Hobbit Crossword Ch. 1-3

I decided to create a  free crossword for Chapters 1-3  after having so much success with my other Hobbit crossword.  This crossword has three pages; a full color page, a plain page without a picture, and an answer sheet.  It was created at puzzle-maker.com for use commercially.  Enjoy!

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/The-Hobbit-Crossword-Chapters-1-3

Bill Nye: Water Cycle

I have to say that my students still like Bill Nye the science guy, and he generally gets the point across sometimes better than I do!  I usually take 30 minutes to watch a related Bill Nye video if it matches my content.  I have used different video worksheets but I find that I like to make my own.  I just finished teaching the water cycle to my sixth graders and created a worksheet for the related Bill Nye film. This worksheet has various questions to go with the video and a summary at the end.  I was also doodling when I wrote it and included some water related doodles on the worksheet:

You can find this worksheet and other science lessons at my store here:
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Bill-Nye-Water-Cycle-Video-Worksheet

The Liebster Award

Thank you to 5th grade over at schoolboxtreasures  for nominating my blog for the Liebster Award. 


Here's a little background on the award:

Liebster means “dearest” in German, and the award is intended to help up-and-coming blogs get the attention they deserve.

 As with any award, there is a bit of ceremony involved. In order to accept the award, we must do the following:

  1. Copy and paste the award on our blog.

  2. Link back to the blogger who gave us the award.

  3. Pick our five favorite blogs with less than 200 followers, and leave a comment on their blog to let them know they have received the award.

  4. Hope that the five blogs chosen will keep spreading the love and pass it on to five more blogs.

I am honored to accept this and pass it on the the following blogs:

The Teaching Bank 

Workshop Classroom 

Teacher 4 Kids 

Joy of Teaching 

Teacher Gone Digital 

Make sure you check out these great sites! And thanks, again, 5th grade, for the award!

Red Mountain Hike

Red Mountain Amphitheater

Red Mountain geologic area is located about 25 miles north of Flagstaff in the Coconino National Forest.  It is a cinder cone volcano and part of the San Francisco volcanic field.  Red Mountain is unique because its internal structure is visible.  Off of highway 180 visitors are invited to hike a gentle uphill trail to the volcano.  Upon reaching it, hikers are surrounded by hoodoos of the partially eroded cone.  Another very interesting feature is the pyroxene crystals that are eroding out of the structure.  These become more numerous as you get closer to the amphitheater.  My children were so enamored with these minerals that we could hardly get them off the trail during a thunderstorm!

Red Mountain is well worth the hike.  Do take water with you as you may want to spend some time investigating the volcano.  Also, be cautious of snakes on the trail as I have sighted at least two rattlesnakes on this hike.

Dark Cinders at Red Mountain

I Resolve to...

http://www.ateacherstreasure.com/2011/12/linky-party-new-year-resolutions.html

Well it's that time of the year again.  Time to make (and usually break) resolutions.  I know most people do not keep resolutions.  I look to my exercise class as an example of this.  At the beginning of the year there are scores of new people that seem very gung ho to get into shape.  About March they start to drift back into old habits and you never see them again.  Let's face it, most of us would rather not have to step out of our comfort zone and do something difficult, new or time consuming.  I have my students think about resolutions when we get back to school in January and I always tell them my goals.  This year my personal resolution is to spend more quality time with my family.  This includes my husband, kids, and two wee kittens we adopted at the end of 2011.  I think it is a realistic goal and quite possible to meet if I don't get bogged down with too much work overload in 2012.  My professional goal is to reread "Who Moved My Cheese"  and follow the advice therein!

Hope you have a wonderful New Year and may we all keep to our realistic goals this year!  Click on the link at the top of this post to submit your resolutions!

Papers, Papers, Everywhere!

I consider myself pretty neat.  I do not exist in chaos well at all.  I have a system that I have used for many years that works very well for managing paper in my classroom.  This year it is not working!  I am teaching three subject areas this year.  6th grade science, 7th grade science, and 7th grade reading.  I have test papers for reading in piles.  I have graded water cycle tests scattered about with ungraded ones in my car.  I have some papers that fell into my recycling bin today accidentally and I had a fleeting thought of just leaving them there.  I have science safety contracts on my counter and today's assignment on my bookshelf.  I have completely lost control of paper in my classroom!  I would really like to clean this mess up by Christmas!!  That means I have approximately 3 days to do it.  If you have any good ideas for controlling my paper problem, don't hesitate to comment!  Maybe I could wave my magic wand!

The Water Cycle Game: the incredible journey

This year was my first year teaching 6th grade science.  I just finished teaching the water cycle and I think we had a good time in the process.  I used a Project Wet idea for an engagement activity to start students thinking how water could move through the cycle.  I had students create different pictures for stations in the game; plants, river, ocean, clouds etc.  Students would visit these stations and roll a die when they got there to determine where they would go next.  They would also keep track of which stations they had visited.  Students used this list to create a comic strip from the point of view of drop of water as an assessment.  My sixth graders did an awesome job of creating comic strips this year!  They had cute story-lines  and were very artistic.  This is a link to the directions for this lesson:
http://www.montana.edu/wwwwet/journey.html