The Dichotomous Key

This year is the first year I won't be the science teacher for fourth grade at our school because we switched to self-contained classrooms.  I may have said that before on here...  For someone who was never a science buff growing up, I have come to adore teaching the subject in school.  So in light of that, I'm sharing one of my favorite science units/lessons for fourth grade:  Classification: the dichotomous key.

Truth: I never knew what a dichotomous key was until I had to teach it.

When I read that part of my curriculum I immediately went to my trusty friend Google (I'm kind of a Bing girl now, but I still call it "Googling") and scrounged up every age appropriate activity and lesson I could find.  Basically, no matter which search engine you use, I have probably done every lesson it brings up.

We classified everything in sight:  shoes, buttons, monsters, jelly beans, etc.  We continued to classify until every object had it's own category.  Here are a few of our finished products:

Classifying Buttons!  We focused on using the "this/not this" format- for instance, small/not small.  It was a really hard concept for us to wrap our minds around (as seen in the following picture...small/large would not be an accurate way to set up our dichotomous key- but she caught on after that!).  

Classifying Monsters!  We did this as a class- their homework assignment was to color a monster using only yellow, red, green, and purple.  I did that just for the sake of making it easier to classify as a class.  Then we made a giant dichotomous key on the board and they each got to give a "scientific name" to their monster once he was classified to his own species.  

Flipping back through my NSTA Science & Children magazines, I ran across a great article using Jelly Belly jelly beans.  Ok, I know this isn't news in the science teaching world, but we do it every year now and it is always a hit!  Here is the article and links to the dichotomous key to use.  I don't use the "Harry Potter" version for a few reasons- one being that they are a little tricky to find now.

Students work in pairs to use their dichotomous key.  I give each pair of students 10 jelly beans.

They use copies of the NSTA dichotomous key (pink) and then fill out their key "route" to decide each jelly bean flavor.  They taste it to "confirm" that they are correct...sometimes they are not so pleasantly surprised!  

I have them draw a picture of what the jelly bean looked like next to their guess.  Click on the picture of the page for this dichotomous key freebie at my TpT store:

That's all for today!  I'm working on being better at this blog business, but for now I'm off to plan guided reading lessons for the week... a teacher's work is seriously never done!

            

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"Eye" LOVE Science!

One of my favorite science rules in my classroom is that students are not allowed to say "Ew, gross!"  but instead have to say "Oh, cool!".  We don't even have many "ew, gross" curriculum standards in 4th grade, but the human body usually brings out a few.  Right now we're studying the eye, but I prefer to use the term "eyeball" in class because it's more fun.

I like turning off the lights and letting their pupils dilate and then flipping them back on and hearing all the "AHH!" reactions when they watch each other's iris adjust.  Teachers have to get their kicks somehow.  To bring it all together, I have them complete a writing assignment on how the iris and pupil work together and then we illustrate it with an eye diagram.  Of course we review our key vocabulary: sclera, cornea, iris, and pupil (it's just a hole!).  I put an emphasis on our "4th grade sentences" and writing skills.

Here's an example of our final product:

Find my printables for this lesson at my TpT store.  

We haven't even gotten to the inside of the eye yet!  Sometimes I struggle to find resources for 4th grade science that aren't too elementary for my students.  I love using AIMS resources for teaching the eye and the ear.  I use the Human Body book for 5-9th grade even though I teach 4th because I think it has great resources, activities, and uses appropriate content vocabulary in an easy to read format.  It has a digital format, or you can buy the book with CD for the files.

            

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Mysterious Package Arrives

A suspicious orange package arrived on my doorstep today.  I was a little leery when it looked like this:

I'll admit I've been ordering online more than normal lately, but I couldn't think of anything that should be arriving.  It also had my school name on it but was delivered to my house.

So I opened it and got THIS:

As if Halloween isn't scary enough, James Patterson was in my mystery package wearing a pair of mustache glasses.  

I won an Advance Copy of his new young adult (?) book "I Funny".  WOOHOO!  It comes out in December.  At this point, I vaguely remembered entering a contest at some point.  

I'll be sure to read it and post some kind of review.  I enjoy James Patterson mysteries for adults, so I have high hopes for this special surprise!

Edmodo?

Attention Teacher Creatures!

Does anyone use Edmodo?  I'm just getting started and trying it out and I'm not really sure what I'm doing.  What are the secrets?  It looks like Linkedin for teachers.  Kind of.  Right?

Fish Bulletin Board

Since I'm blogging about the beginning of the year in August, here's what my bulletin board looked like.  Our school theme this year is Faith: Love it, Learn it, Live it.

I'll admit, it's not quite as adorable as I envisioned.  I had high hopes, but got overwhelmed with new school year things.  Such is life.  However, it did lend itself nicely to many lessons:  Fishers of Men (religion!), Fill a Bucket (PBS!),  The Rainbow Fish (share your talents with our class!), create a mandala (art!).

Our little fishies are made from all the old CDs I've hoarded over the years.  Seriously.  Those are AOL discs that you used to get in the mail and I have Microsoft 95 software hidden in that collection as well as some Carmen Sandiego that kids born in 2002 have never heard of.  What you're looking at is actually my entire life in computer software.

 

 

 Color with permanent marker and DONE!  

            

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Pinterest

Teachers love Pinterest.  Me included.

            

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Back to School!

Yeah, it's October.  Welcome back... I would apologize for being so behind, but school is busy.

At the beginning of the year, we put together little gifts for all the new faculty and staff in our building and gather them up for a welcome gift basket.  We don't have a huge turnover every year, so it's just a few small things.  However, this year we had seven new people, and even at $5 a gift, I'm still forking over $35 on something that is probably candy and I don't get to eat it.  I wanted something different...so I had to brainstorm.

Hand Sanitizer.  Duh!  Every teacher needs it!  Every teacher wants more of it!  Every student uses it too often!  AND it's fairly inexpensive and USEFUL.

I love a good useful (easy) gift.  

Here's the link to my TpT store (it's a freebie!) so you can pass on the cleanliness for your next gift giving occasion:

            

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