Fish Clip Art!

I don't really know who needs fish clip art actually!  I was doodling around on my daughter's Ipad.  I don't have one but everyone else in my house does. :(  Sniff!  Anyway,  there is a cool application for Ipad that's called Art Studio which allows you to draw onto a transparent background and make some cool clip art images.  You do have to know how to draw, however.  There are some tricks that I use to get more symmetrical images like horizontal and vertical symmetry, but generally I free hand my art.  I needed a few fish for an ecology lesson I was doing so below are a few of the clips.  Feel free to use these fish clips for your own work, just please link back to my blog and my product link and give credit to Science, Etc. when you do.  Do not resell them as clip art.  The bubbles are included in this set as well. You can find the complete product at:
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Fish-Clip-Art

The Hobbit Vocabulary

Here is the first installment of my Hobbit lessons.  The Hobbit An Unexpected Journey is coming to theaters in December so what would be better that reading The Hobbit once again?  I couldn't really think of anything.  I reread the book to complete this vocabulary study and found it to be as delightful as I remembered it.  This product has over 90 pages of vocabulary words from The Hobbit in graphic organizers.  Many of these organizers have student-friendly definitions, ways for students to rate their understanding of the word, and space for non-linguistic representations.  Take a look at the preview below.  If you like it, it can be found in my store at:
The Vocabulary of The Hobbit


Hobbit Vocab Preview

Back to School Sale on TPT

Need some new ideas and products for your classroom?  Teachers Pay Teachers is having a sale on Aug. 12-13 with up to 28% off.  Just use promo code BTS12 at checkout to get an additional 10% off.  Most top sellers will have their stores on sale as well.  Happy back to school shopping!

Mars Rover Curiosity Lands on the First Day of School

This is just the most exciting thing for an earth and space science teacher like myself.  I start back to school with students tomorrow and Curiosity lands, if everything goes as it should. 

Last year we ended the year in my astronomy unit with 6th grade and this year they come back as 7th graders to finish the astronomy unit.  This has got to be the greatest opening for an astronomy unit since Spirit and Opportunity landed!  I have been trying to find other rover lessons besides the one I wrote for this great event.  I have found a great resource through Mars Education (ASU) that has many STEM elements.  "Marsbound" brings the "E" in STEM to life by having students design a mission to mars while staying under budget and getting the best scientific return.  I would recommend this project to students 6-early college.  I will definitely be using it this year as a hook for getting students interested in science and engineering.  Here is the link:
http://marsed.mars.asu.edu/marsbound
Good luck Curiosity!  

The Lesson Cloud Dollar Days Sale

Announcing the first ever Back to School Dollar Days sale...with a &$75 Gift Certificate to Really Good Stuff to boot! This Sunday, July 29th and Monday, July 30th, join us on the Cloud for an amazing sale and giveaway! The Lesson Cloud authors have put together an amazing list of hundreds of items for just $1 or $2!! Stock up on all your Back to School needs for just $1 or $2 each. Plus, once you've stocked up, enter our $75 Gift Certificate Giveaway to Really Good Stuff!! Couldn't you use an extra $75 to start off the school year? Keep watching The Lesson Cloud blog, The Lesson Cloud Facebook page and The Lesson Cloud Twitter feeds for more!  Also, I will be updating this post to include the link to all products on July 29th.  Come back and check it out!
 ****Update**** Please click here to see the hundreds of items on sale Sunday the 29th
http://www.thelessoncloud.com/2012/07/its-here-dollar-days-sale-and-75-really.html

Classroom Makeover

Maybe this should be called classroom ongoing makeover because it isn't done yet.  I went in to school to work on it yesterday and the air conditioning has now been turned off for the summer!  Now maybe some of you can get by on no air conditioning for an hour or two but in Phoenix it is just impossible!  So needless to say, I stayed for 20 minutes and I was so sweaty I had to stop.  I will have to revisit this post when I am completely finished with my room, which will hopefully be before meet the teacher night!

My main problem with my room is that it is purple.  Actually the whole school was painted purple until last year when they finally painted it a color that won't fade so bad in the Arizona sun.  The inside, however, is still purple.  I was just sick of my color scheme from last year.  I am not even going to show any pictures of it here!  So let's start with purple:

This was the big mess I walked into at the beginning of summer.  I promptly went home and Googled "What goes with purple?"  Of course I got the complementary "yellow,"  but I didn't feel like doing yellow.  Then I came upon a great site:
color scheme designer

The color scheme designer will tell you which kind of monochromatic hues look best, and what the complimentary colors are.  It also gives you a triad and a four color combo that includes an accent color to the triad.  It also gives an analog combination and an accented analog combo.  This really made my day!  Yellow is the complementary color to purple but there are many other unique colors to choose from.  I ended up choosing a blue, a lime green, and purple.  It doesn't sound good at all but it works with the black- purple thing I've got going on in there.  The first thing I did was dump my bookcase and line the back of it with a limey green contact paper:

Let me tell you that contact paper is a pain!  It looks pretty good now though.  I then ripped down all my bulletin boards and replaced my word wall with this:

I got some great tips from a website called School Girl Style.  Her post on how to decorate without upsetting the fire marshal can be found here:
http://www.schoolgirlstyle.com/2012/02/how-to-decorate-without-upsetting-the-fire-marshall/

It is really an excellent tutorial in using color without getting carried away by the cuteness of borders etc.  and overdoing things.  Here is my coordinating bulletin board on the other wall:

See how it's the same color scheme?  It looks much better this way than having a million different patterns and colors in your room.  The little poofy flowers were made by me with Martha Stewart's help!  Here are the pictures of the other paper poofs I want to put up this week or next (whenever the air is back on!)

My kitty Pippen attacked these right after I took this picture!  Let me know what you think so far.  I am by no means finished.  I will have to post the final look when I get it done:-).

File Cabinet Nightmare!

My filing system was getting a bit out of hand!  I knew at the end of last year I could stand it no longer.  It was time to go through all of my lessons and redo the files!  This is easier said than done, however.  I have been a science teacher for 15 years.  I had lessons for 6th, 7th, and 8th grade.  I basically had to go through every file and relabel every one *sigh*.  I even color coded my files by unit:  Green was ecology, red was astronomy, etc...

While I was completing this monumental task, I had the great idea of making new file labels to go with my units.  I don't really know why I wanted to do this.  No one will ever really see these but me.  I might just leave my file cabinet drawer open when the principal walks in and casually pull some files out!  Anyway,  I am posting one of my labels here for the taking.  Maybe you have a science unit that needs relabeling!  All clip art was purchased through Digi-Web Studio.

Space Labels