Summr to do list...

I have a huge summer to do list for work, not to mention the fact that I am doing full time research and have a ton of house projects that I would like to get done as well. With so much on my plate I am hoping that sharing my goals will give me incentive to keep up with making progress on them.

So here is the list....

For my biology classes:

• Reorganize and touch up all unit calendars - some progress has been made
• Add unit project lists for remaining units that didn't get them this year
• Restructure/reorganize/improve the stream study plan so that it is a more meaningful research experience for students.
• Better plan for using and assessing journals and portfolios. I found some great resources on using interactive science notebooks that I think will really help me improve how I use this in my classroom!

For my chemistry classes:

• Reorganize and touch up all unit calendars
• Look at the chemical supply inventory and figure out where to add in more labs utilizing the new materials purchased for next year.
• Look into the forensics chemistry book and figure out how much of that I can implement

For my physics classes (2nd semester):

• More problem sets and reorganize notes

For my student research class (2nd semester):

• Make a plan....this will be the first time I am teaching this class. the intention is that during the first few weeks I will guide students through several experiences with the goal of teaching them how to design experiements and get their creative juices flowing. Then for as much of the time as possible they will be designing experiments and I will be more of a guide and resource for this. I need to come up with effective goals and assessment tools for this type of class. Any ideas would be appreciated!

Overal classroom needs:

• I am downloaded a ton of resources from TpT to do this cool owl theme for my classroom decoration. I also found some great resources for teacher binder organization - I love organizational tools despite how my desk looks most of the time. I so want to be that teacher that everyone is disguisted by how organized she is. I have a lot of work to do to get there!
• It wasn't on my original list but I have made a new homework log form!

And I am sure I will add more to these lists as I get going. It sounds like alot but the good news is that for many of the tasks it is more of a matter of improving what I already have not reinventing the wheel!

Last Day of School Huzzah!

I am breathing a huge sigh of relief tonight, the school year has officially come to a close. It has been a race to the finish line for the past few weeks. Between projects, lab reports, school plays, Key Club events, etc. I haven't had time to breath much less blog. I plan on taking the next week or so off and then will be spending alot of this summer of professional type things. I am participating in a RET program at Keene State College this summer in the biology department. I will be working as part of a team researching the impact of PAH's on Xenopus development, Xenopus are a species of frog commonly used as a model organism for biological research. I am really excited and can't wait to blog about the experience. I am also hoping over the summer to reorganize and revamp and many of my classroom materials specifically for biology and chemistry. Hopefully some of these things will be worthy of posting to my TpT store as I get them touched up. Ending my 4th year teaching I am finally starting to feel like I know what I am doing and that I can fine tune many of my lessons and activities. I always do an end of the year survey to get feedback from students and I got some comments and ideas that I def. plan to use next year in some way.


So long school year, hello summer!

Birthday Sale

I'm throwing myself a birthday party! Well, actually I am throwing myself a birthday sale!

Today through May 2nd everything in my TpT store is 10% off! Stop by and check out some wonderful science materials at a great price!

I'm still here

Sorry for the lack of posts for the last month. School has been busy with Key Club conferences, vacation week, school musicals, budgets, etc. etc. etc. My blog, TpT store, and personal life have all taken a backseat work for the last month. Next week the musical is performed so at least that will be one less thing on my plate.

With less than two months of school left I have so much that I want to get done still and I am running on fumes to try and make them happen! Today was one of those days were nothing went quite as planned. First block I had intended to do a photosynthesis lab using spinach leaves...forgot them! Plan B was to go to the computer lab to work on a presentation but NWEA testing is this week and so the computer lab was not available. So on to plan C....I went down to the kitchen and was able to get some lettuce from them, thinking that it would work the same way. To top it all off I could only find two of my syringes that were needed for the lab. Then come to find out the lettuce did not work! So after wasting a good 45 minutes of class time attempting to work out our activity we called it quits. Sooo tomorrow I am brining in the spinach and we are going to try this again.

Anyways, I will try to get back on the happy blogger train and get back into sharing things more often.

Glorious Saturdays!

This will end up being a rather long post - you have been warned.

First off just a few general updates. I haven't had much to share this past week, our school had our annual winter carnival this week. The kids had a great time, I advise the 10th grade and they tied for first place with the seniors. Everyone had lots of fun with games like flag football, hockey, pie eating, sled races, and much more. As a result I did not do a whole lot of teaching this past week.

So for my Successful Saturday Linky! As I said I did not do a whole lot of teaching this week - so I am pulling from our winter carnival for this entry. One of the challenges of being an advisor to a class is dealing with the personal differences between students and the inevitable drama that comes from being in a small school. The class that I work with has had their fair share of ups and downs. I took over as their advisor this year and the beginning of the year was pretty rough for some of them in terms of being able to work together well. Over the past many weeks I have seen an improvement in how they are working together. I think this years winter carnival was a good bonding opportunity and I saw students working together very well. A majority of the students organized a sleep over on Thrusday night to work on their class poster and dance routine for an event called the Mock Rock. The pulled off a first place winning Mock Rock and a very cool poster. It was great to see them working together so well and celebrating their success. I hope that they are able to carry the good feellings and motivation to work together through the rest of our school year.

Be sure to head over to "The Lower Elementary Cottage" and share your successes from this week.

My next order of business is sharing a wonderful Freebie on my TpT store. I am linking up again with "An Educators Life" for his bi-monthly freebie share. This week I am happy to be sharing a simple Lab RERUN form that is great for any science and could easily be used with grades 5-12. RERUN stands for ...

Recall – Summarize what you did in the lab.

Explain – Explain the purpose of the lab.

Results – Describe the results of the lab and what they mean.

Uncertainties – Describe what you are still uncertain about.

New – Write at least two new things that you learned from this lab.

 

It is a one page form that can be used at the end of a lab activity as a short report form that students turn in. For some activities this is the full extent of the write-up that students turn in. For other activities we fill out this form at the end of the activity so that the thoughts are recorded and students refer back to the form while writing up something more formal. Be sure to check out this and the many many other freebies being shared today - there is something for everyone.

 

 

 

 

Ok my long post is just about over. I have to get lots of school work done as next week will be very busy. I am hoping for a very busy week with my biology class. We will be pouring agar plates and sowing our C-Fern spores this week for their Planting Science projects. My physics class is starting 2D kinematics which can be a challenging topics, and the forensics class is starting DNA evidence.

Spring Giveaway!



An awesome opportunity came across my blog roll this morning. Heather over at Heather's Heart is having a fantastic Spring Blessings Giveaway. I just signed up and wanted to share the information. Be sure to follow her great blog if you are entering the giveaway!



 

 

 

 



It's a Linky Sort of Day!

I have been reading blogs from lots of folks who participate in this monthly "Currently" linky. This evening I finally tracked down and found the directions on how to do this. So, despite it already being the middle of March I have decided to join up! So here it goes!

Listening - This weekend we dug out a set of 3 Johnny Cash CDs that have been riding around in the car but we haven't listened to in quite some time. I am a junkie for "real" country music!

Loving - Yep, Lazy weekends! I might be a bit further along with my TpT projects, grading, house cleaning, crafts, and numerous other things if I hadn't discovered the wonders of sleeping in late and bumming around the house in sweatpants.

Thinking - This coming week is Winter Carnival at my school among other interruptions. Tomorrow is a 1:00pm early dismissal for students and us teachers have workshop/staff development. Tuesday is no school at all for us. Wednesday is elementary winter carnival and many of the high school students help with those events. Finally Thursday and Friday are high school winter carnival! So basically my lesson plans are on hold for the week.

Wanting - It has been so nice this weekend, it feels and smells like spring! I just hope that it stays this way!

Needing - I desperatly need to get the house cleaned back up, but my loving lazy weekends is interfeering with this.

Like - Love - Hate - So this month these are all supposed to start with the first letter of our first name I have been watching episodes of "Alaska State Troopers" which has reignited my interest in travelling there. I have and probably always will love Apes of all kinds. I had a really hard time coming up with a hate that started with A....but I am not a huge fan of spiders and I really do hate that they always decided to live in my bathtub!

So there is is my first "Currently" now I just have to go link up and I am alllllll set!