Just five more minutes...
I think one of the hardest things about winter break is readjusting to the regular sleep schedule once school starts up again. To be honest, yesterday morning (the first day back) wasn't an issue probably because of adrenaline, but this morning was rough. It was one of those mornings that I wanted to just keep hitting the snooze. It was one of those mornings where I would have rather cuddled up in bed next to my daughter rather than trying to wake her up. But, alas, we had to get over our sleepiness and get on with the day.
Today was a day that I have been looking forward to because it was the first day for presentations on semester-long projects for the students. The seventh-grade students were working on Science in the News projects. At the beginning of the year, the students were introduced to Newsela, a website that has a huge library of articles on a variety of topics, including a section on science-related articles. So the students got to peruse the articles that interested them. One nice feature about Newsela is that the text difficulty of the articles is adjustable, so even if the original article may have been too complicated for the students to read and comprehend, they can adjust the article to a readability level that is more suitable to their needs. After a couple of weeks of article explorations, the students had to choose one article that really caught their attention and the topic was one that they wanted to learn more about. Using the article as a jumping-off point, the students then needed to dig into their topic and explore outside resources. Following their research, the students then developed a presentation to share what they have learned about their topic. Before leaving for break, the students had to sign up for when they were going to give their presentations. For the next couple of weeks, we will have 3 presentations a day on many different topics. Today, however, we only had two presentations because one presenter was sick. Our first presenter shared information on the science of candy making. Our second presentation dealt with the recovery of the ozone layer. Both presentations were very interesting, and I am looking forward to the rest of them over the next couple weeks.
The eighth-grade students are beginning to share presentations of their own from semester-long research. They are working on a project that we are calling Science Genius Time. For this project, the students were asked to identify some areas that they are passionate about, similar to the 20% time that Google uses with its employees. Once passions were identified, the students developed an open-ended question and big idea relating to a problem or purpose for more study on their passion. The students also needed to give a 90-second pitch, similar to Shark Tank to share with the class what they would be investing their time in for the semester. The pitches also gave the students immediate feedback from the class on what sort of questions their classmates had about the projects, and this gave them ideas for what information they should be researching. After several weeks of research and presentation development, they are ready to share. They also signed up prior to the break, with 3 presentations a day. Ironically, one of my eighth graders was also gone today for her presentation, so one of the classes only had 2 presentations. So, the 5 presentations we had for today were on raising awareness for threats to otters, developments in robotic dogs, raising awareness for children affected by pneumonia in sub-Saharan Africa, developing a sanctuary for short-nosed sea snakes, and developing a new armored vehicle for the armed forces. As you can see, the students had a variety of interests, and they gave some well-done presentations! I'm sure that there are some great projects to come! It's so awesome to see the students' hard work come to fruition!
Mindfulness thought for the week: Change how you see and see how you change. --This is a Zen proverb shared (once again) by Tom J Deters of the ProYou Podcast :-)
Today was a day that I have been looking forward to because it was the first day for presentations on semester-long projects for the students. The seventh-grade students were working on Science in the News projects. At the beginning of the year, the students were introduced to Newsela, a website that has a huge library of articles on a variety of topics, including a section on science-related articles. So the students got to peruse the articles that interested them. One nice feature about Newsela is that the text difficulty of the articles is adjustable, so even if the original article may have been too complicated for the students to read and comprehend, they can adjust the article to a readability level that is more suitable to their needs. After a couple of weeks of article explorations, the students had to choose one article that really caught their attention and the topic was one that they wanted to learn more about. Using the article as a jumping-off point, the students then needed to dig into their topic and explore outside resources. Following their research, the students then developed a presentation to share what they have learned about their topic. Before leaving for break, the students had to sign up for when they were going to give their presentations. For the next couple of weeks, we will have 3 presentations a day on many different topics. Today, however, we only had two presentations because one presenter was sick. Our first presenter shared information on the science of candy making. Our second presentation dealt with the recovery of the ozone layer. Both presentations were very interesting, and I am looking forward to the rest of them over the next couple weeks.
The eighth-grade students are beginning to share presentations of their own from semester-long research. They are working on a project that we are calling Science Genius Time. For this project, the students were asked to identify some areas that they are passionate about, similar to the 20% time that Google uses with its employees. Once passions were identified, the students developed an open-ended question and big idea relating to a problem or purpose for more study on their passion. The students also needed to give a 90-second pitch, similar to Shark Tank to share with the class what they would be investing their time in for the semester. The pitches also gave the students immediate feedback from the class on what sort of questions their classmates had about the projects, and this gave them ideas for what information they should be researching. After several weeks of research and presentation development, they are ready to share. They also signed up prior to the break, with 3 presentations a day. Ironically, one of my eighth graders was also gone today for her presentation, so one of the classes only had 2 presentations. So, the 5 presentations we had for today were on raising awareness for threats to otters, developments in robotic dogs, raising awareness for children affected by pneumonia in sub-Saharan Africa, developing a sanctuary for short-nosed sea snakes, and developing a new armored vehicle for the armed forces. As you can see, the students had a variety of interests, and they gave some well-done presentations! I'm sure that there are some great projects to come! It's so awesome to see the students' hard work come to fruition!
Mindfulness thought for the week: Change how you see and see how you change. --This is a Zen proverb shared (once again) by Tom J Deters of the ProYou Podcast :-)
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