Meet and Greet!

Last week, we had the opportunity to meet the teacher and students that we will be working with this semester!  It was great to get a chance to talk to the teacher and observe some of her classroom procedures and teaching philosophies in action.  We also took a lot of notes regarding the student population, classroom setup, and the feel of the learning environment.  The third-graders seemed both curious and excited about the idea of us coming to teach them science!  We found out that this class does not receive much science instruction, so I think our lessons will be valuable to everyone!  We teach our first lesson next week, and I am very excited to get started!  Stay tuned!

You can never be too prepared!

We are in the preparation stages of teaching our first science lesson on changes (solids, liquids, and gases) in a 3rd grade classroom and the more I prepare, the more excited I'm getting!  Although I learned about the changes of matter years ago, I definitely need to make sure I know the ins and outs completely before I venture into the classroom.  Luckily, we are working in pairs, and there are several paris teaching the same unit, so I think my biggest resource will be my classmates!  I have already looked at many of their posts and checked out the awesome information they found.  I also did some searching and found these good websites:

- Hartcourtschool Interactive Demo : This is a brief, interactive example of the changes in matter and how the temperature and movement of particles differs in each state.

-Vision Learning :This upper-level site goes beyond the explanations meant for children, but is still easy to follow and has visual representations you can click on for each state.  

-FOSS Web Change It : This is a fun interactive demonstration of phase changes.  FOSS is another company that does the science kits.  Click on "change it" in the upper left hand corner.

- Chem Purdue Matter :This is a general overview of the states of matter.

I also went back to our trusted friends Moby and Tim at Brainpop, whom I've gotten to know all too well in preparation for the MTELs!  I will be personally thanking them if (and when) I pass =0)!  They have a video on the changes of matter that explains the processes very clearly.

I read the pages in the book Sciencesaurus that deal with matter and changes of matter.  This is also an easy to understand explanation.

Part of our lesson deals with real-life examples of changes.  So I found these websites that have examples of physical and chemical changes and the difference between the two:

-Physical vs Chemical Changes : This is a good description of the difference between physical and chemical changes.

- Examples Physical Changes

- Examples Chemical Changes 

Also, amongst my searching, I noticed that some sites considered there to be actually 4 stages of matter.  Although we are only teaching the 3 (solids, liquids, and gasses), I think it is good to at least know that plasma could be a 4th stage (stars and neon lights are plasma).  That way, if one student mentions plasma, I will have some background knowledge instead of thinking he or she is talking about a tv! =0)

- Plasma - this 3 minute video gives a great overview.  Scroll down to "Watch Videos" and it is the last video on the list.

-Vision Learning - also gives a good description

I also plan on talking through the lesson a few times with my partner, Kathy, so that we are on the same page and confident right from the start!

Although we can't prepare for absolutely everything, with all these resources we will be pretty close! I can't wait!

Useful Science Resources!

I was surprised to see just how many science resources are out there!  The list is endless!  While I think it's great that we have all this info at our fingertips, it takes some time to search through all the websites to find the valuable ones!  Here are a few I found:

- Dragonfly TV (http://pbskids.org/dragonflytv/index.html):

  This site, mainly geared towards students, has episodes of Dragonfly TV that you can view online.  There are episodes on a variety of science topics that are fun, interesting, and use kids as the main characters.  There are also videos called "Real Scientists" where professionals in scientific fields explain and show what they do.  There are some really unique ones, like mud scientists and glue-ologists.  This would definitely broaden students' ideas about scientists.  There are also a ton of experiments, games, message boards for students, info about science centers and science fairs in the area, downloadable podcasts, and even a science section especially for girls called SciGirls.  They also have a parent/teacher section with guides for the episodes and additional activity ideas.

- Science Kids- Bringing Science & Technology Together (http://www.sciencekids.co.nz/):

  This site has A LOT of information for students and teachers on a variety of science topics.  It has science experiments with descriptions and instructions, lesson and activities for classrooms, ideas for science projects, interesting science pictures, science videos, facts, quizzes, and games.  

-The National Science Digital Library (http://nsdl.org):

  This site has information for science educators including current science in the news, science articles, science lessons, interactive activities, videos, blogs, publication info, links to other science resources and museums, and professional development opportunities.

My Science Story

My science story starts very young when I used to go to the school where my dad taught agriculture, plant science, and animal science.  My brothers, sister, and I used to play in the greenhouse and barn, not even realizing that we were surrounded by science.  We would help out with planting flowers and feeding the goats while my dad and his high-school students offered tidbits about how plants grow and proper care for animals.  I still surprise myself when I pull out the name of a random flower or tree, and definitely attribute my natural interest in science to the experiences at my dad's school.


I also used to play a lot outside with my brothers and sister.  Our favorite things to do were explore in the woods, climb trees, climb rocks, dig for things, and create things from what we found.  We also had a lot of animals growing up which made me a definite animal lover.  I used to love to catch bugs and look at them before letting them go - I still do that if I find a bug in the house =0). 


Throughout school, I always liked science.  I had some great teachers who really made science fun and fascinating!  I loved to do any kind of hands-on experiment and was always interested in why things are the way they are.  I also loved learning about animals, nature, the human body, the solar system, clouds, stars, and weather.  I am still interested in all of those things.  I had an amazing second grade teacher and in that class we hatched chicks in an incubator, witnessed a caterpillar transforming into a butterfly, saw a solar eclipse, made our own silly putty, took care of class pets, and maintained a garden outside of our school.  I aspire to create such lasting, influential memories in my future classroom.


Also, I am really into photography and one of the types of pictures I love to take are nature landscapes.  The beauty of nature fascinates me and I thoroughly enjoy attempting to capture it in a picture.  I have a lot of nature pictures from my travels and a some sets of the same landscape during different seasons.  The picture at the top of this post is one of many I took in Greece.


I am very excited to learn more about teaching science and transferring the fascination and appreciation I have for science to my students.  There are so many possibilities in the science classroom because we have infinite examples in the world around us.