri dishes (one clean and one dirty), however, it is possible to have students do this in pairs where they both touch one petri dish with their dirty hands and then both touch a second petri dish with their clean hands. It's a cheaper alternative. :)

Icky Sticky #4

This was another great experiment that yielded some really good results in a short amount of time. Additionally, it was cheap, which is always a plus for teachers. I would definitely recommend this one for a classroom.

Icky Sticky Fingers Mini Unit: Almost done! Keep checking back if you're interested in it!

Icky Sticky #4 UPDATE

WooHoo! It worked! The experiment done on a cheap loaf of white bread worked the best (well, at least out of the experiments that were done on bread). I got pretty good results within a week, which is also good in terms of having an experiment performed within a reasonable amount of time in a classroom setting (we don't want those kiddos getting bored!).

What helped get the results we were after? 

• I got Charlie's hands *really* dirty out in our planter beds. 
• I put the bread in the garage to incubate. It was pretty warm out there (around 90-100 degrees Fahrenheit). Typical classroom temperatures should work well too.