ASSESSMENT GRADE MADNESS: Science...but it's only the first week....

I know that the beginning of the year can get bogged down in procedures, but I like to teach a little content too. Don't get me wrong, focus on procedures, practice them, live them. I know it saves you more time later, but I have a couple of activities that I would like to share; that I did with my students in the first two weeks of school (yeah, we've been in school two weeks already!!!)

First up is SAVE FRED. I'm not sure where this idea comes from, but my partner Science teacher (whom is brilliant) told me about it and I am now officially obsessed.
Materials: clear plastic cups, paper clips, gummy life savers, and gummy worms (I used bright crawlers)

Lessons taught: TEAMWORK (it is impossible to do alone), and Scientific Method

Challenge the students must get Fred (the worm), into the life preserver (gummy saver) which is stuck under the upside down cup. The kick is they can only touch the paper clips with their hands or any part of their body. If they drop Fred into the ocean (on the table) he drowns and they have to start over.

Set up: place the gummy saver on the table, turn the cup upside down and place it on top of the gummy saver, and stick the worm on top!

Here are some pictures: My kids loved coming up with hypothesis on how they could save him and testing them. :)

That was week one, this week we are getting into abiotic (never living) and biotic (living, or has lived) factors of the environment. So we did a school yard search, we took those handy dandy Science notebooks out side and tried to find as many abiotic and biotic factors as we could. Then we came back and made posters. Excuse the spelling (I am trying to focus on whether or not they put the item in the correct place.

Here are some of the all girls class searching (yes I said all girls :), that mean I have an all boys class too :o).

Now for poster making (this is one of my fifth grade classes). For those of you who are new to my blog I teach two blocks of 6th grade Science, then two blocks of 5th grade Science.

Here are some of the posters. They turned out cute. Some spelling errors, but almost all were correct and all of my classes are about 80 proficiency on this skill now. Woot!!!!