Parent Teacher Conferences- What to Wear???

Tonight and tomorrow are Parent-Teacher conferences at our school.  This morning while I was agonizing over what to wear, it got me thinking about appropriate attire for Parent-Teacher conferences.  I know that every school does conferences differently, but a lot are in the evenings and it makes for an extremely long day for teachers.  However, we all want to look our absolute best for conferences, in order to make a good impression on parents.  I like to look professional, while also looking modern and age appropriate.  That said, it is HARD to find a very professional and polished but modern, yet comfortable, outfit that will withstand a 14 hour day.  I have tried different things in the past, such as bringing an outfit to change into or going home to change.  However, both make more work, and laundry, for me.  Now that I am a working mommy, I try to make things as simple as possible.
 A few things that I have learned along the way are:
1) wearing flats, but stashing a pair of heels in my bag to change into for conferences
2) staying at school instead of trying to race home- I can get a lot of work done this way, but I do stash some essentials in my bag to freshen up before conferences start (i.e.- face wash, deodorant, perfume, toothbrush, etc)
3) dressing in layers (in case the school is cold, or in case of a dreaded stain!)
4)  picking out my conference outfit and ironing it ahead of time so I am not throwing together an outfit at the last minute.  Confession:  I didn't do this for today, and I was very stressed this morning!

I found some great outfit ideas for Parent-Teacher conferences that I thought I would share-

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 I am curious what others do for Parent-Teacher conferences in order to look professional, while also being comfortable?  I would love some suggestions!!!!!

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STUDY ISLAND UPDATE

We now in full swing with Study Island.  It's hard to believe that it is that time of year again, but considering the winter we have been having in OH, I am glad!!!  I talked about Study Island in this post, a few weeks ago and wanted to give an update now that we are moving along with it.

We finished our hallway display this week.  My very talented co-worker and friend, Kari, came up with a great Treasure Hunt theme!  It is great to have an island feel in our hallway, to get us through the next few weeks of this LOOOONG winter!

Our 6th grade hallway is now transformed into a Treasure Map.

Each student has a boat that travels down the hall for each Reading blue ribbon that they earn, beginning at the palm tree in the first picture (you can see that some of them are already moving their boats along) and ending at the Treasure Chest in the last picture (this didn't turn out so well in the picture, but it is the black box on the right side of the picture).  Additionally, students can earn stickers to decorate their boats for each blue ribbon earned in Math, and they will earn gold coins for the treasure chest for each Science blue ribbon.

Along the way, students make stops at different ocean themed spots, such as:

Students are excited about this, and are asking daily to move their boats, add coins to the treasure chest, and/ or add stickers to decorate their boats.  I will share another update as students begin to move along.
We are also kicking around the idea of doing a Study Island Party/ Assembly after our state testing.  We have given a pizza party as a reward in the past, but we are trying to do something different this year, and would really like to go all out!  I would love some ideas!!!!

Virtual Seismologist

Today, my students are becoming Virtual Seismologists (by the power vested in me, and the internet : ) ).  I found The Virtual Seismologist Activity a few years ago, and have been doing it in class with my students ever since.  This virtual lab gives students the opportunity to find the epicenter and magnitude of a fictitious earthquake.  Students even get to choose the region for the earthquake!  Previously, I tried having students calculate the epicenter and magnitude of an earthquake, the old fashioned way, using printed seismograms, maps, nomograms and compasses.  Although, I like the idea of students doing everything by hand, the lab was VERY time consuming.  Finding the virtual seismologist site allowed me to cut the time of this lesson by half. 

In the past, I have used the Virtual Seismologist Activity a few different ways.  I have used it as a "Center", or independent activity that students have a week to complete on their own.  Typically for centers, I give students a few choices.  I decided that this activity was important for all students to complete, so I began using it in class.  There are four locations to choose from when executing a virtual earthquake.  As a class, we go through the first location together, using the Smart Board so that students can get an understanding for reading the seismograms, line graphs, and nomograms.  I always choose San Francisco, and then give students the choice of the other three earthquakes on the list.

First, we discuss what two important things seismologists are trying to find out when an earthquake strikes, epicenter and magnitude.  We then discuss how scientists must read seismograms from three different seismograph stations in order to determine the epicenter and magnitude of an earthquake.

I walk students through determining the S-P interval for each seismogram and allow them to come to the board for practice.

Next (this makes the math teachers happy!), we discuss reading a line graph and students come to the board to determine the distance of each station from the epicenter.

Students are excited when they see the circles intersecting, and they know that our work was correct!

Students typically struggle with understanding the Nomogram, so we go through it step by step as well.
They typically get confused when having to switch from reading the x-axis on the first set of seismograms, to reading the y axis.  This is a good spot for troubleshooting.

We take several minutes to talk about Nomograms, and The Richter Scale.  Again, students are excited when they see that our lines intersect, making it easy to see the magnitude in the center of the Nomogram.

Once I finish going through our example earthquake with the class, I turn students loose to work independently on "earning" their virtual seismologist certificates.  Most of the students are proud of these, and we display them in the hall and the classroom.

This activity is a great way to incorporate the real-world into the classroom, and doing it on-line saves a TON of time in class, opposed to using compasses and doing it the old fashioned way.  I have done it both ways, and I do not think that students are losing any knowledge or skills by doing it this way.

Stress and Faulting Lab

Last week, we started our Earthquakes unit in 6th grade science.  We always start this unit talking about stress and faulting, and relate this to what we have already learned about the types of boundaries in our Plate Tectonics Unit.  For the past few days, students have been working on a Stress and Faulting Lab.  I have been doing this lab with students for the past few years, and it has been very successful (minus many students "playing" with the clay).  It gives students a great visual of each type of stress on Earth's Crust, and the types of faults and plate boundaries associated with each stress.

Students worked in small groups (2-3 students) to complete THIS LAB SHEET.  Additionally, each group needs clay (play doh will also work)  and 2-3 wooden blocks (shown below).

 The picture below show student drawings which represent compression and tension on the crust.  The drawings are based off of their clay models which is why the Before Picture is shown as a "ball".

 This picture shows students using clay as a model to represent Shearing.

At the end of the lab, students are challenged to model how mountains and valleys form using the wooden blocks.  They use three blocks for this, as shown below.

Typically, this lab takes 2, 42 minute periods to complete.  However, Old Man Winter caused this to take three days due to school delays and late buses.  Despite this, I feel that students learned from the lab and are now able to visualize stress, faulting and boundaries while also making connections between the three.

STANDARDS AND GOALS

A few years ago, our district told us to be sure that we were posting daily goals and standards around our classrooms.  I decided that I wanted to create a large display of our standards that I could add to throughout the year.  I titled it "6th Graders Can".  This gives students the opportunity to view all of the standards that they have learned throughout the year.  This also gives them a visual way to check themselves through the year, because they should be able to understand and explain everything that is on the wall.  I used colored sentence strips to display each of my standards because I have a bright colors theme going in my science lab.  As I mentioned before, I don't have much bulletin board space, and not a ton of wall space due to storage, lab counters and computers.  I ended up using wall space between two of my lab stations on a side wall.  It is not ideal, but the students do pay attention to it as they are moving about the room and it looks neat as it begins to fill up around this time in the year. 

 To display our daily goals, I decided to also use our standards.  I display each standard on my front board (I rarely use my whiteboard for instruction because I use my SmartBoard most of the time, so I reserve it for our daily goals, vocabulary, homework and reminders) as we are working on it, and then move it to our "6th Graders Can" display after we have mastered it.  Right now, we are learning about Earthquakes and Volcanoes.  This is what our goal is currently:

Displaying our goal standard on the front board has actually been very helpful to the students and me.  It is a reminder for me to make sure that I mention it to the students so that they know what they are mastering.  I think that it helps them be in control of their learning a little more.  Additionally, our district implemented "walk-throughs' which are like mini 5 minute evaluations on a frequent basis.  Having the goal displayed gives the students something to reference as they discuss what they are learning with our administrators.

STUDY ISLAND

Study Island is a great Assessment Review Program that aligns with state and national standards.  It has rigorous content, a plus for teachers; and allows students to complete tests and assignments in testing mode or game mode, which students love.   Additionally, it is extremely user friendly for both students and teachers.  Students love the independence of working at their own pace from anywhere.  However, teachers are able to check students' progress at any time.  If your district doesn't use this program, it is definitely worth check it out!

I have been using Study Island in my science class for the past few years.  I typically start at the beginning of the second semester (although I am a bit behind this year because of all the crazy weather), and wrap it up a week or so before the Ohio Achievement Assessments at the end of April.  I have been using this as an independent activity for students (though I give them computer lab time each week) so that they can complete assignments somewhat at their own pace.  I do have guidelines for them and assignments due each week, to help the "slackers" stay on track.  HERE is the sheet that I use to help students track assignments throughout the duration of Study Island.  I require them to get one Blue Ribbon per week for 10 points.  This goes on for 10 weeks, so the students end up with a 100 point test grade from Study Island.  They also have the opportunity to earn up to 15 bonus points by earning 3 additional Blue Ribbons. 

As a sixth grade team, we have also been making a fun competition for the students over the past few years.  This typically means a Pizza Party for the class earning the most Blue Ribbons, with the highest percentages on tests, or with the most hours working (we have done it a few different ways).  We also give individual awards to students for the same things.  Additionally, we create a huge hallway display for students to track the progress.  Typically this has an "island" theme to it, but we like to do something different every year.  We are in the process of brainstorming ideas for this year.

I am curious how others use Study Island in their classrooms.  I would like to find new ways to implement it into my class this year.

Vocabulary Word Wall

I am somewhat limited on bulletin board space in my classroom.  Don't get me wrong, I have an amazing science lab with a ton of space, and I would not change it.  However, I do only have two small bulletin boards.  I get frustrated with this at times because I have seen so many great ideas for bulletin boards that I either try to do on the wall with tape (huge disaster), or that I simply can't do.  I do have two small square bulletin boards.  I use one for my word wall, and one I try to change seasonally or with different units.
Here is a look at my word wall:

Things that I like about it:  The SWEET scientist that my awesome and talented Mom made for me and the science border.  It is low maintenance because I have all of my vocabulary words laminated and staple all of them up at the beginning of the year.

Things that I HATE about it:  It is not interactive AT ALL.  In fact, sometimes I wonder if the students could even tell you what's back there (Did I mention that both of my bulletin boards are in the back of the room?)  The words are very small (so that I could fit them all on the board), so they cannot be read unless you are in the back of the room.  I can't put any kind of heading on the board because there is no room.

In the past, I did not put the words on the word wall until after the students learned them.  I would post them on the front board first and then add them to the wall after they were learned.  This got to be time consuming and the words were too small to see on the front board from their seats, so I ended up having two copies and it became a huge hassle.  I still put the words that we are studying on the front board, but I miss the interaction with the word wall.

I came across this vocabulary idea on The Science Penguin web-site (She has some great ideas!)

 I really want to try this right away with students.  Has anyone else tried this?  How did it work?  Any other ideas would also be appreciated!!!!!

Under Ohio WORDLES

WORDLE is a site that generates word clouds based on text that you enter.  Each cloud displays the most frequent or important words more prominently.  They almost look like works of art!  I learned about WORDLE a few years ago at a Technology Conference that I attended, and always had it in the back of my mind to use with my students, but hadn't done it.  Before Christmas, I was looking for something different to try with the students that would be interesting and exciting for them, but also keep up with our rigorous content in Science.  I decided to try WORDLE creation with my students using  this book, Under Ohio:  The Story of Ohio's Rocks and Fossils.  This book is great for those of us teaching Science in Ohio.  My students read the story in small groups and created a list of all of the important words from the story.  Next, students ranked the most important words, that they believed should stand out in their WORDLE creations.  I was really impressed with how some of them turned out, especially in the limited time that we ended up having (SNOW DAYS galore!).  I am excited to try another WORDLE activity again in the near future.  I am thinking of trying it with Vocabulary next time around.
Here are a few pictures of how the Under Ohio Wordles turned out:

Inside Earth

 I plan on posting a lot about this topic, because I really want to try to get some new ideas and strategies.

I struggle teaching my inside earth/ plate tectonics unit.  I don't know if anyone else feels the same, but I believe that it is one of the hardest units that I teach as it requires abstract thinking, and there are not many lab investigations that accompany it.  This year, I tried a new activity where students worked cooperatively to create a scale model of Earth's layers.  I was nervous at first, because I knew that it was going to be challenging for students and require them to "think outside the box".  However, I was also excited to challenge them and hoped that they would rise to the occasion.

I purchased this book last year.  It is a bit pricey, but I have done a few of the activities with my students so far and loved them.  AIMS has many other math and science books for all ages.  I have been saving my money to try to buy a few more of the books for next year.

For this activity, I started by placing students in teams of four.  Each team was given four geologist clue cards with all of the required information to create one "slice" of the inside of the earth.  They used the clues to determine lengths of each layer using a scale of 1 cm= 1,000 km and all of the information that they used to create labels for each layer.  Additionally, they used math to figure the size angle they needed to create their piece of the circle and then created them using a protractor and a compass made from paper clips.  Each layer was then made using the same paper clip compass.  However, each layer required a different number of paper clips to create the scale size for each layer.

Here are some of the pictures of how they turned out:

I was very happy with the results and felt that all of my students worked hard in the end, despite A LOT of complaining the first day (It took 3 days because of weather delays).