Science Survey

As I prepare for my first year as a middle school science teacher, I felt that it was important to survey my students and get their general feelings on science and assess their science knowledge.

I have always done back to school surveys for students as a way of getting to know them, so I felt like this was a great way of getting to know my students in a more scientific sense.

For a fun twist, you can also use the second version of the survey and do it gallery style! Get students up and moving to answer the questions. This is something that I have always done with my third graders at the beginning of every school year and it is such a fun way to get to know your students.

Grab this free survey by clicking my blog button below!

Student Information At a Glance {Freebie}

As you may already know, I am making the move to middle school this year, and I will have 5 classes to keep up with! I was trying to think of an easy way to have access to their information and so I came up with these information cards that I can color code by class. Self contained classes can certainly use this as well, you just wouldn't print the class tabs.

I recommend laminating the front card and the tabs for durability. Punch a hole in the corner and place on a ring and hang it next to your desk or in a spot that is easily accessible for you.

You can save your self tons of time if you have parents fill them out during Meet the Teacher or you can send them home on the first day of school with students to have parents fill them out. I personally don't want to fill out 80+  informational student cards. HAHA

Grab you FREE copy HERE!

Teaching Claim, Evidence, and Reasoning {Freebie Included}

Hey there friends! I am absolutely terrible about keeping up with this little ole blog, but I wanted to come and share with you all that I will be making the move to middle school this year to teach 8th grade science! (I know, I am a crazy person.) I have taught third grade for so many years that I just needed a change. I am VERY excited about the change and I have tons of ideas rolling around in my head.

After diving into the standards, I knew that students would need to learn to make claims and support them with evidence. This seemed to be a large theme throughout the standards so I scoured Pinterest like any good teacher and found the Claim, Evidence, Reasoning method for teaching argument writing in science.

I developed a set of resources that I think any science teacher would find helpful in teaching students to use this method with their middle level students. I love this also because the method of writing can be used in any content area! 

The unit includes:

• A powerpoint to teach your students about the Claim, Evidence, Reasoning method
• Claim, Evidence, Reasoning posters
• Claim, Evidence, Reasoning doodle notes (filled in, guided, and blank versions)
• Claim, Evidence, Reasoning guided notes mini posters for science notebooks
• Anchor chart pieces
• Claim, Evidence, Reasoning reference wheel
• Claim, Evidence, Reasoning foldable
• 2 different graphic organizers
• Claim, Evidence, Reasoning sorting activity
• Claim, Evidence, Reasoning Song lesson 
• Claim, Evidence, Reasoning Candy lesson
• 2 Claim, Evidence, Reasoning passages with writing prompt to practice the writing method

Below is a preview of all of the resources that are included in the file! I hope you find them useful! I am excited to start my year off teaching students this important skill!

As a way to thank you for sticking around, please download a copy of the doodle notes for free! Just click the image below to grab your free copy!

Classroom Management Series: Part 6 {Organizing Your Classroom}

Sooooo, this is late...again. I apologize. This has been a crazy first week back to school! I was so exhausted Thursday night after meet the teacher and then last night I fell asleep at 8:00!

Today, I wanted to take the opportunity to share with you some of my favorite classroom organization tips to help you in your classroom. These are all things that have saved my sanity or hopefully will this school year.

I saw this idea last year from Teaching with TLA and I immediately knew that this was going to solve my pencil problem. YOU KNOW what I'm talking about. Somehow, all of the pencils seem to magically disappear. I was going through pencils like crazy!! I have never found a better solution to this problem until I found this!

Each student is assigned a number at the beginning of the year. Every student uses their number for their Chromebooks, their cubbies, their headphones, etc. Anyway, I gave each student two pencils, a whiteboard marker, and eraser and labeled each with their personal numbers. They were tasked with keeping their pencil for the whole month without losing it. They must have their two pencils sharpened first thing in the morning as part of their morning routine. If one breaks, they have another one. I do also sharpen some extras and keep them at the back of the room, JUST IN CASE. But this worked amazing! No pencils were lost and students treated them like treasures! No erasers were bitten off. The points were handled with care. Seriously. I cannot tell you how happy this little chart made my heart...Definitely doing it again this year. If you have a pencil problem...You NEED to do this. These charts are available for purchase on Amazon HERE. 

I read a blog post many years ago by First Grader, At Last and it changed my life. I hated the whole move your clip around the chart and every kid has a different job. Honestly, I always forgot to change all the kids jobs and I just couldn't keep up with all that mess. This is literally the EASIEST thing ever! At the beginning of the year, I put all the girls and all the boys names on two separate flippable rings. The same boy and girl stay the helpers for one week. I let them do ALL the jobs! They take the attendance, they wipe the tables, they take turns leading the line and holding the door, anything you can think of! Here is an example because I never take a picture of mine. Save yourself the trouble...DO THIS. You will not regret it.

A couple of years ago, I found these AWESOME metal caddies at Really Good Stuff. They are a little pricey, but I used my back to school supply money to purchase them. They are durable and there is so much space for STUFF! I love the fact that it has the space for whiteboards or workbooks underneath. If only they came in NEON colors! 

I am implementing the book return bin this year after many years of frustration that students simply CANNOT put books back in the correct place even though EVERY bin and book has a matching label. SIGH. I am hoping this will solve all of my problems. My plan is to assign one afternoon car rider the task of returning the books for the next day.

{Photo Credit: The Creative Apple} I of course forgot to take a picture of my book return Friday...lol

For the last five years or so, I have graded papers and filed them into a bin like this. 

I use hanging file folders with students names for the inside. I purchased pretty neon ones this year. Once I grade an assignment, I put them in the kids folders. On Friday, I staple all of the students' work and pass it back for them to take home. Sometimes it ends up being every other Friday. Wooops.

I don't even think I really even need to explain this because it's like such a thing now. But, if you don't have one, you need one. I store every thing in this bad boy.

Mine looks almost just like this, except that it's black. My drawers are also all the same size. But, you get the picture. 

I have been doing this now for a really long time and it is one of the best things I have done as an educator. This year, we have a camping theme, so we have a CAMP binder. It is basically a parent communication binder. All important information goes home in the binder. We send our schedule, newsletter, class list, important papers, homework, and much more home in this binder. Students keep it all year long. It's amazing. I have parents say every year how much they love it! 

You can actually purchase my Themed Binder sets on TPT. There are many different ones included in each set. Just click on each image below! 

This will change your life. I swear. 

Drop me and comment with your favorite organization trick.

Part 1 {Talking}

Part 2 {Blurting}

Part 3 {Tattling}

Part 4 {Following/Listening to Directions}

Part 5 {Teaching Transitions With Ease}

Classroom Management Series: Part 5 {Teaching Transitions with Ease}

We're almost done with our 6 part Classroom Management series! I hope you are all learning some useful tips and tricks to use this year.

This week, I am back to share a few things to teach your students how to be transition quickly and easily. Transitions are very important in any classroom. If they are not taught consistently at the start of the school year and reinforced daily throughout the year, valuable learning time will be lost each day.

Last year, I purchased a wireless doorbell on Amazon. I used it as an attention getter, but the doorbell that I purchased had songs on it. It could be used as a way to transition your students from one thing to the next. There were 50 different ringtones and songs. There are holiday songs and regular children's songs. I think this would be a really fun way to have students move from one thing to the next.

In my school, we use Class Dojo. It has a built in timer that is perfect for everything! I use it all the time for helping students transition from one thing to the next. 

If you don't have Class Dojo, there are tons of other timers floating around the internet.

I saw this idea last year on Amy Groesbeck's Instagram and I personally thought it was genius. If your students are struggling with transitions, I think this is a great way to help students visualize where they need progress. You highlight the goal on the bottom of the chart and the objective is to stay below that goal. You may even throw in a little reward for them if they meet their goal a set number of times. 

Students LOVE a good challenge! This one kind of goes hand in hand with tracking their transitions. This is simple. Challenge your students to transition under a certain amount of time. If they continue to meet the challenges, let them earn a little treat. I would even continue to lower the transition time to increase the challenge.

Fourth and Ten has this amazing powerpoint of transition songs for different things! How cute is this!? Any time they need to cut something out, she clicks and plays the little song for that. There is a song for lining up, cleaning up, moving to your seats, and more. I LOVE this! You can click HERE to head to her blog and read more about it. Tell me you love this as much as I do! Totally making one for myself this year...

Okay, this is just an oldie, but a goodie. Just count back slowly from a number that you determine. Kids need to be where you need them to be and that's that. 

For all of these ideas to work, you need to have set clear expectations with your students for how it will work and also what will happen if they do not follow the expectations. That is up to you. These are just ideas for you to think about as you plan your year. 

I hope you were able to learn a little something new today! I'll be back next week with the last part of the series on ideas for Class Organization. 

Part 1 {Talking}

Part 2 {Blurting}

Part 3 {Tattling}

Part 4 {Following/Listening to Directions}

Part 6 {Classroom Organization}