What’s Happening in Science – 9/21 to 9/25

We are finishing up our Plant Unit this week. I’m sending home our Study Guides today (Monday) for those who like to get an early jump on things. Our test will be next Tuesday (Sept. 29.) On Friday students will leave their notebook in their basket to be graded. Notebook Check #1 for plants consists of pages 17 – 27. This is the rubric I will be using to grade.

Monday – Today we are finishing NB 27 – Plants we Eat. I am handing out our study guides. We will be reviewing these in class later in the week — we are still learning our content.

Next up .. We are gluing in our Sort It page. We are completing a Venn Diagram where we are comparing and contrasting animal and plant characteristics.

Tuesday – Today we are completing NB 29. This is a label of a plant and a diagram of photosynthesis. This EXACT page is on on test as test questions.

Students are completing a puzzle of the carbon-oxygen cycle, then drawing it in their notebooks on page 30.

Wednesday – Today we are working on NB 31 External Structures of Plants. This will be a daily work grade for the week. During extra time, students may be working on unfinished pages.

Thursday – Today we are completing NB 32/33. We will be studying a graph and explaining our answers. We will also do a whole group lab on NB 34.

Friday – We will review our study guide. Test is Tuesday. We will read a passage and complete a main idea graphic organizer. Any extra time will be used for completing unfinished notebook pages. Students will leave their Science Notebooks in class today for a notebook check.

** these notebook pages are for sale in The Science Penguins TPT store. Love her!! **

Throwback Thursday – 9/17/15

What’s Happening in Science this week – 9/14 – 18

We are continuing to work on our Plant Unit. We will be testing September 29.

Monday – Today we read 3 passages about plants. These passages are our theme about plants – importance of plants, needs of plants, and how plants reproduce. We picked out the key details in each and wrote them on a graphic organizer. These can be found on our interactive notebook pages 18 – 21.

Tuesday – Today we watched two study jams – Plants with Seeds and Photosynthesis. We described and illustrated what we knew/learned about this in our notebook. This can be found on notebook pages 22. We also illustrated a page about the needs of plants.

Wednesday – Today the kids really impressed me!! I had really debated having them do today’s activity, and they all aced it!! I’m going to step up my game — these kids can handle it!!! We matched photo cards with their description, and recorded it on their notebook page 24.

Thursday – Today we analyzed a picture of a houseplant, and recorded our thoughts on our graphic organizer. We started a notebook page Plants we eat — and we will finish it on Monday.

** We will stay in homerooms tomorrow due to Homecoming Festivities.

Pajama Day — 9/16/15

Oh, how I LOVE pajama day!! What is better than working in pajamas?! Not much!!! Lots of happy faces today!!!

Camo Day — 9/14/15

Can’t Hide our Pride!!

Random Updates — Lunchroom and Perfect Attendance Achievement

It’s been a great week at HES!! We have lots of exciting things happening so I wanted to do a blog post. This will be pretty random.

First of all, next week is Homecoming Week for Haleyville City Schools. This is one of my favorite weeks of the school year. We have lots of fun with our themes. I am posting right below this the picture of our themes. HES is different than HMS and HHS due to our picture day — those with older siblings may get a little confused. Also, my homeroom kiddos are to wear 70’s clothing on Thursday for dress from another decade day. I will explain why later on in the post — it’s a good one!! I will be snapping pictures of the kiddos dressed throughout the week — and I will add them to the blog and our 4th grade Instagram page — which is @hes4thgrade.

Next up .. our lunchroom!! I have been SUPER impressed with our lunchroom this year. Our students are getting a choice for the first time EVER!! Students can choose to eat at the hot bar, pizza bar, or a grab-and-go lunch each day. The grab and go lunch is available as supplies last — it looks great! I had one parent stop me at Wal-Mart to say that the lunchroom choices this year has been the best thing to ever happen to them at school! Her child is such a picky eater (her words), but he has been super happy having a choice in our lunchroom this year. I found the cutest idea on a teacher facebook page I follow. I adapted it to fit into our classroom and voila! The kids LOVE putting their popsicle sticks in the correct bucket each day — brought lunch, hot bar, or pizza bar. This also brought about the start of classroom jobs. The kids would beg to let them put the popsicle sticks back in the name bucket — so I made a classroom jobs list so everyone could help out in the afternoon!

Not only do we love lunch choice this year — but we also love our fruit and veggie program. The kids are supplied a free fruit or veggie 3 days a week — and they are SO excited each time they see the containers! It is SO nice for our kids to try new healthy foods. This week we had green bell peppers, grapes, and bananas. The kids LOVED them all! I posted the cutest video on Instagram of a few volunteers trying out the bell peppers. Is this not the cutest thing ever?!

https://instagram.com/p/7bRNC1MZi4/?taken-by=kgoggans2
Continuing on with my random updates, I had to sign a 20 day attendance report one day last week at school. Every 20 days we have to check attendance and sign it to update in the computer. My sheet was surprisingly blank of check-ins, tardies, or absences. I know it is the beginning of the year, but when you have 18 kids in a homeroom – it happens! Why was my page so blank? I have a couple of reasons that I believe my students are being so present this year. The number one reason is my bestie Draco. Our new classroom critter is a great motivation to come to school to see his pretty face each day. The one day I didn’t bring him with me because I had a doctor appointment right after school was super sad EVEN FOR ME. I’m so used to looking over and seeing him in his terrarium … and it was empty. Not seeing his little eyes watching the kiddos and me was just sad. How did I teach for 12 years without him? I have no clue. I will be doing a post very soon on my thoughts about having a class pet.

The other reason I think my kiddos are coming to school so well this year is also because of a cool idea I saw on Pinterest during the summer. Each day that my homeroom are all present, we add a letter to our board. We are spelling the words perfect attendance. To increase the competition, we invited several classrooms to join in and compete against us to see who would win first. When we spell the words perfect attendance, we celebrate and also begin again. I thought we would probably do a popcorn party to begin with — but my homeroom had a different idea. A disco party was what these kids wanted to do. I’m not sure why they wanted this — but how cool are they to want something so out of the box?! I love their personalities!! So … on Thursday of this coming week we will celebrate with a disco party! Even though we made our goal on Wednesday, we are prolonging our celebration because of Homecoming. Thursday’s theme is to dress from another decade — which is perfect for us! We will dress like the 70’s, I have borrowed a disco ball, and I’m planning a disco party during snack time!! I’m sure it will be groovy!! And of course … I will snap pictures for us to have forever!! 🙂

I will be blogging very soon about my classes beginning Class Dojo (LOVE!!), and my many feelings on having a class pet. I’m going to get some quotes from my kiddos to include!!

Love,

Mrs. Goggans

Red, White, and Blue Day — 9/11/15

Friday was so hectic that I may have let a couple of classes slip by me without snapping a picture. The kids are pretty good though at reminding me!!

To show respect and honor to the anniversary of Sept. 11 we wore red, white, and blue to school.

Next week is Homecoming so I’ll be posting pictures daily of our kiddos dressed up!! 🙂

What’s Happening in Science — 9/8 to 9/11

This week we are doing things a tad different. It’s not fun to do the same thing all the time!! Students will leave their notebooks on Friday for me to grade pages 12 – 16. We will create 13 – 16 this week — students should already have NB 12 created.

Tuesday —

Throughout the year, we will be doing STEM challenges in Science. Today we will define STEM on notebook 13. Then, we will define the roles of a scientist and technican during a STEM lab.

Wednesday –

Today we are completing NB 15 where we are defining the role of the engineer and mathematician during STEM challenges in the classroom. We will also complete NB 16 where we will discuss the expectations during STEM challenges.

**Students will leave their notebooks in their class basket on Friday. I will grade 12 – 16.

Thursday –

Today we will begin our Plant Unit. We will view a PowerPoint together, and complete a booklet that will go on NB 17. This will be part of our next notebook check.

Friday –

Today we are reading 3 passages and completing a graphic organizer about the key details from each. This will go on NB 18 – 21.
** I’m excited!! We are starting to use Class Dojo in Science this week. This will allow students to win points for doing tasks — basically awarding our kids for good choices. Let us get used to it, and then I will do a big blog post. I think it is going to be a GREAT motivational tool in Science this year!!! 🙂

Save Fred – 9/4/15

Superhero Day, Save Fred Day plus Draco got a new house for his terrarium … and I may have brought a selfie stick to school today. It may have been a CRAZY Friday!! At least we have a long Labor Day weekend to rest up.

Students were given their first Science test back and their first notebook check today. I will be sending a note home next week about my grading procedures in Science.

First up, I had a doctors appointment yesterday afternoon in Florence. Of course, I had to stop by Petco to pick up some superworms for my bestie Draco. I’ve been hearing lots about these worms, and I wanted to see if he would like them as much as as other dragons love them. He definitely does — I’ll record a meal session soon. I spotted a cute house for guinea pigs and decided Draco needed it. So far, he’s avoided it. But, if he decides he needs to nap it will be there.

I had to stop by and visit with the baby bearded dragons. They are the cutest things!!! Look at these sweet little babies!!!

We absolutely love the Fresh Fruit and Veggie program here at HES!! We get it 3 days a week, and the kids miss it the other 2 days!! We tried honeydew melon, cauliflower, and strawberries this week. The melon and the strawberries were favorites hands down. Here are a few of our girls enjoying their strawberries today. Follow us @hes4thgrade on Instagram. I love to video the kids reactions to new foods!!

I feel so lucky to teach 4th grade!! I love the kids excitement to learn, and I absolutely love the people on tbe purple hall. We met at PE time today to discuss all of our fun events coming up in the next few weeks at HES. Love these ladies!! We are missing a few out of this shot — it’s hard to catch everyone!! Excuse my facial expression — hard to get everyone perfect!! 🙂

Next up, the Save Fred STEM challenge. This is a fun challenge that I do each year. Here is the background:

Homeroom winners:

Class selfie:

This selfie stick is a tad harder than you would think. Got it at the five and below store at Florence. Five dollars and you can pick blue, green, pink, or black.