Carnation Experiment

We've been having a blast learning about plants in my Kindergarten / 1st Grade Student Teaching placement. This week, we learned the parts of a plant (root, stem, flower, leave) and what their role is to help the plant survive. We talked about how the stem carries the water and nutrients from the roots up to the rest of the plant. To see this in action, I put together the classic carnation experiment. We put white carnations in colored water. I just put about five drops of food coloring in the water, then mixed it around. I also put one of the carnations in water with no food coloring to show that this flower will not have a color change. For best results, ask for the flowers to be fresh!!

Here is a picture of our flowers the morning we put them in water!

 

 Students took predictions to what they thought would happen, and recorded them on this data sheet. The experiment can also be done with celery! Some students thought that the stem and flower would change, others thought just the flower would change, and one student thought that nothing would change! They were very excited to wait and see what would happen. By the end of the day, there was a little color on the tips of the flowers, but not much. Within 24 hours the flowers will start to show a lot of color on the tips and inside of the flower!

We let the flowers sit all weekend, and this is what we came back to!

Pretty colors!!!!

We discussed what this meant about the stem and it's duty as a part of the plant. Students were very excited and truly learned from this experiment. Every time I asked them what the stem does after that, everyone immediately answered that it carries the water through the whole plant to the flower! I had students write about the experiment during writing time as they drew and described what happen. Below is my example of what I wrote!

Overall, very fun activity!! We are going to keep up flowers in the water all week and see how bright we can get them!! The best colors that showed up for us were BLUE and YELLOW (surprisingly)!

Had an awesome time with this, and hope to do it again something!

Miss Underwood

The Hungry Little Caterpillar

This was just an awesome creative lesson that I wanted to share!! Our speech therapist brought it in for the students, and it was big hit!!!

The caterpillar from the story was made out of a sock died green. The sock was stuck through paper plates that had the different foods that the caterpillar ate through his journey.

Here is a link to the best template I found for the project!

http://plantspress.blogspot.com/2012/04/very-hungry-caterpillar-retelling.html

Here are pictures of our work!!

Such a fun time, and great for retelling the story!!


Miss Underwood

Butterfly Life Cycle

The class I am student teaching in is preparing for a field trip to the IMAX and Putnam museum. We will be watching an IMAX film on butterflies!! The students are very excited about our trip, and we have been doing some education on butterflies, specifically their features and life cycles, throughout the week.

Today, we created a butterfly life cycle wheel. The resources I found were from my mentor teacher, and I could not locate the original source. Yet, I did find a website that offered a similar template (http://www.superteacherworksheets.com/pz-butterfly-life-cycle.html).

Students colored the pictures of the four main life cycles. (1. Egg, 2. Caterpillar, 3. Cocoon, 4. Butterfly) We then pinned the wheel onto a paddle, also included in the template of the website. Then, we practiced spinning the wheel and talking about the life cycle of a butterfly.

This was a fun project, and the students did a great job coloring!! Great to use for other cycles such as the water cycle, plant life cycle and much more!!

Happy to share! :)

Miss Underwood

Magic E - A Lesson in Long Vowel Sounds

Long A Vowel Sound

This was my first week to start teaching some of my own lessons in the classroom. This particular lesson was geared toward spelling, writing and reading words with the Long A vowel sound. Since the beginning of the school year in August, students have been working with short vowel sounds only, so this was their first experience with the long vowel sounds. They were familiar that the letter "a" had two sounds, but just never used the long a sound in reading or writing lessons. The lesson specifically focused on the CVCe pattern, introducing the Magic E.

I found an awesome lesson idea from (http://blog.maketaketeach.com/diy-magic-e-wands/) This site provides a free template with short a words such as "cap" or "tap" with a star at the end of the words. Students each were made a wand with the letter "e" in the star, for the Magic E. Students placed their star from the wands at the end of the short a words, and then read the new word with the long a vowel. I really liked this concept because it still had students practice reading words with the short a sound, and introduced them to the long a sound and how to recognize the words with that Magic E on the end. I used a lot of cueing "Magic E makes "A" say it's name! A-A-A-!!!" and students were successful in correcting their mistakes and reading the words with long and short vowel sounds!

I showed an example first and then had students take turns to read the words with both the short and long vowel sounds. The awesome thing about this website is that the template provides words for all vowels, and not just one! I plan to introduce the rest of the long vowel sounds using this strategy as well. The students loved it, and it was effective in teaching the concept!! I look forward to using it again in the future!

Miss Underwood

Learning Update

It's been a while since I've posted on here, and I have many updates to come! I'm currently student teaching in a self-contained Special Education classroom for Kindergarten and 1st grade students. This has been a huge switch from my previous 7th grade setting. The main struggle for me has been adjusting to using simple vocabulary and shorter sentences for the students to understand. I am really enjoying my experience so far and thankful to be with another amazing mentor teacher.

Today, I was surprised with my early graduation present, an iPad! (Yes, I'm currently blogging using my iPad...) I'm overwhelmed with educational apps and possibilities I now have at my fingertips. I'm currently teaching Long vowels in words with the CVCe pattern in my reading group, and opposites in my language group. Below are some FREE apps that I found useful for teaching these subjects!!

Once I use them with the students, I'll come back on and write a review and how the lessons went!

Autism iHelp Opposites - Teaches opposites and has matching game. (1 set free, 3 other sets available for purchase)

Buddy the Bear (Has 4 free games, the rest are available for purchase)

Dog Story Opposites - Tells a story of opposites using dog pictures! Interactive, and comes with a game

Vowel Stories Long Sounds - Gives stories for Long vowel sounds, practice long vowel words, and games.

Phonics: Blends, Digraphs, Long Vowels - Variety of practice for these concepts, specifically a "Magic E" section!


Off to do more app researching!

Miss Underwood

Color Craze 5k

Hello bloggers!!

I attended the Color Craze 5k event this weekend at Western Illinois University! Every Kilometer, there was a color station set up with volunteers scooping out colored paint and throwing it at the runners or walkers. At the end, there was a Zumba session where the volunteers were throwing the colored powder out over the crowd from all angles! It was amazing!!

The money raised for the race supported Special Olympics. I entered the race with some previous co-workers and participants from the McDonough County Special Recreation Association. Just a reminder of how great it feels to volunteer and give back the cause that means so much to you!!

Below are some photos from the event, I encourage you all to be a part of something so amazing! It was also appropriate for all ages!

Surface Area Tin Man Project!

WOW!! I successfully completed my very first project assignment. Students were working with finding the area of rectangles, triangles, parallelograms and circles. The next content area was surface area. I did online research to find hands on activities to teach this content since I know it can be very difficult for students. What I found was the Tin Man Project (Miss Calcul8's blog - http://misscalculate.blogspot.com/2012/04/surface-area-tin-man-project.html)  and wanted to try it out!! 

I used resources from the following website for reflection questions and a calculation worksheet to help students follow along from day to day (http://ispeakmath.wordpress.com/2012/06/24/creating-tin-men-to-explore-surface-area-project/)

I gave student the choice to make a tin man, animal, car, whatever they wanted! (As long as it was school appropriate) Below are the steps that we went through from day to day. They also could choose to work with a partner.

DAY 1: I introduced the project and gave students their directions and grading scale to the project. I gave instruction on how to find the surface area of rectangular prisms and had students pick out the prism (body) for their figures and begin to record measurements and find the surface area of the object they chose. 

DAY 2: Students worked on finding the surface area of their prism and gathered all other supplies they planned to use. Students began taping and assembling their figures together. 

DAY 3: I gave instruction on how to find the surface area of cylinders. Then, students worked to measure the cylinder objects they used for arms and legs (or wheels). After this day, students had their figures put together.      

DAY 4: Students watched a video I created on calculating the surface area of spheres. Then, we worked through the steps together as a class to find the surface area of the spheres. I had students find the circumference of the circle using a string, and then working that formula backwards to find the radius that could be applied to the surface area formula!! Once students calculated the surface area of their spheres, they found a TOTAL surface area for their figure. 

DAY 5: Students were instructed to come to class with their total surface area measurements. Today we planned to wrap up our figures! But first, the students had to find how much foil to measure. We did this by looking at the formula Area = Base X Height. We already knew the height of the foil, 30 cm, and each student had a total area they needed. We found that we had to divide our total area by 30 cm to find the length we should measure as our base of the foil. Then, students began to wrap up their figures!! If they were over or under the amount of foil, we looked at their calculation sheet to find where they messed up and then calculate how much more foil would be needed. I told students to limit the amount of tape used and work with the foil to get it to stick without tape as much as possible (a good life skill!!!)

DAY 6: We spent day 6 decorating our figures and adding extra pieces that we wanted to before they would be judged by the staff! When students were done decorating, they answered 12 reflection questions (Geared from Miss Calcul8's blog - https://www.box.com/s/e5192ab0eb35bb17708a)  Students answered questions that asked about their measurements, why they did the math they did and overall what they learned and liked about the project!!! Below are the completed projects that the students created!! 

   Overall, this was a fun project!! Students who participated enjoyed the project and were learning about surface area at the same time!! I just took one 3D shape at a time, and had students measure as we went according to what shape was being taught. You could also teach all surface area formulas and then have students measure and build their figures starting with the shapes that they wanted to and work at their own pace! Enjoy!!