Students have been learning about the moon, the Earth’s natural satellite. Before Thanksgiving, we learned about it’s formation:fission, coaccretion, capture, and impact and its surface features: marias, highlands, and crater. This week we started learning about the phases of the moon. Students started their moon phase project (print if needed) this Wednesday. Their job is to be ASTRONOMERS FOR A MONTH and observe the different shapes of the moon. If you forget a day, check out the FARMER’s ALMANAC.  On Friday, the students learned another part of the Earth-Moon-Sun interaction-tides and eclipses.  The students used hand motions-straight and right angle- to help remember SPRING AND NEAP TIDES. Students also enjoyed seeing on video a solar eclipse and a lunar eclipse.  Many kids never realized they were actually seeing a lunar eclipse when the moon was “RED”.  Many students were asking when would the next eclipse be..well here’s the answer for you.. 2009… As always scientist, TEACH YOUR PARENT!

On Monday, we are wrapping up moon phases with our Oreo cookie activity where students will use OREO cookies to create the phases of the moon. On Thursday, students will be wrapping up Earth Moon Sun system with a test. We will then wrap up the solar system by wrapping up with the Sun. In this mini unit, students will learn the layers of the sun, have fun watching the constellations on our class ceiling and finally learn that stars go through a life cycle just like humans do.

• To watch the last total solar eclipse, Aug 1, 2008, click here or Google Video
• The next solar eclipse will not be until next year.  To see the dates check click 2009 ECLIPSE

Animations on Phases, Tides, and Eclipse:

• Take the Moon Challenge!
• Moon Shadow – Solar Eclipse
• Moon Dance-LUNAR ECLIPSE
  
• Moonlight Madness
• Tides: Sun, Earth, Moon Interaction
• Moon Phase Movie
• Phases of the Moon Cartoon
• Moon Phases: Sun, Earth Moon Interaction
• Harcourt: Phases of the Moon Interactive
• Exploratorium: Solar Eclipses

THIS WEEK’S ADVENTURES: This week we are learning about THE METRIC SYSTEM. The measurement system used by SCIENTIST and by most of the world. Students will learn the metric units of length, volume, mass, temperature, time. This week will be filled with mini-labs to help understand each unit.

AT HOME SCIENCE TIP: Parents and students it would be great idea if while you are shopping if you point out the metric units below so that students could make connections at home.

This week’s students continued developing the all important process skill of observing and inferring through the scientific method.  After our drops on a penny lab, students were asked what are some factors that could affect the number of drops on a penny.  This was a perfect segue into variables.  Many students came up with

• Changing the type of coin
• Changing the type of liquid
• Changing the temperature of water
• Using different liquids with different thicknesses (water, vegetable oil, karo syrup)

We decided to test the type of liquid and compared soapy water to clean water.  The students made their hypothesis (many thought the soapy water would take less drops because it is slippery).  They were pretty excited to see that their observations matched their hypothesis.  They observed that the soapy water spread out instead of forming round droplets like the clean water.  The Gobstopper Lab gave us more practice with observations and variables-manipulated, responding, and controls.  This week we also talked about OBSERVATIONS being the most important tool of a a scientist.  Students learned that their are two types of observations QUAN and QUAL.  We learned that Quan like NUMBERS

and QUALitative like words/letters. We also introduced inference with the MYSTERY FOOTPRINTS activity.  As expected student immediately want to make a their INFERENCE their OBSERVATION.   As always this will be a major area that students struggle with.  The kids were also quite amazed at the OPTICAL ILLUSIONS and learned that we can’t always TRUST our eyes.  The one we looked at was the Old Woman or the Young Woman and the Native American or the Eskimo.  This was the perfect lead into to talking about quantitative measurements using the metric system.  This week we will focus on the METRIC system and learn how scientist measure length, volume, mass, temperature, and time

DON’T FORGET TO check out this week’s

This week I got to meet my brand new scientist.  We learned about our classroom procedures  and class policies through our Classroom Scavenger Hunt.  Because we are REAL scientist, we need to have our TRUSTY, DUSTY notebook.  Next, we organized our Science Interactive Notebook. For SIXTH graders, they did an AWESOME JOB.  Student learned that they get to be CREATIVE on the LEFT side and the right side is restricted to Mrs. DuBose. On Thursday, we took a MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCE “TEST” and the students figured out the ways that they were smart.  On Friday, we had did “DRAW A SCIENTIST” and the students learned that we all have stereotypes of what a scientist is.  As I suspected most of my students thought that scientist were MALE, OLD, CRAZY/WEIRD, and nerdy! There job over the LABOR DAY weekend is to find a picture of themselves and PASTE it over the face of the scientist they DREW so that they can see that they VISUALIZE themselves as scientists.

DON’T FORGET TO check out this week’s

Hello Parents and Students, Welcome to the LIONS TEAM!. We thorughly enjoyed meeting you on Tuesday for Open House.  You had a chance to meet your wonderful teachers-Mrs. DuBose, Mrs. Hawthorne, Mr. Kiesler, and Mrs. Sayer. You got to take home and practice your locks, and even got a chance to practice your new sixth grade schedule.  The best part was finding out which LOCKER you had-BOTTOM OR TOP. AREN’T LOCKERS JUST SO COOL! We really debated about giving out locks and letting students take them home but then we realized that students would have the WONDERFUL opportunity to practice AT HOME and get that extra help that we can’t provide when we are all in ONE class with 28+ children.  That being said..Parents please make sure that your child brings their lock back on MONDAY.

Remember if your child LOSES their lock, IT IS A $5.00 replacement charge. PLEASE BE RESPONSIBLE. Below you will find another copy of the SIXTH GRADE SUPPLY LIST and OUR TEAM WISHLIST..Thank you so much for coming out! SEE YOU ON MONDAY and remember to PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE your LOCK!

SUPPLY LIST

• 1- 1.5 inch 3 ring binder
• 1-1/2 inch 3-ring binder
• 4— 1-subject notebooks
• 6 dividers
• Loose Leaf Paper
• Pencils
• Scissors
• Glue Stick
• Red pens (Green pens for AIG Language Arts)
• Pencil Sharpener (with shaving holder)
• Crayons, Markers, or Colored Pencils
• Zipper Pencil Holder (fits in notebook)
• 3×5 index cards

TEACHER WISHLIST (PLEASE GIVE TO HR TEACHER)

• Liquid Handsoap
• Hand Sanitizer
• Clorox Wipes
• Colored Printer Paper
• SUPER SCIENCE CLASSROOM SUBSCRIPTION

Mrs. DuBose needs 10 checks  for $20.00 (yep that $120.00)  in order to cover the cost of getting a classroom subscription ( 30 issues are 6.00 each + 9% shipping cost)) to SuperScience, a Scholastic science magazine that provides kid friendly articles tied to our curriculum, at home science experiments, opportunities to talk to REAL scientist, and much more (to learn more click here). TEN PARENTS ARE ALL WE NEED. Of course, I would take ONE CHECK from ONE parent, too .  Please make checks payable to CEDAR CREEK MIDDLE SCHOOL.  YOUR HELP IS MUCH APPRECIATED!!

TEAM..

TOGETHER EVERYONE ACHEIVES MORE!

Do you want your students to be more organized, increase their higher order thinking skills, and to be more engaged in their learning..WELL HERE’S THE ANSWER..
STUDENT INTERACTIVE NOTEBOOKS. I have been doing a lot of research into interactive notebooks in science. An interactive notebook (INB) allows students to have a personalized DIARY of learning about science. It is their own portfolio of work in ONE convenient spot. The INB also is a great ORGANIZATIONAL tool that gives students permission to be PLAYFUL AND CREATIVE in their responses without “messing up” your notes. The INB is a great model because it allows students to be like a REAL SCIENTIST. hen you will re-organize the information in some way that will help you understand it and remember it.

Setup
Students are given “input” (PLACED ON THE RIGHT SIDE) on from the teacher in the form of teacher guided notes, lab procedure, reading articles, etc and expected to re-organize the information in some way that will help you understand it and remember it. This is called processing. The best part of processing is it allows students to tap into their CREATIVE side. One of the most important part about the “output” (PLACED ON THE LEFT SIDE) on the left side is the use of COLOR which allows students to remember and make connections. To learn more about interactive notebooks click

Resources:
http://interactive-notebooks.wikispaces.com/
http://sciencenotebooks.org/

Discussion Question: If you have incorporated INBs in your class, what has your experience been like. Do you have any samples of student work to share?