Etch 'n Sketch Reflections

Our ecosystems are coming along nicely! They are currently broken into 2 parts--a terrarium and aquarium. Our terrariums are continuing to grow, and the grass for most of the groups has grown out of the top! The students are incredibly excited to add the crickets and pillbugs to the terrariums when they arrive, and that should be next Tuesday! I'm interested to see how they react to the bugs; I imagine there will be some squeals. I already know I'm going to need to lay down some ground rules when it comes to the critters, and number 1 will be no tormenting your classmates with the bugs :-) The students don't know yet that the bugs are coming Tuesday, but I'm going to let them know tomorrow for a little excitement going into the weekend! The aquariums have been a big hit with the students! One group actually had a very small snail in their aquarium even before we added any animals--I think it hitched a ride on one of the aquatic plants. We added the fish and snails on ...

Well, things were a little calmer this week than last, and we had some adventures in science class! Our first unit for the year deals with ecosystems, and the unit is centered around 3 key areas: understanding the process of how plants get their energy, developing models to show how matter moves within an ecosystem, and using models to show that energy in food originated with the sun. In order to get a good grasp on these concepts, the students are building model ecosystems of their own called ecocolumns. The ecocolumns have two main sections--an aquarium and a terrarium. They are made from three 2-liter soda bottles that have been cut apart and (eventually) put together to have the terrarium stacked above the aquarium. It's a really exciting project and the students are all engaged in the process! It definitely has a tremendous amount of prep work with it to get all of the materials organized so that the students can efficiently get them made, but seeing the students' enthus...

7 hours. For the most part, that's how much time we have with the students in our care on a daily basis. And then they leave. We send them off to, hopefully, a home where they can be loved and cared for. A home where they can get what they need. A home where they can feel safe. I was lucky--I had a home that had these qualities. Every child should have a home with these qualities. Unfortunately, this isn't the case for all of our children. My own upbringing doesn't give me the experience to even come close to understanding what some of our students experience when they leave our schools. Sure, you hear the stories of what some of the students go through, but this week I got some firsthand knowledge from one of my students. I'm not going to go into details because, well, I want to respect the confidentiality around the student involved and the situation at hand. However, I feel I can comment on how this affected her time at school. As teachers, we all know the fact that ...

Can it get more exciting?!? I'm multitasking right now, reflecting on the first week of the school year and sitting down for a division-rivalry Packers/Bears game. The Pack recently took the lead, so I'm feeling pretty good, which matches how I'm feeling about the first week. To start out, I have to say that what has really helped this week go well is the fantastic team that I am working with. They welcomed me in right away and have been showing me the 5th-grade ropes. I have had the opportunity to observe my 5th-grade colleagues quite a bit this first week as we have been launching the 5th-grade and school-wide expectations with the students. I can tell that I am going to learn a lot from this team. The main goals at the beginning of school are to launch expectations with the students, as previously mentioned, and to build a sense of community amongst the students. The repeated practice and reminders of expectations have been key to the beginning of the school year. This...