Class Science Experiment Sink or Float

Every year my class participates in the annual Metz Science Fair. Even though our school is very good about setting up classes for our parents to learn how to support their child during an at home science experiment, I rarely have a parent choose to work with their own child on an experiment at home. So each year, as a class, we brainstorm ideas that seem interesting to us to explore.

Celebrate Earth Day With Plants and Seeds

With Earth Day quickly approaching, I would like for you to take a minute to look at the Environmental Health Unit, I wrote as well as some of the ideas about plants and seeds I am posting here. There are also a ton of ideas that Scholastic put together for you in Caring For The Environment You will find many ideas that you can use in your own classroom to help celebrate the day we celebrate our Earth!

Bulletin Boards: Spring Has Sprung!

One of the best things about teaching at Metz is the fact that all of my colleagues take such time and care to keep our hallways looking beautiful with student work. These displays allow everyone to have a glimpse on what is being taught in each room and are also excellent learning tools. I took some time last week to photograph many of these gorgeous displays to share with you. It is one thing to read an idea for a bulletin board in a magazine, but quite another to see a teacher's and her students handiwork! Enjoy!

Fry's Farm Visits Metz

Annually, the 1st grade at Metz hosts a visit from Fry's Farm to coincide with our science unit on animal groups. Each class gets uninterrupted time with several different furry, sweet mammals and fluffy comical ducks, chickens and geese. The kids absolutely adore this special event and it adds to real life understanding of animal groups we are learning about in our science unit. I will be sharing some of the work my students are working on in the unit later on, but I wanted to share some photos from this exciting visit and some of the connections we made.

Technology in the Classroom III

Here is Part III of quick tech ideas that I have completed with my 1st graders over the past several years. Many of the PDF examples I am sharing with you were done in Kid Pix. We now have Pixie in our computer lab, so a few of the ideas will have come from that program. In many ways the two programs are very similar, so you should have no trouble adapting the ideas! Hopefully you will find something here that you can use with your own students or maybe these lessons will inspire an idea of your own!

Technology in the Classroom II

Here is Part II of III of quick tech ideas that I have completed with my 1st graders over the past several years. Many of the PDF examples I am sharing with you were done in Kid Pix. We now have Pixie in our computer lab, so a few of the ideas will have come from that program. In many ways the two programs are very similar, so you should have no trouble adapting the ideas! Hopefully you will find something here that you can use with your own students or maybe these lessons will inspire an idea of your own!

 

St. Patrick's Day Activities

In keeping with my blogs of holidays past, I would like to offer you some quick, fun and simple ideas to use with your students to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. These activities cover a wide spectrum of academic lessons such as rhyming, estimation, writing, blends, surveys, graphs, higher order thinking, cooperative learning, science experiments, word play, and class books to ensure varied learning opportunities for your students.

 

Grant Writing For Your Classroom II

Last week in my blog Grant Writing I, I listed some of my favorite grants, many of which I had success with. Of course I can’t possibly share all grants that are available, so I wanted to follow up with links to websites that have many different types of grants, scholarships and contests listed.

Thanksgiving Activities

The holidays always inspire me to create fun and exciting learning activities and Thanksgiving is no exception. I love taking a real life event from my student’s lives to extend learning through language arts, math, science and creative expression activities. It makes for a more fulfilling holiday experience for me as well as for my students.

Do Your Homework! (and read up on the latest ideas)

Even though we are a couple of months into the school year, I wanted to give you some link to some informative articles and ideas about using homework in the classroom. It is never to late to add some new twists in your own homework assignments for your students. These recent articles might just give you some ideas to make the ordinary, extraordinary!