Lab: What is Energy??

I. LOVE. TEACHING.  Love it... Love it... love it.  I can't wait for tomorrow where my students get to become a newscast in the Amazon Rainforest; however, today I had such a great time teaching them about energy.  The best is peaking their interest.   As I have said before, I use the 5 E model when teaching science.  Today was our Engage and Explore lesson on forms...

Crunch Time…. Clock Partners

Oh. My. Goodness.  Where did my summer go?  I am sitting here on the couch on my last day of summer.  Tomorrow I return for my first day of in-service.  Who starts in-service on a FRIDAY??  Who does THAT???  and more importantly... why did the school district to that to us?!?!  ugh....I know I sound like I am complaining.... well yes.... I am complaining but not...

MNM: Area of Trapezoids… WHY??

WHY?!?! The most intriguing question that I ask and try to have an answer for.  So I was about to teach how to find area of a trapezoid, and I thought I could just teach them the formula and how to use it, but then the question hit me... Why??  Why is the formula like this???My students had a formula chart we refer to as the "cheat sheet" (they get to use this on their STAAR test)...

SNS: Rock Cycle Rap and Lab

If you are a regular visitor to my blog, I am sure you know how much I love to use YouTube in the classroom.  This week I taught about the Rock Cycle (I love Earth Science), and played this song for my kids and printed out the lyrics. After we listened to it and had fun laughing and singing along (even during the 1st time it played), I gave them a sheet of the lyrics and went through each...

MNM: Angle Foldables

Well hello there!!! I have been on a blog frenzy.... hopefully I can keep it going!  Only 6 more weeks of school---I can NOT believe how this year had just flown by!!!  I am hoping that I can do a lot of posts this summer about notebooking.... but as for today... we are making foldables on......ANGLES!!!You can use these foldables with anything you are teaching not just math.  Over...

Journey to the Center of the Earth…. Model

So this week we started Earth Science... one of my faves!!!! My TEK stated that the students were to build a model of the layers of the earth, but when they know nothing about the earth it makes the concept of building kind of tough.   So we started from square one: KWL chart, and they came up with some great questions under the W.  One of my students even asked "My dog digs in the...