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.

2nd period had two groups finish at the same exact time so we declared it a tie.

Class selfie:

4th Period:

This class selfie was a blurry mess. We will retake sometime.

5th:

Class selfie:

7th:

Class selfie:

8th:

This class basically all finished at the same time. I just snapped them all 🙂

  

I hope everyone has a great Labor Day weekend!!!

Ending with one more picture of my bestie, Draco. He was SO excited to see the fourth graders on Monday!! Look at that sweet face!!!

Love,

Mrs. Goggans

What’s Happening in Science – 8/31 – 9/4

I’m so excited about Science this week!! We are wrapping up our Introduction to Science unit this week, and we will start Life Science next Thursday.

Monday – Today we finished our science stations. I discussed the stations here.

Tuesday – We reviewed notebook pages 1-11 for our Science quiz tomorrow. We also talked about our Notebook Rubric. I will be using that to grade their notebooks toward the end of the week. We discussed our expectations for group work and created a notebook page on page 12.

Wednesday – We will take a Science quiz today. Students may use the extra time to complete unfinished pages or AR read.

Thursday/Friday – Notebooks are all to be in the baskets in our classroom. I will be grading those on Thursday and Friday. Students will be completing STEM challenges. I will be posting pics!!

Introduction to Science Stations – 8/28 and 8/31

We are completing Science Stations using the lab sheets pictured below. These stations were purchased from the Science Penguin. You can find her teacher pay teacher store here.

Each station lasts about eight minutes.

Station 1 – Students measured temperature of water with thermometers. After measuring, they compared data and recorded it on their lab sheet.

Station 2 – Students measured the volume of water with graduated cylinders and recorded/illustrated the data on their sheet.

Station 3 – This station should be called the what was I thinking station. Students used stopwatches to record the length of time it took to do various tasks like hopping on one foot. They then calculated the elapsed time it had taken to roll a ball across the room.

Station 4 – This lab called for students to observe various object with and without a hand lens.

Station 5 –

Students traced and measured an object using centimeters.

Station 6 – Students looked at objects to determine the best way to classify them.

Station 7 — extra station to be completed during down time. This station calls for students to draw a safety tool and explain the purpose of it in Science.

I have a special shout out for a group of boys. They were my best group hands down all day long. They worked so hard! Good job!!!

I’m closing with a picture of Draco. I’m so hoping he sheds over the weekend. He looks horrible, and I know he has to be super itchy. He will be so shiny once he does!!

Have a good weekend!!!

Love,

Mrs. Goggans

What’s Happening in Science — 8/24 – 8/28

We are still working on our Introduction to Science Unit. We will be wrapping it up next week with our first Science Quiz and notebook check.

Monday — We are gluing in NB 5 today. We are learning about different ways to measure in Science. After we learned about measuring, every group used the measuring tape to measure Draco (our class pet.) We were all surprised to learn that he was 1 foot 5 inches. We will remeasure at Christmas and the end of the year to see how much he has grown.

Tuesday – Today we are learning about using Science Models. I have pulled several examples for students to see. We are completing NB 6. We are also beginning our Scientific Method lesson. Today we will be completing Part 1 on NB 7.

 Wednesday – We are finishing Scientific Method on NB 8. We will watch a study jam and listen to a cute song. At the end of class, we will be gluing a copy of our Big Money words into our notebook.

Thursday – We are learning about communicating in Science groups. We will compete a graphic organizer on page 9, and we will glue in an accountable talk page. We will practice using these strategies in our Notebook.

Friday – Today we are completing Science Stations. I will post pics.

Next week we will have an open notebook test on our Introduction to Science Unit. We will have a catch-up day to complete any unfinished notebook pages before our first notebook check. I will post their rubric toward the end of the week.

I am using materials purchased from The Science Penguins teachers pay teachers store. It is located here.

Paper Chain Competition — 5/15/15

Lessons have been taught, grades have been given .. We are in the final countdown of the 2014 – 2015 school year. It’s the perfect time for fun activities!!

I saw this activity on Pinterest the other day, and I’m so glad we had time to squeeze it in before the end of the year. Students worked with partners/science groups to make a paper chain. Each group received the following supplies — one piece of construction paper (12 x 18), glue, and scissors.   The objective was to make the longest paper chain in the class. Each class had 25 minutes, and then we went to the sidewalk to measure and find the winner from each class.

Homeroom:

*The two boys in the back of the picture built the longest one in this room. Stay tuned — a picture of them and their chain appears at the end.

2nd Period:

The winner of 2nd :

4th period:

The winning group from 4th:

5th Period:

5th period Winners —

2nd place —

6th Period —

6th winners

8th Period —

** At the end of the day, I assembled the winners circle. All the winners came back to see who had the longest paper chain. It had started raining so we had to line them up at the end of our hallway.

Look at all the hard work shown in this picture! I love how these 4th graders are so excited for challenges and learning tasks!!! The winners were from my Homeroom — I could not believe how much longer their chain was from the others!! We measured it — 24 and a half feet!! All from one sheet of construction paper!! 🙂 They donated it to my classroom. I am planning on doing this activity at the beginning of next year — we are going to tie it into a measurement unit. They want to see if they can beat the upcoming kiddos. We shall see!! Stay tuned!!

Hope everyone enjoyed participating or reading about our fun day!!!

Love,

Mrs. Goggans

Trying something new — Plants Science Stations

Every year toward the end of the school year, I begin to start thinking about things I can do to improve my classroom for the next school year. My class website, my blog, science notebooks, etc. have all came out of this process.  Throughout this school year I’ve tried to do group work and labs, but group work is an area I’ve struggled with in my classroom. I’ve had a hard time letting go of the reins and giving the students some ‘control’ over their learning. We have so much to cover — and I was scared I would not be able to cover all of our standards. After finishing our standards for 4th grade and reviewing for our Aspire test, I decided it would be a great time to test out Science Stations in my classroom. I’m a big follower of The Science Penguin, a fellow classroom teacher who blogs and makes resources for classrooms all over the world. I purchased her big stations pack this year, and decided that we would begin using them in Science. Her teachers pay teachers store is located here. I set up stations — for plants I decided we would have six. I purchased these buckets from Dollar Tree earlier in the year.      I arranged our desks into six groups. Each group comes in and sits together during class.    At the beginning of every class we have a quick mini-lesson. After they finish their stations, they have a notebook page to create relating to their lesson.  We have 6 stations relating to plants. These stations came from the Science Penguins Science Stations Unit. Station 1 – Read It. In this station, students have 3 passages to read. They are reading about needs of plants, reproduction of plants, and importance of plants. They are recording important details about plants on their graphic organizer. Pictured below are students working in this station.        Station 2 – Tech It. In this station students are watching two scholastic study jams and taking quizzes. Afterwards they are describing what they learned and illustrating the concepts.        Station 3 – Explain It. In this station students have a table about an experiment involving tomato plants and varying degrees of sunlight. Students are writing three observations and concluding the results of the experiment.    Station 4 – Analyze It. Students are analyzing a picture of a houseplant.    Station 5 – Sort It. Students sort different cards into three categories – characteristics of animals, plants, or if they are both characteristics.    Station 6 – Explore It. In this station, students are looking at plants in food coloring and observing how water is transported.     I’ve been inspired by the eagerness and the quality of work that my 4th graders have put into our stations. Can’t wait to implement this next year with all of our standards. It’s been a great year!! I’m so grateful for the opportunity to teach the 4th graders at HES Science. 🙂 Love,  Mrs. Goggans

Oreo Moon Phase Lab — 3/13/15

Who knew Space Science was so yummy?! Solar System Candy lab last week then our Oreo Lab today!!

Thanks to all my parent volunteers for supplying our Oreo cookies!! The kids were very appreciative.

We used our cookies to model the moon phases. 🙂

Here are pictures of all of our excited 4th graders as they worked on their lab.

We are going to try to wrap up our Space Unit by Friday of next week. We still have 2 Life Science standards to cover, and I’m wanting to review before we take our Aspire test on April 27.

Three Little Pig STEM activity — 2/6/15

We’ve worked so hard in Science this year!! We’ve finished our Earth Science objectives yesterday so I declared Friday as a fun day!!

It’s been awhile since we’ve had a fun challenge so I thought this would be a fun one for the day!

Each group of students were assigned the task of designing a house for the 3 little pigs out of toothpicks. After their houses were designed, I played the part of the big bad wolf with my hairdryer to see if they would stand up to the wind blow!

This was a fun activity to see the kids work together!! Here are some pics I snapped throughout the day!! I found this activity and the sheet here.

Halloween Science Activities — 10/31/14

We incorporated a pumpkin into our Science class on Halloween. First, we learned about the life cycle of the pumpkin. We completed a sheet from teachers pay teachers that is located here. Then, we watched a short video clip of a pumpkin farm. The video was fantastic — I’m also including the link here.

Afterward, I had students estimate the number of pumpkin seeds that came out of the pumpkin. Surprisingly, our actual number was 505! Several students said 500 — they were VERY close!!

Next up .. We erupted our pumpkin!! The kids loved it, and I’m including the instructions here.

What’s Happening in Science — 10/27 to 10/31

It’s hard to believe that we are wrapping up our Physical Science with this weekly newsletter. We will come back to it during our big spring review. We are starting Week 9 this week, and we will have our quiz next Thursday (Nov. 6th.) We have lots planned and happening during the next 2 weeks!!

Monday –

We have 7 vocabulary words this week. Four of these words should look familiar to the kiddos — we’ve had them before during Week 8 and Week 5.

Today we are reading page 1 of our newsletter and illustrating NB 36. This will be our first page of our next Notebook Check.

Tuesday –

Today we are reading Force, Matter, and Motion. We are also having a Friction Lab today. We are using this neat lab page I found on teachers pay teachers. You can find the link here.

Wednesday – We will read about Gravity and Simple Machines. We will also complete our Simple Machine page on NB 38. I found this on teachers pay teachers. The link is available here. This will be our daily work grade for the week.

Thursday –

Today we will have a shorter class time due to a fun Reading activity this morning. We will begin learning about Issac Newton and start working on NB 39. I found this on teachers pay teachers. The link is here.

Friday —

Today we are having Halloween Lab Stations. I will post more information later in the week. 🙂