Science Ideas and Math Workshop Checklist

First, I would like to announce the winner of my Technology Tips giveaway:  Kristin.  

Congratulations!  You are a much deserved winner.  Kristin has been a great inspiration to me for technology, so I am glad Rafflecopter randomly selected her as the winner.

I have spent like the entire night trying to plan out my Science activities.  My brain is beyond tired.  My students will be studying "Life on Earth" this week. I made a little organizer to go with a video we are watching.  In case it might be helpful to you, you can get it here. It is a doc file, so you can change it.

We are also going to read a short article on the layers of the earth and students will label a diagram of the layers. (The diagram is from Science Penguin's Elementary graphic organizers).  We are going to read Magic School Bus: Inside the Earth during our "Listen to Reading" read aloud. 

For their writing journal entry, students will write about what it be like to journey inside the earth or even discuss what they learned about the Earth. I also grabbed several nonfiction books on Earth from the library to have available for students to read during independent reading.  If I get a chance, I will put together a review of some of the books and how I would use them to share.

I also researched ideas for Science activities.  We are going to start out Thematic discussion of the Olympics this week.  I found this great free Science Olympics activity on TpT.  We are going to do one Olympic Scientist activity each time we have science.  I wanted to discuss the different branches of Science and this seemed a fun way to introduce it.  I am essentially linking up the activities with our Science lessons as best as I can. We will also be working on my Scientific Method menu I made last week. 

Next week, we are going to discuss landforms and complete Science Penguins Weekly 5 activities on Landforms as follow ups to this week's lesson.

I have been trying to figure out how to make my Math Workshop work since I have multiple levels of Math.  I want to try the "MATH" acronym management strategy I have seen on many blogs.  It originated, I believe, with Clutter-Free Classroom. Instead of a rotation board, or maybe just in addition, I want to try a weekly checklist to help hold my students accountable.  They will have a list of "must do" activities for the week for each rotation (Math Facts, At Seat, Teacher Time, Hands On).  In addition, they will have a list of "may do's." I like the checklist because since I am trying to incorporate more technology, it gives me an easy way to provide my students the websites they can use and when. 

Each day, students will fill out what they did in each rotation and end by summing up what they learned and what they still need help with. We will be doing Math on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, so I have set up my checklist this way.  You can download it here.  It is a doc file, so you can change it to be what you need.  I am going to create a similar checklist for my version of Reading&Writing Workshop/Daily 5. I ran out of steam tonight.

Tomorrow, I want to review some products for you I am excited to share and recommend some great sites I have found that are helping me get organized.