August is here, and that can only mean one thing: The new school year is right around the corner!
Teacher Vision offers some tips for starting off the school year, such as organizing portfolios for students and designing bulletin boards. There is also a list of science tips, including:
- Have a Science Table in the classroom, and keep changing the theme: rocks; seashells; insects; birds; magnets; inventions; and so on.
- Put a prism on a countertop on a sunny day to catch the children’s attention and to launch a unit on color, sunlight, or refraction.
This is an especially nice suggestion:
- Memorization is not the key at this level. Exploration and discovery are important. Explain that real scientists work in this way, too.
Check out the list and add your suggestions here. How are you preparing your classroom? What is the first science you want to teach your students when the year begins?
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4 Comments
Every year I meet with the classroom teachers to see how we can improve the integration of the science activities (which often take place in a “Science Room”) with the everyday classroom schedule. One downside of being a part-time science specialist is that the rest of the staff may see Science as something separate from the usual schedule focusing on literacy and math. An arrangement that has worked well for me is planning with the classroom teachers to have rotating materials in the classroom, in a particular place, for the children to use during “free choice” or “work” time—materials that support continued exploration of a topic the children have, or will, explore in a more teacher-directed way in the Science Room. Meeting once a month never seems to be enough time to plan as thoroughly as I’d like to.
With the coming school year, a great way to get kids back into the swing of learning is through educational games that are fun and stimulating. k5stars offers games for elementary aged students for math, reading, spelling and so much more. These games are a great way to get ready for the school year. You can learn more about them by visiting http://www.k5stars.com. Yours, Abigail
I have been attending workshops, one week on solar energy, one on alternative energy…that really turned into a push to continue coal powered and nuke, but whatever, I have been with grands, and now with 5 or 6 weeks left, I have so much lesson planning to do, I have 7 subjects, only 5 at a time tho, the other two rotate in the spring with one of the original ones, however it is overwhelming for a now to be 3rd year, 3rd career teacher, I feel so disorganized, and wonder…just what happened to this concept of summer vacation..I almost work as hard, learning, searching for ideas, planning, cleaning, and prepping in the summer as I do in the year…will this get better??? the first year..I was making it up as I went,,,but had no time to put it all away organized, so last year I spent so much time trying to find things…and refining, redoing what didnt need redone, and totally losing it!! I want to do this well, I was great in my past careers, and knew them well, it is so hard to be over 50, want to do 100% and feeling so overwhelmed..ok enough of a rant…..but any suggestions appreciated..btw the courses I have are…physics, chemistry, earth, anatomy/physiology, materials/current science (each fall), zoology (semester, rotates every other year, spring) forensics (semester, rotates every other year, spring)
Trudi C–
It sounds like you’re feeling really overwhelmed, which is not surprising, given your varied teaching assignments. If you have specific questions or areas of concern, please consider sending them to NSTA’s MsMentor (msmentor@nsta.org) or posting them on an appropriate NSTA listserve (http://www.nsta.org/membership/listserver.aspx?lid=mem). You’ll find that you have a lot of colleagues who are willing to share their experiences and support!