100th Day S.T.E.M. Activities

This year for the 100th Day of School I've decided to incorporate S.T.E.M. activities into my day. I came across some awesome STEM Teaching Resources over at Smart Chick's Growing A STEM Classroom blog. They are called Engineering Challenges and I have adapted them to my first and second graders, as well as to the 100th Day of School. You can click on the blue links below to go to her products.

1.       Card Bridge Engineering Challenge – 

What is the strongest bridge you can make with all 100 playing cards?

-Use: 100 playing cards, weights, and a flat surface.

-Using only the playing cards, build the strongest bridge possible to hold as much weight as possible using only cards.

2.       Geodesic Dome Engineering Challenge –

What is the strongest geodesic dome you can build using 100 toothpicks and mini marshmallows or gum drops?

-Use: 100 toothpicks, mini-marshmallows or gum drops, weights, and a flat surface.

-Build the strongest geodesic design with the toothpicks and marshmallows or gum drops. Test with books or other weights.

3.       Paper Clip Chain Engineering Challenge –

Using 100 paper clips, can you create a paper clip chain that can hold the most weight?

-Use:  100 paper clips, plastic pail with handle or other container, weights (pennies, etc.) and a flat surface.

-Using the 100 paper clips, construct a chain that can hold the most weight.

4.       Index Card Tower Engineering Challenge – 

Using 100 index cards and 12 inches of tape, can you build a tower that is at least two feet tall and can hold a small stuffed animal?

-Use:  100 index cards, 12 inches of tape, one small stuffed animal (beanie baby size), scissors

-Using the 100 index cards, 12 inches of tape, construct a tower that is at least two feet tall (24 inches) and can hold the weight of a small stuffed animal.

5         5.   One Hundred Toothpicks Engineering Challenge – 

What is the tallest free-standing tower you can build using 100 toothpicks and two cups of mini-marshmallows?

-Use: 100 toothpicks, 2 cups mini-marshmallows, tape measure, flat surface

-Construct the tallest tower (any shape possible) using the 100 toothpicks and the 2 cups of mini-marshmallows

I'm looking forward to trying these S.T.E.M. Challenges with my students. I will be posting pictures soon to share how our day went. 

Happy 100th Day!

Lori

 

February CURRENTLY

Hi, Everyone,
It's been a while since I've posted,  I know. I guess you can say that I've been in a sort of wintertime funk. I'll explain later in the post. Today I'm motivated by all the cool blogs I've been reading, and so I'm linking up with Farley for February's Currently. This will be the start of a series of posts this week since I'm actually taking the time to post. I have had a lot of great ideas, just haven't taken the time to do it. I hope I'm not the only one.

Today we are home on another Snow Day! This makes another of many days this winter so far. I can't even remember how many, counting all the two-hour delays. 

Here's the scoop on the Currently:

Listening: All day I've been listening to the local news coverage on our latest winter storm. We've had a lot of them so far this winter, but this one claims to be the one bringing the most snow. My husband got out the yard stick, and sure enough, we have about 5 1/2 inches so far, and the snow isn't scheduled to stop for about another hour or so.

Loving:  I'm loving being home for another snow day! There's something wonderful about getting that robo phone call early in the morning announcing, "Schools are CLOSED." Today I actually slept in. That was great because it was a rather late night for me because we went to a Super Bowl Party. I was so hyped when I got home from all the food and iced tea that I drank so it took me quite a while to fall off to sleep. That was a very welcome call this morning.

Thinking: Now I'm thinking about when our school year will actually end. We've had so many snow days this year that our Spring Break has been shortened to only about two and a half days or less. I wonder if we will have to add this day to the end of the year now. UGH!

Wanting: My husband tells me that our snow blower needs a new spark plug. That's not good because the snow is really heavy and pretty deep. That means we will have to get out the shovels today. Boy I wish that snow blower was working.

Needing: Without a snow blower now, I need to be a good wife and help the hubby shovel. So I offered to help shovel and didn't get a decline :-(  This is not one of my favorite things to do since we have a pretty large driveway.

2 Truths and a Fib:
1. Snow days are awesome!  TRUE. I love snow days. They're beautiful and I get to lounge around all day in my PJs. I get to PIN my heart out, read my favorite blogs on Bloglovin', stay on Facebook without feeling guilty and even take a nap during the course of my day. Yippee!

2. I absolutely love winter time. FALSE. I'm a dead of the summer baby. I was born in early August so I  prefer the hot balmy days of summer over the frigid cold days of winter. I love summer. The hotter the better. Winter time throws me into a funk.

3. This is my favorite time of year. TRUE. This is my favorite time of year. Especially when we get a ton of snow days. We get quite of few of them here in the northeast. Since the winter Christmas Break, we've worked very few full school days over the past month or so.


Staying Warm and Cozy,
Lori

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! I wanted to take a moment to say thanks to all of the new author/seller friends that I've been blessed to get to meet and follow through TpT and Bloglovin' this year already. Words can not express how deeply appreciative I am of all of the wisdom, inspiration, encouragement, and help that I have received through your blog posts, videos, products, emails, and the TpT seller forum. I've gleaned so much from all of you on what to do and how to become a great author/seller, blog and seller etiquette, and mostly, just how awesome you all are at your craft as educator/authors. I've been truly blessed as a new author/seller, in that I've been blessed to be able to take something that I love to do (create educational materials) and share it with others, and make a little money doing it! Not knowing if any of my products would sell at all, I've actually managed to create some cash flow into my Dwolla account! Yippee! That's encouraging! What more could a teacher ask for, right? I'm looking forward to an even better year to come! My prayer for you is that you all have a wonderful and prosperous new personal and TpT year as well!

Thank you from the bottom of my heart, 

Lori

(Audio) QR Codes Task Cards for First 100 Fry Words

Happy Holidays! I am enjoying my last few days of our Winter Break, and finally had a chance got around to working on a new product. One of my goals for the new year is to begin to use my Samsung Tablets in my classroom as well as the four mini laptops that every teacher has been given to use in our classroom. 

I absolutely love incorporating technology into my lessons, but I wanted to be sure that my students would not destroy were beginning to show more responsibility with taking care of the materials that they use in class. This has been a big problem for the past months but my students have been getting a little better with this since I made such a big fuss about them coming to my classroom and destroying my materials. 

For the first couple months of school, it was very hurtful to learn that my students had no intrinsic regard for the property of others and would break and tear up all of their materials. However, I turned this experience into a teachable moment. Instead of having science class, I took a lot of their class time to discuss with my students what taking care of things that are not theirs looks like, as well as why they should respect the property of others. Since then, and after having the students sign a contract promising to be more responsible with the classroom materials, I've noticed that my students are beginning to care more about their materials, and so now I am a little more willing now to let them use my wonderful tablets to give them the opportunity to begin to learn with our classroom technology. I'm really looking forward to using the tablets and Netbooks more and more.

This new product that I've created is not a science product. Rather, it's an ELA Common Core aligned product for practicing sight words. YAY! 

As students begin to master the Fry Words they can then begin to learn and practice reading them in the phrases in which they will most frequently find them in print to reinforce both word recognition and fluency skills. These First 100 Fry Words Phrases/(Audio)QR Code Task Cards are aligned with the ELA Common Core Standard: Phonics and Word Recognition
R.F. K.3c Read common high-frequency words by sight.

The task card format allows students to work individually or in small groups. They could even be passed out to the entire class and used as a fun whole group game of Scoot.

The audio QR codes provide a differentiated learning/practice experience for students, allowing them to use a hand-held device such as a tablet or even a laptop to either read the phrases and then hear the audio for fluency practice and immediate self-correction; or students needing more support can hear the audio phrases first and then practice reading them independently.
Teachers can access the QR Codes feature of the task cards by downloading the fun and simple QuickMark QR reader app onto their student laptops or tablets. Once downloaded, open the app, aim the shaded reader over the QR code to scan it. Once scanned the reader will make a funny sound. Then click the blue "Open URL" button to hear the audio voice reading the fry word phrase. It's just that simple and fun!

Happy New Year!
Lori

2014 Resolutions

This week I am linking up with Brandi over at A Peach for the Teach and sharing my Resolutions for the coming year. It was a good exercise because I hadn't really had the time taken the time to think much about these things. Someone told me a while ago that an idea that isn't written down does not exist. So here are my resolutions in writing to make them real. Writing them down also allows me to be able to go back and look at them every few months to assess how I'm doing. Make resolutions for the new year...CHECK! What are yours?

Science Mentor Text Linky Liquids and Solids

This week I'm linking up with Collaboration Cuties' Must Read Mentor Text Linky for Science. The text I'm sharing is Infotrek's Liquids and Solids.

 

This is a very good non-fiction text for introducing Solids and Liquids. The content is introduced in Question/Answer expository format, which easily lends itself to building shema with a K-W-L, for example, before introducing each new question. 

True to non-fiction books, each page of the text contains nice large photographs of solids and liquids to support the text. 

Questions and answers are written in a way that children can easily compare and contrast solids and liquids using either a T-Chart or Venn diagram. Some examples of questions are, What do liquids look like?, What do solids look like? Can liquids change into solids? and, Can solids change into liquids? 

Liquids and Solids is ideal for students to use the questions to begin many cool solids and liquids investigations using the scientific method. Very informative!

Thanks,

Lori

STEM Engineering Design Bridges

One of my goals this year was to incorporate more S.T.E.M. activities into my science curriculum. I decided to do the Gnome Engineers Using Engineering to Build and Design a Bridge project that I got over at Sue Calahane's Science For Kids. Boy, did my kids have a ball with this project! It's by far one of my personal favorites of the year.

Every step of learning the Engineering Design Process was an exciting adventure for my second graders. They especially loved designing their own gnomes, gnome lands and finally getting to the design step of the engineering design process. 

My school uses the FOSS Solids and Liquids Kit, so it was quite a challenge for my primary students to  process (just as real engineers do) how to use what they knew about the properties of their solids, which included materials like cups, cardboard squares, wooden cylinders, and craft sticks, to build their bridges, complete with posts, roadways, guardrails and height. Their designs were amazing and I'm thrilled to share some of them. 

My students learned so much about the engineering design process by doing this project. Many wrote in their evaluations that they loved building with the solids, and they didn't like that it took so long from start to finish--something that is very challenging for little learners. It was a great experience for us all. 

Thanks,
Lori

 

 

Cyber Monday Sale!

Being a new TpT Seller, this is my very first Cyber Monday (& Tuesday) Sale! Everything in my store is 20% off and you even get an extra 10% savings at checkout when you type in promo code CYBER. That's almost a 28% savings! 

I have learned so much from reading the blogs of the best and top TpT Sellers. I am thankful that I have this opportunity as well to share what I absolutely love to do with my colleagues. 

Wishing everyone the very best during this season of thanksgiving.

Here's a look at some of my products for sale:

Please be sure to leave any feedback you might have after purchasing products from my store. You earn TpT points towards future TpT purchases!

Thankfully,
Lori

 

I Have Who Has Solids Vocab Practice

I hope you got a chance to visit my store to check out my sale. If not, there are a couple more hours until it ends. Thanks to all who have gotten a product or two.

I've been teaching my students vocabulary words for solids. We will have a test soon, so I made this I Have Who Has game to use as review. All of the pictures on the cards are of the equipment that we have used so far in our investigations, or will use throughout the year. I teach first graders so the pictures are very helpful at this point of the year.

These cards would also go perfectly with the FOSS Solids and Liquids kit.

The cards have cut lines on them, so they should be very easy to cut apart neatly after laminating.

I plan to use the cards in a center. I use each of my five tables in my science room as stations, each having from three to five students at a table. This is a perfect number for this I Have Who Has game. Students at this  center will pass out the cards evenly among the students at the table. The student who holds the "I WILL START, I have a solid...Who has a triangle?" card will begin the game by reading his/her card aloud and then puts it down on the table. 

The student who has the card that begins with "I have a triangle..." will read their card next and put it down on the table. The game continues until all cards are read and put down on the table, ending with the one that reads, "I have a solid, The End".

So Excited! I'm Having My Very First TpT Sale!

I'm so excited to be having my very first TpT Store sale, starting today, November 7 through Sunday, November 11, 2013. Everything in my store is 10% off!

My goal is to have a bunch of sales by Sunday night, so head on over to my store and take a look at my products. I'm sure there will be something you could use in your classroom. Thanks for your support friends!