Teaching Through Notebooks

I will be finishing up my first Science unit of study on Ecosystems and my first Math unit of Study on Place Value in the next few days.  This has been an interesting year with notebooks so far.  The students are having to adjust to this "new" kind of teaching, but they seem to be enjoying themselves tremendously.  I know I'm enjoying watching their little hands cut and glue, learn to fold paper in ways never thought of, and ever so carefully "attempt" to only use a "DOT of glue" rather than a glob.

Over the last 3 years of notebooking, I've learned A LOT of things that work and A LOT of things that are disasters.  So far this year, no disasters.  However, teaching 9 and 10 year olds how to make a book with a table of contents and unit divisions has proven to be a huge challenge!  Some results are not so splendid...some pages have devastating results - out of order, glued together, skipped, and just plain messy, or even missing parts, but nothing that can't be lived with and improved upon as the days go by.

I want to share my notebooks, both Math and Science, page by page in hopes to inspire other teachers to take on this challenge.  Notebooking is a true hands-on teaching approach that engages ALL students throughout the entire lesson.  We use many other resources to obtain our information for each page.  And yes, I do spend hours developing these pages to expose them to all the vocabulary words and content in our standards.

One of my biggest questions concerning notebooks has always been, "to grade or not to grade?"  Well, this year my decision has been "TO GRADE"!  The majority of students have taken to the notebooks and are now able to organize a lot of new learning.  Through a nine week grading period, I will grade the notebooks 4-6 times depending on the number of pages completed during a unit.  These grades are nothing more than simple checks of whether or not the students are taking responsibility for their own learning and engaging themselves in our studies during our limited class periods.  I developed a rubric to send home to the parents so they can also see their student's progress.

My favorite part of the notebooks is that they are personal.  The students are putting their "blood, sweat, and tears" into their notebooks.  They are writers, designers, creators, and most of all learners!  I hope this type of teaching gets many of them excited about becoming life long learners and lets them know they can be successful no matter how difficult the subject matter.

Below are a few of the items we use almost everyday in my classroom...

Why liquid glue?  Because the stick glue will dry up on the paper and the foldables, pictures, diagrams, envelopes, etc. will fall out everywhere.  And, it isn't fun to figure out which of the 44 students lost their "food chain foldable".

Why colored pencils?  Because crayons can't be sharpened efficiently, markers leak through the pages, and the best part...they can be erased, maybe not perfectly, but the page can be recovered if a big booboo was made.

Why composition books?  Because the pages are sewn into the binding.  I've used spirals for the last two years and they have been nothing but a headache.  After so much page turning, they begin to fall out and the metal wires tend to catch on other spirals causing a jumbled disaster of notebooks.

Happy Notebooking!!!

Backyard Science...Take 2

We've investigated some more this weekend and found some more interesting species and happenings.  I may have to start a "Best of Backyard Science" board and begin taking votes!  Check out our recent discoveries.

Discovery #1

After spying on this rather large bee for a few minutes, I discovered it was actually "combing" through each and every purple petal of the Passion Flower.  It made several trips around the center of the flower, all the while getting pollen stuck on its back and legs.  My guess is that this backyard friend was all of 2 inches long.  No fun getting buzzed buy this thing...I left in a hurry!

Discovery #2

Nope...it's not a bee!  Nope...it's not a butterfly!  Nope, it's not a hummingbird!  After some research, we discovered this flying machine is a BUMBLEBEE MOTH, aka "Snowberry Clearwing"!  Not your typical moth...this bumblebee disguise is perfect for tricking the most sly predators.  And...we thought the most interesting part was that it feeds during the day, which is completely opposite that of most moths.  It's even fuzzy like moths.  We have several of these that visit our butterfly bush daily.

Discovery #3

 I'm not sure if this backyard friend is as funny as its backside indicates...  I hadn't even noticed this big smile until I edited the picture.  The spider is actually very small...probably about a 1/4 inch.  As I was cropping the image to make the spider bigger, I noticed his big grin!  My oldest said, "God has a sense of humor - it's probably one of the most poisonous spiders in the world."  I was just happy that it seems happy in my backyard!

Discovery #4

Finally, I really don't understand why or how this happened.  After a fungus took out most of my other tomato plants...that I purchased...and have babied...and have watched ever so slowly to contract yellow spots, turn black, and just plain droop...this little guy appears out of a mini-air hole in the side of our composting bin.  I've just decided to leave it alone in hopes of having home grown tomatoes through the cooler months of autumn!

Backyard Science Update

The mockingbird eggs have hatched!  We are now the proud "step-family" of two rapidly growing mockingbird chicks.  The little tykes hatched sometime between Saturday afternoon and Sunday afternoon.  Now, we aren't really sure what happened to the third one because there was absolutely so evidence of bird eggs anywhere.  But, the two remaining chicks are being watching closely by some very curious children...and adults.  They are not the prettiest things ever, but are truly amazing to watch as nature reveals some secrets to us each day.  Below is a picture of the new arrivals!

 

When I first walked up to the tree, they were sleeping in a heap.  This is the response I got when my camera wiggled the tree just a bit.  They immediately thought mama mockingbird was there to feed them.  Look closely, they have very few feathers and their eyes are not open yet.  Precious...

Organizing Our 4th Grade Science Notebooks

So we are off to another school year.  We are all feeling a little glum since it is STILL SUMMERTIME!  However, we are enjoying every minute of both math and science because of our NOTEBOOKS.  My students were in awe that we do a notebook page MOST days rather than a worksheet.  Oh, they still get plenty of "practice" with vocabulary, structure, and responsibility...but, they also get to "OWN" their learning.  The notebooks allow individuality to show regularly.  Oh yeah - some are hesitant and cautious.  I hear the occasional, "Can I put my foldable at the bottom rather than the top?" or "Can I use my colored pencils instead of just a pencil?"...

My students are required to write the information we uncover as we develop an anchor chart, or read a particular text, or share knowledge, discuss a science based video, etc.  But, they can also personalize each and every notebook page with specific colors, labels, or relevant designs.

Read on to see how we got started on our Science Notebooks just last week!

Students brought "composition" books to school.  They chose one for Math and one for Science and wrote the appropriate labels on the outside cover of each.  We created a "Title Page", 2 "Table of Contents" pages, then began to DIG right in!

Personalized Title Page

Our first discussion concerned the ideas of what "Science is..."  Surprisingly, many of my newly promoted 4th graders filled our anchor chart with a plethora of ideas!  I then challenged them to think of something that "Science is not..."  They were amazed when everything they thought of some how and in some way could be related to science.  I had answers such as...war, rocks, air, love, pencils, etc.  Some of their ideas almost stumped me, but I was able to find something that related to science in every single example!  At this point, they were convinced that Science is an extremely important subject to learn about.  They came to the conclusion that "SCIENCE IS EVERYTHING!"  Below is my notebook page.  The students picked out the ideas they wanted or provided more of their own to fill this first page.

Our first unit of study is "Ecosystems of the World".  I have developed many different pages for this section and will provide several of those ideas in the next "Notebook Craze" blog post...so, stay tuned!

Backyard Science

Summer...my favorite time of year.  Everything is so lush and green.  The night is filled with pleasant sounds of frogs and crickets.  Everything is full of life...

Recently, we discovered some rather interesting natural phenomena in our backyard.  The kiddos were rather intrigued.  I was too, so I took some snapshots to share.

First, we discovered a Mockingbird's nest in a rather small tree.  Interestingly, however, this very small tree, about 5 feet tall, has some very large thorns.  My kids concluded that momma Mockingbird probably chose this tree on purpose because of all those nasty thorns as a means of protection!!!  Kind of neat being able to observe our state bird raising some little ones.

Next, we have a seven foot tall butterfly bush that I bought off the sickly, half priced rack at Lowe's a couple years ago.  That rather sickly looking bush, decided to flourish and is covered with all sorts of butterflies every afternoon.  They don't seem to mind our nosiness either.  Here are a couple of the larger swallowtails we've noticed.

Finally, I found this very special flower among a heap of weeds.  I'm not sure how it got there or where it came from.  As I spent a whole day weeding my flower bed next to the house, I ran across this Passion Flower.  I've always wanted one of these vines because it's design is so extraordinary and intricate.  This happens to be our state wildflower, too!  So fun uncovering some treasures in my backyard.

Has anyone else uncovered some natural treasures in their backyard lately?  My students will be going on a "Schoolyard Ecosystem Hunt" in the near future.  I'm hoping they uncover some more natural treasures hidden around our school grounds!

First Day Fun - "Paper Wad Toss"

So, we are off to a new school year...already.  Teaching 4th grade Math and Science, I struggle for some sort of "Introduction" activity that will engage the students and help me get to know them a bit.  As a student, I always hated the "stand up, tell about yourself, and sit down" routine - B...O...R...I...N...G!!  After all, who can think of something unique to share right then, in front of twenty+ classmates, AND who wants to stand up with 50 beady eyes staring at you, AND how long will the students listen to the same ole', same ole' information from everyone?

I've used the "Paper Wad Toss" for the last three years and ALL of my students have enjoyed it - the most shy all the way to the most outgoing.  Very little prep time, very few supplies needed...only about 30 minutes of your time.  Since I'm a math teacher at heart, I always include "math talk" in this lesson.  We discuss fractions, shapes, quadrants, and lines of symmetry.  I'm also able to make this lesson cross-curricular by discussing facts and opinions.  Below is the basics of the lesson.

Supplies for each student:

* pencil/writing utensil

*1 piece of notebook paper

How to:

1. Using the piece of notebook paper, have students fold it on the "long line of symmetry" (commonly called a "hotdog" fold).  Leaving that fold, the students then fold on the "short line of symmetry".  When the paper is unfolded, this gives them "fourths" or "four rectangles".

"long line of symmetry" fold

"short line of symmetry" fold

2. I then introduce the vocabulary word quadrants and explain to them that in 4th grade math we use the 1st quadrant where all numbers are positive.

3.  I will not allow the students to use certain words in their sentences...love, hate, like.  This eliminates the sentences such as "I love dogs.", "I hate broccoli.", and the "I like candy.".

4.  The students then begin writing.  On one-fourth of the paper, the students write their name.  On a different one-fourth of the paper, the students write an about interesting FACT about themselves they would like to share with the class.  So now that we've used two-fourths of the paper, I begin asking questions such as "What fraction of the paper is left?" or "What fraction of the paper have we used?".  I continue this until the students have three FACTS and all of the fourths are used.

5.  Next, I take up the papers, take a quick glance at them and cut off the fourth with the student's name.  I then pass them back around and each child makes a paper wad to throw at a designated target.

6.  After students throw the paper wad, I call several of them to pick up a paper wad of their choice.  They go back to their seats and read the facts aloud.  The class is given three chances to guess the student being described.  If they "strike out", the student must reveal themselves to the remainder of the class.

This does cause a bit of a commotion, but it's an exciting way to get the students engaged in learning a little about one another.  You will find out real fast which students like pizza and play a lot of video games!  I also use this as a pre-assessment for spelling, language mechanics, sentence structure, handwriting, fact/opinion, and math vocabulary.