Science Notebooks and a bulletin board...

Our bulletin boards were due yesterday. For once, I was prepared in advance! I knew what I was planning to put up there and I had the kids work on it a couple weeks ago. I had the kids work on the How to Blow a Bubble sequence activity found at The Teacher Wife. First, I had the students tell me what I needed to do to blow a bubble and I followed their directions. So as soon as they said "chew the gum" (without telling me to unwrap it) I started to put it in my mouth. They all immediately shouted to stop. Once we got all the steps down, I gave everyone some gum and we all practiced blowing bubbles. Then, we made a pictograph (I hardly ever have time to teach these so I figured I would throw it in and make each bubble equal 2 students..gotta get it in there somehow) showing how many students could and couldn't blow a bubble. Students then used their first, next, last page to write a paragraph. I mounted their paragraphs onto pink paper... and that is where the lesson stopped.

Of course we ran out of time and never got to do the cute craft to go with the writing. And next thing I knew, bulletin boards were due and all I had was some writing and nothing cute to decorate it with. So yesterday I went to get out my stash of paper plates to have students make their faces... only to find I had only 4 plates! And no planning time to run to the store... which left me to have 4 students put together a craft for me to hang on my board. And so I give you our bulletin board (don't mind the "under construction" sign- we have to hang a project description and rubric and I couldn't get it printed yesterday so my sign is still hanging. also don't mind the tiny piece of missing border- it was stolen and I need to remember to put another piece in).

And now a quick mention of science notebooks. I have seen all these cute ideas on pinterest and blogs about science notebooks. I decided to give them a try (without doing a stitch of research) with my class. I am learning with them as I continue researching how to do them and cute things to include.... but I just have to say, my students love them! I am doing the same things I would normally do in science but instead of reading from the book they get to read something I typed and {whoa} use highlighters! And then they get to use colored pencils/crayons to complete activities in their notebooks. They LOVE the notebooks and get so excited when I tell them to take them out. Who knew a simple notebook would make science so much fun?!