Monarch

I found my butterfly at Leon Springs Elementary.  I was fortunate that one of the other first grade teachers loves science and happened to have a Monarch in her classroom.

Simple Machines

Blinds are an example of a pulley.  

Cork Screw is an example of a screw.

Silverware is an example of a wedge.

Inclined plane is a fan blade.

Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle!

While I do not do a lot in the whole going green department, I do a few things.

I use energy efficient light bulbs to help reduce the amount of energy used.

I reuse shopping bags all the time whether it be carrying papers, as a trash bag, or my least favorite picking up after my dog.

This water jug is refilled and helps us reduce the amount of water bottles used in our home because instead we can get  filtered water from here and put it in a cup.

After clothes are taken to the cleaners instead of tossing out the hanger I try to reuse them.

Science in the Classroom

Last week the first graders were exploring magnifiers.  

They organized from left to right transparent items, magnifiers, and curved items in a vin-diagram.

One of the student's vin-diagrams.

One of the student's Science Journal entries.

Books in the library science section of the classroom.

Spider books for their upcoming spider week in October.

Living Organisms at Home and in the Neighborhood

All around your home and in the neighborhood science is going on.  When we first talked about this blog in class I wasn't sure what I was going to take pictures of since I live in an apartment and am far from having a green thumb. To my surprise though, there was more than I thought.

 Here are my findings:

My almost 5 year old Yorkie, Maddox is a very living organism that can be found in my home.

Bouquet of flowers on the dining room table.

If you look really close you will see a frog. Besides the frog there is grass/weeds growing.

Trees, bushes, and grass. There are also ants, but you can't see them.

A wasp nest.

No matter where you live or where you are there are going to be living organisms. You just have to look.

Project Wild

  Project Wild wasn't exactly what I expected it to be, but I think that mostly has to do with the rain requiring some activities to be canceled.  While the weather wasn't ideal the activities we were able to do did give me ideas of lessons that could be taught in the classroom.  During BINGO I not only learned things about people, but also about science and nature.  The group activities all had to be cut short since the rain picked up, but the summaries that the groups gave were able to show how they would work in a classroom and also were entertaining.  My favorite part of Project Wild besides getting to interact and meet new people was getting two really great resource books full of lesson plans and ideas that will be wonderful to have in a classroom.  Overall Project Wild was an interesting experience and I look forward to participating in other Project Wild workshops in the future hopefully with better weather so we can get the full experience.