Starting Interactive Science Notebooks

I am taking on a new strategy this year  --  Interactive Science Notebooks.  I must admit to being nervous and anxious about it.  I researched several on line links about these notebooks and probably way over thought the process.  But now that I am into the 7th week of the school year, I can truly see the benefits.  The students are reacting positively to them.  I already see things I will change for next year, but it is all part of the learning process for me too.  I think I am going to keep them.

So far we have done scientific method and we are now working on Earth, moon, sun and their relationship to each other. 

Models of Earth's Interior

Each year when I teach about the layers of the Earth's interior, I give the students a project.  They can create a model or a poster showing the layers of the Earth.  Two years ago and this year I taught brothers.  The older of the two wowed me with his three dimensional project and then his brother made one that I also loved.

This was the first brother's model

This is another side of the hanging model

This was the younger brother's model

Anchor Activities

About a year ago I was trying to figure out some differentiation ideas.  I had read somewhere about anchor activities.  I started researching this and found a myriad of ideas and explanations so I took a little from here and little from there and added some of my own ideas and set up several anchor activity folders for my students to access.  I used file folders and laminated them to hold the direction sheets for the different anchor activities.  I used self adhesive Velcro and put them in a permanent location in my classroom.  When the students have completed their other work, or if I need to work with a few students on something, they work on anchor activities.  They work great but I have to teach the activity first and I have to reteach my expectations of what the finished product should look like about once a quarter.  The students tend to forget and just need to be reminded.

These are held to the wall with Velcro

Trying something new

I am trying something new that I found the idea for on the internet.  It involves Foldables and Lapbooks.  My first attempt was not too bad and I will do it again.  Each time I try something new I find my first attempt always needs some modifications, but that is how I learn.  There are somethings I would change, but I am pleased overall.  The unit was on light and the eye.   The pictures are from two students work.  The students enjoyed creating the foldables and making the lapbook.  They had something to take home to keep.  I hope to make this idea a part of each unit of my curriculum.