al-mofhariz

Just before Christmas break, we spent some time creating bird feeders for our local birds.  Let me warn you...it did create a MESS on the floor.  However, my students were wonderful helpers with the clean up and graciously borrowed brooms from other classes to sweep it all up in no time!

Here's what we started with:


We made two bird feeders.  The first one was the typical pinecone feeder with a twist.  Because so many students have peanut allergies, I couldn't use peanut butter as the spread.  Instead we used shortening - generic for crisco. The crisco was much cheaper than peanut butter too!!! The students started with yarn and tied it around the pinecone, spread crisco on the cone and then dipped it in the birdseed. 

The next one was really fun...old fashioned popcorn strings with a twist! Instead of using thread and a needle, we used wire from the craft store.  The kids could easily string the popcorn on the wire and no risk of getting cut!

Parents sent in popped corn for us to…

Do you build models of the watershed in your classroom? As part of our unit on natural resources, we teach students the importance of watersheds, forests, and mineral resources.  We are responsible for teaching the students about what a watershed is and how humans impact it.

So to start, we teach students what a watershed is.  They are all familiar with the water cycle model.  I use this to start as they can connect what they already know to something new.  When looking at this model I point out that water runs downhill towards a body of water.  When they ask, what about the water that just soaks into the ground - I remind them of ground water. Where I live we don't have city water - not even at our school!  We are very familiar with well systems...so they understand that there is water underground.

Next I want them to learn that a watershed is land. We all live in a watershed. A watershed is simply an area of land that leads to a body of water.  In Virginia where I live, we lived i…

Back into my classroom....we are learning about watersheds.  Boy have we had fun! One of the activities that I love is the Freddy the Fish Story from the WUP center in Michigan.  In this activity, you read aloud a story about Freddy the Fish (see the green sponge?) and his travels down the watershed.  He starts in a nice cool, clean stream.  As he travels he encounters all sorts of pollution - from too much sediment, to litter, fertilizer, etc.. The materials you pour into the tank are easy to find at home and are earth friendly for when you pour the water out as well.  We used Koolaid mix, basil, syrup, coffee sludge, soil, etc...
The students really enjoyed this demonstration and were able to visualize the effects humans have on water quality.  When we were finished, the students then went back to their science notebooks and drew a picture of before and after.  They were able to add their opinions as well as noted observations about the quality of water and the effect on Freddy (he di…

So today I took my son to the Earth Day festivities in my hometown of Fredericksburg, Va.  While I was there, I bought a new book called ABC's from the Rappahannock River.  by Betty Lewis Ellett.  I loved this book because it shows real photographs of a river system and highlights the animals that live there, the weather that affects it, safety measures (including a great segment on life jackets), and also words like rapids, bridges, anglers and marinas.

I can't wait to share it with my students when we start our unit on Virginia's Natural Resources.  Rivers and watersheds are extremely important to our environment. 

Can you think of a connection to your classroom?  Could you have your students create their own ABC book for Earth Day? I have created a generic version of the ABC brainstorming chart that you can use for any content area brainstorming session.  I like to give these to cooperative groups to use as a preassessment on a new topic or a formative assessment before …

This final activity involves making a class river.  The students were given the scenario that they have just been given a section of land right on the river that and unlimited income!  They can build anything that they want to on the water.  What would you build?

Students draw a plan of what they would put on this property...
A hotel and amusement park.... A school and hotel
Next, they go back and add pollutions that may happen from the construction, the buildings, the land use...as well as ways they could fix it. (Notice the Riparian buffer???)  We had a great discussion about whether their picture caused a lot of pollution or minimal...
Finally, they laid them all out and created a class river.

This goes along nicely with one of my favorite VA DOE activities...A River Runs through it.  This version actually has land use scenarios written for students to illustrate.  I do this lesson every year in my class. And Riparian Buffers - a hands on lesson where you actually build a watershed with …

This activity from Friends of the Rappahannock is an easy one to replicate!  The teacher made five game boards using the science fair type boards.  Each board had a collection of pictures from magazines showing water being used correctly and wastefully. 
As the kids move around the board they are given 10 beads to represent water drops.  As they move along the board, they can lose or gain water drops based on wasteful or conservative water use. 


It is a great way to show them how much water they waste daily!

This was a cool way to show the journey of raindrops from the land, to the stream, to the river, to the Bay...  brought to you by Friends of the Rappahannock.

Make circles that say creek in orange, stream in yellow, rivers in orange and Chesapeake Bay in yellow.  Because our watershed is based on four major rivers in Virginia she even labeled the rivers with the actual names (Potomac, Rappahannock, York, and James).  The blue fabric was a nice touch, too, as the Chesapeake Bay!

Next, divide the children into four groups and place at the four corners of the room.  To progress along the watershed, they must complete a task!

Task one - make a food chain....
This one had pictures preselected and laminated with an orange strip to lay them on with Velcro fasteners.  Each of the four corners had a different food chain, but one you would find in our local environments.

Next, she collected all four food chains and made a food web. I love how they quickly fastened onto the poster with the Velcro an…

Our school division in partnership with Friends of the Rappahannock have offered Watershed Wednesdays for our fourth grade students.  It is a really neat program - the director, Cassie Pallai, brings four pre-service teachers from the University of Mary Washington to lead the students in four watershed activities. These students are doing their practicum for George Meadows' class on Science Education.  He is a real proponent of hands-on, quality science teaching!!
 I hope to share with you a few of these activities over the next few weeks.
Here is the first one...Interactive Watershed
It started with a beautiful sheet painted to show many different land use scenarios such as shopping, schools, factories, neighborhoods, roads, farms....and streams, creeks and rivers...which led to the Chesapeake Bay - our main watershed.

She had great signs that student volunteers held up as they stepped onto the map to represent the different areas.  We talked about types of pollutions get into the …

I have to take some time to share with you the latest project at my school.  My art teacher, the fabulous Mrs. Mamon, had students collect and sort bottle caps over the past year as part of a school wide recycling campaign.  I never knew how many colors of bottle caps there were!

Then this fall as part of an enrichment day, she had students in 2nd and 3rd grade help glue on the bottle caps in a bottle cap mural (which were later screwed in with a drill by various volunteers).  





The effect was much like an impressionist painting.  From close up, all you can see are dots....but step back a little further.... and you see a flower.... a caterpillar...a leaf...a bee...a butterfly...


and finally a garden...

Okay, after my day of play...I am back to thinking about science.  Today we began our Ecosystems unit by building a model of a schoolyard environment. First we brainstormed what things we might put in our model - at first the kids said "a playground"  but I quickly told them this is a science model and we have to think small.  Eventually we got around to mentioning the three components that I had planned on: grass, soil and worms. 




Next we got into our small science groups where everyone has a job.  Getter 1 came and got the materials, Starter knew they would be first to start the job, Getter 2 would clean up and Reporter knew they would share out at the end.  The cutest thing happened as we were building our models...the kids said, "Let's turn out the lights so the worms will feel more comfortable while they are digging."  So we did...and we joyfully and silently watching the worms dig deep in the soil.    After we finished setting up the models, we placed the…