Strategies to Teach and Reinforce Vocabulary

Teaching science is a lot like teaching a new language. Good pedagogy and engaging, relevant hands on activities can help students understand concepts, but the vocabulary often remains elusive. Here are five strategies to teach and reinforce science vocabulary:

  1. Preteach. Give students an opportunity before you teach the content to explore the vocabulary with flash cards, vocabulary games, and just rote memorization.
  2. Word walls. Typically thought of as an elementary school trick, word walls can work in middle school also. Post the new words – either as you introduce them or all at once. Refer to the word wall often – seeing the word in writing is reinforcement.
  3. Word maps. For each vocabulary word, have students write the textbook definition of the word and the definition in his or her own words. Then, have the students write a sentence that demonstrates their understanding of the word and draw a picture representing the word. I’ve created a few word map interactive Google Slides activities if you want to see some examples.
  1. I have, who has. This fantastic game is great for a 5 minute whole class review. It takes a little bit of time to set up, but you can laminate the cards and use them forever. Each card says “I have” and then a vocabulary word. Underneath that, each card says “Who has” and a definition. Or, vice versa. I usually keep one card to myself and hand out the others – great if you have a few extras to give 2 or 3 to fidgeters to keep them engaged. I start by reading my “Who has,” and then the student with the “I have” that matches it shouts out “I have” and then the word. Then, that student reads his or her “Who has” and so on. Download my free template here.
  1. Gamify it. Charades, Taboo, and Hangman are obvious choices, but Connect 4 (place a piece in the game board when you get a question right), Chutes and Ladders (move ahead 1 place if you get the question right) and Checkers (get a question right before you can take a turn) are all great options.
  2. Magic Picture Reveal Vocabulary Digital Worksheets. When students get the answers correct, pixels of a magic picture are revealed. When all of the questions are correct, the whole image is visible. Read more about magic pictures here.

Today’s Buzzword: SEL

As a parent, and as a teacher, my priorities have always been: 1. Be safe. 2. Be happy. 3. Learn something.

I have to trust my district and my superintendent that we’re safe at school. I ensure my students wear masks, wash hands like Lady MacBeth, and socially distance. I’m well trained and know how to ensure that they learn some science. But the focus this year is being happy, something we now call social-emotional learning.

And well it should be. Last spring, we built an ark while the flood was already upon us. I don’t know about you, but I barely kept my head above water. I cried every day with worry for my students. I phoned, emailed, chatted on Zoom, and followed through. I don’t think I’ll ever know if it was enough.

With hybrid, asynchronous, synchronous, distance, or face to face learning – whatever permutation your district dreamt up – we have to focus on SEL. I have a few plans for my own students – things I thought of back in the spring but didn’t have time or resources to implement as well as programs and activities I’ve heard about since then.

  • For starters, I’m holding off on teaching science for at least a few days. I’m going to put all of my energy into forming relationships with my students. Of course, we do that every year as professional educators. But this year, the drive is more focused. The science will wait. If they don’t learn mitosis this year, that’s OK.
  • Getting to Know you activities are filling my first week’s lesson plans. Find a partner and get to know them, then introduce them to the class kinds of activities. Things we can do remotely or socially distanced. Decorate this beaker with the stuff that matters to you. Do this hashtag activity to let me know where you see yourself in20 years. Partner up and solve the puzzles in this digital escape room. Use a Pear Deck to drag an icon in a game of This or That. Help them get to know each other with a Kahoot about their favorite things. Anything I can think of to get them talking to each other and to me.

Priorities. Just keep telling myself that.

What are you doing to help your students this year?

Photo by Hannah Rodrigo on Unsplash

Shaking the Sunday Night Blues

You know the feeling. Sunday night. School tomorrow. And you really enjoyed sleeping in and doing weekend things and you’re sad because it’s over. The last Sunday night before school starts is the Sunday-Night-Bluest of all of the Sundays. Here are some tips to shake the SNBs, and some things to avoid.

What not to do

  • Don’t overdrink. Sure, you’ll forget the SNBs, but you’ll also regret it in the morning.
  • Don’t sit in front of the TV playing games on your phone. That’s never a good idea, but it will leave you wishing you had spent your time on something more fun.
  • Don’t overwork. Do some work to make your week easier, but don’t cram an extra 9 hours of work into your weekend. Your mind, body, and soul need time to relax and recharge.

What to do

  • Pack lunch and pick out tomorrow’s outfit. Make preparations so the morning will be as easy as possible.
  • Pick something fantastic to wear tomorrow. My favorite advice from my mother – “When you don’t want to go to work, buy something new to wear.” It takes the edge off. I promise.
  • Do something nice for yourself. Mani-pedi is my go-to. Spend the day with friends. See a movie. Read a book. Hit the mall for some retail therapy. Go for a run, hike, or bike ride. Give yourself warm fuzzy memories for tomorrow.
  • Go to bed early. Mondays are hard enough. Don’t add tired to your list of complaints.

We got this, Teachers! Tomorrow is going to be a great day, and the beginning of a great new year!

 

Photo by Zach Kadolph on Unsplash

Type A Personalities and Planning a New School Year

Perhaps I’m generalizing, but I think most teachers are planners.

By mid August, I usually have my bulletin boards done. Last week, I went to 8 stores (wearing a mask) to find just the right lesson plan book and then dated all the pages and put tabs for each week. That gave me a sense of control that I’ve missed during COVID.

Any other summer, I would have had my seating charts done, first few weeks of lesson plans written and copies made. I would have bought new school clothes and gotten my hair cut.

At school, I’m a planner. I am at my most comfortable when I know what I’m going to be doing, and when I have planned what to do for every eventuality. I like being able to relax once everything is in place.

But nothing is in place this year. There’s so much ambiguity about the new school year – when’s the first day? Is it hybrid, remote, or in person? How many students are opting to be fully remote? Will there be an outbreak in my state in the next week, causing schools to go fully remote again? Will classes by 60 minutes long for a full day of school or 40 minutes long because students can’t eat in school and have to have half days? How long before we have our first case of COVID?

NEA Today, before the pandemic, said that a “majority of teachers are feeling a high level of stress” as well as low ability to cope. I don’t know about you, but I find teaching under the best circumstances stressful. I love love love my job, but it is stressful. And teaching remotely was ten times worse, Now, they’re asking me to do them both at the same time. (What is it they said about Ginger Rogers – she did the same thing as Fred Astaire, only backwards and in heels.)

Social media and the news are overloaded with the debate to open schools. Yesterday, I saw a group of parents protesting a town not far from me whose school board had decided to open remotely. Parents were screaming to make the teachers get to work and demanding their taxes be refunded.

I wish I were one of those people who can roll with it. I know teachers who haven’t checked their emails all summer. I’m trying, I really am. I know I should let it go. But I’m going to start school with mid-year stress levels.

woman in black leather jacket wearing white framed eyeglasses covering her face

Woman in mask Photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash

Women on bed Photo by Kinga Cichewicz on Unsplash

Informational Texts to Build Scientific Literacy

One thing on my back to school list is sub plans. My admin usually ask for 3-4 days of sub plans by the second week of school and I’m always in a moral quandary. Do I throw together something meaningless but time filling? Or do I invest the time to make meaningful, content rich, standards based activities that require no prep and can be squeezed into the curriculum whenever I need a day off? Using informational text, I can build scientific literacy even in my sub plans.

You know me so well.

I have no time to “just give kids a study” or “tell them to read the next chapter.” There are only 180 days of school and my kids need every single one of them to cover the content and the standards.

I’ve found that a great sub plan is an enrichment activity that incorporates informational text into scientific literacy. Not only does it address NGSS skills, it also addresses Common Core skills. I give students a scientific passage to read like scientists and engage with the text. Have them analyze and evaluate data and form opinions. Ideally, let them defend their opinions using data to support their answers. Additionally, preparing these plans in advance can give you handy enrichment activities for early finishers.

Here are some ideas to get you started:

To create a relevant sub plan or mini-unit, select appropriate reading passages, preferably from both sides of the spectrum on opinion pieces, and add in some background information and data. It’s far better to curate the reading passages yourself rather than opening up the option to “Google it.” As useful as a tool as Google is, there’s a lot of misinformation out there also. (To wit, I once had a student do a report on amethyst and told me that it could cure headaches.) Then, generate some relevant analysis questions.

The trick to great sub plans is to make them relevant but not necessarily curricular so that they can fit anywhere in the year when you may need them. Building scientific literacy and using informational text to analyze information is always a skill that’s high on my priority list.

I’ve assembled 8 sub plans in a bundle and am offering it for 30% off right now. I’d love your feedback!

Pinterest Classrooms

I love Back to School time! I love buying new lesson plan books and hanging new bulletin boards. I love setting up my desk with the pics of my kids and my pencil holder.

But this year is different.

My school is currently expected to start with a hybrid September – some students in person and some working synchronously from home with another cohort (as yet unrevealed percentage of students) who are completely remote. I still can’t get my head around how to plan for this and my 32nd year in the classroom is just as wrought with anxiety, even more so, than my first year.

The whole process of planning, creating, and hanging a new bulletin board is normally something I love doing. I love choosing a new theme every year, saving ideas from Pinterest, and WOWing myself and my students with some dramatic bulletin board. Last year’s theme was a tropical rainforest. The year before was superheroes. The year before that was underwater. This year, I was thinking aliens.

As I watch the news about schools opening around the country and then quarantining the next day due to kids or staff testing positive doesn’t make me feel optimistic about remaining in my classroom for a long time. Who’s going to spend 10+ hours creating a spectacular bulletin board that students may never see? How much time and money am I willing to invest knowing that schools are shutting down as quickly as they’re opening up? Not to mention the fact that a large part of my classroom has been turned in to social distancing barriers, sanitizer stations, and plexiglass dividers.

Maybe this is the year I don’t bother with the Pinterest classroom. And maybe, it will be just fine.

Home Office Comfort

Looks like there will be some more time in my “home office” (read: kitchen counter) this September. If you’re like me, you spend a lot of time in the spring trying to make a comfortable place for you to work. My husband and I worked out a relatively comfortable coexistance during quarantine and I’ll need to set up a home office for those days when I’m teaching remotely in the fall again.

But I’m not going to make the same mistakes twice. Now that I have time to plan, here are some things I’ve learned from the pros about making working from home more comfortable:

Choose a chair where my feet hit the floor (no more cross legged on the couch or perched on the kitchen stool).

Sit in a place where my wrists bend when I type or use the mouse. I can prop up my laptop with books if I need to. Additionally, the screen of my laptop needs to be at eye level.

Lumbar support is critical. Rolled up towel would be fine if I can’t find a pillow I love.

When I’m in the classroom, I walk around constantly, but in my home office, I’m basically glued to my chair. Short frequent stretch breaks are going to be built in to my day from now on. In the spring, I would often look up from my laptop and realize the entire day had flown by without a break. No more, mister. I’m all about 5 minute breaks every 20 minutes. Additionally, I’m going to continue alternating sitting at the table with standing at the counter.

Since I’m working on a laptop, I’m buying an external mouse for comfort reasons. If remote learning goes on for much longer, I’m also considering an external keyboard.

File:Computer Workstation Variables cleanup.png

What are you doing to keep your home office comfortable and safe?

Image:  Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication

Top 3 Science Teacher TED Talks

In 15 minutes or less, a TED talk can inspire, inform, and invigorate you. Here are my top 3 for science teachers:

Hey science teachers – make it fun

We’ve all assigned something we thought was fascinating and students don’t react in the way we thought they would. Tyler DeWitt makes a compelling argument that scientific vocabulary makes interesting topics inaccessible for the average student, and aren’t we all more interested in having students understand rather than memorize?

Teach teachers how to create magic

Teacher training programs aren’t engaging. How can we expect them to create engaging teachers? Yet we have educators who can engage and teach their audience. Where did they come from? They learned the skills of motivational story telling from places other than teacher preparation programs. They learned the magic of great teaching by engaging in the community with powerful and motivational speakers.

This virtual lab will revolutionize science class

Just like pilots are trained in simulated airplanes, students should be exposed to simulated experiments to be engaged in science. Experiments that are dangerous or expensive can be accessible to students using virtual environments, turning science into an experience more like a video game.

The best part about TED talks is that they can inspire you to think outside the box. The worst thing about TED talks is that thinking outside the box isn’t something we’re often allowed to do. Go on. Take a step out. You’ll be glad you did 🙂

Using Task Cards in Science

Task cards are versatile opportunities to practice skills in short increments of time. Here are my favorite 10 ways to use task cards in my middle school science classroom:

  1. Bellringer/Do now – If I project a task card or set of task cards on the screen, studentscells task cards complete them as a bellringer. Alternately, I can hand students one or two (or seven or eight) task cards to get them started at the beginning of the period. In a virtual, hybrid, or remote environment, this provides an opportunity to review and formatively assess where students are in their learning.
  2. Stations. Centers or station activities are common in primary and elementary classrooms but I used to steer away from them in middle grades. I think part of the reason I was hesitant to use stations was I was afraid of “down time” when students weren’t on task – switching stations or chitchatting – and there is a lot of content to cover in middle school that I don’t like to give up that time. Now I’m of a different mind – “down time” is rarely that. Studentsd=rt task cards transitioning and chitchatting are building skills that are an integral part of the middle school experience and I think better teachers provide for that opportunity. I’ve also revisited my stance on content – if I lectured nonstop for 10 months, I could “cover” all of the content I want students to be exposed to, but my real goal is more than exposure. I want students to engage with content, understand content, manipulate content, and make it their own. Stations can support that far better than any lecture I’ve ever given.weather task cards
  3. Games. Once you have the task cards created, use them in a review game. Students can move the football one floor square closer to their goal every time they get finish a task card correctly, for example, or they get a game piece to add to the grid in Connect 4. Task cards can be used instead of dice – if a student gets the card correct, they move ahead one place on a board game, but they lose a turn if they get the card wrong.
  4. Exit Tickets. Task cards make excellent tickets out the door. Students must hand you amoon task cards completed task card before they leave. In a virtual or hybrid environment, this can be a Google Form or an interactive Google Slide.
  5. Scoot. Lay the task cards around the room or hang them on the walls. Students travel from one card to another, recording their answers to each task card on a recording sheet. Sometimes I let students move to the next card at their own pace. Other times, I play music and they move when the music stops. I also might set a timer to let them know when to move.
  6. Early finishers and Enrichment. I have keychains of task cards of various ability levels ready to hand students when they finish. I canrelative dating task cards make an immediate decision on the level I want the student to work on, or students can move up to a harder level if they finish 4 task cards correctly.
  7. Whole class practice. If you project the task card, it can serve as guidance for I do, We do, You do practice.simple machines task cards
  8. Quiz, Quiz, Trade. Give each student a task card and have them solve it. Then, pair students up. Partners read the cards to each other and help each other solve them. After they both get the other card correctly, have them exchange cards and find a new partner.
  9. Spiraling curriculum. Bring out the task cards from September when you have five spare minutes in December for a quick review and reinforcement.
  10. Subs. When you’re absent, leave a few sets of task cards out for students to use either independently or in pairs if they finish the assignment early. Your subs will thank you!

I’d love to hear your favorite ways to use task cards in your middle school science classroom!

counting atoms

balancing equations task cards

 

 

 

 

 

Photo by Startup Stock Photos from Pexels

Game Template Freebie

I’ve just posted a new freebie in my TpT store and I know you’re going to want to download it ASAP to get ready for all the ways you can use it this year!

I have, who has. This fantastic game is great for a 5 minute whole class review. It takes a little bit of time to set up, but you can laminate the cards and use them forever. Each card says “I have” and then a vocabulary word. Underneath that, each card says “Who has” and a definition. Or, vice versa. I usually keep one card to myself and hand out the others – great if you have a few extras to give 2 or 3 to fidgeters to keep them engaged. I start by reading my “Who has,” and then the student with the “I have” that matches it shouts out “I have” and then the word. Then, that student reads his or her “Who has” and so on. Download my free template here.

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