K'NEX Classroom Challenge & eCYBERMISSION

Bring it on!

Despite being an already overwhelmed teacher due to my new position, I have decided to participate in TWO different STEM challenges with my students after school and during our anchor (study hall) period.  (My husband thinks I am officially crazy.)

K'NEX Classroom Challenge
For this challenge students in grades 7-9 will construct an athletic stadium model for the 2016 Olympic games in Brazil.  Since I am limited in the number of K'NEX pieces I have in my classroom, I made up an application and asked interested students to complete it and return it to me before the thanksgiving break.  (K'NEX Application)  I will be meeting with my team on Friday to register and work out any scheduling conflicts!  I am excited to continue to post about my team's progress.

eCYBERMISSION
This FREE challenge is available to all students and sponsored by the Army.  For my grade level, students select a community problem that falls into one of the seven different categories listed on their site (Clean Energy, Fitness & Health, Robotics, etc.).  Students work in groups of three or four to develop a process for approaching their problem to find a solution.  Students are judged on the steps they take to find a solution, not on whether or not a solution is actually found or implemented.  For each team a teacher registers, he/she gets a free STEM research kit!  I currently have two teams and I am excited to meet with these students on Monday to get them started!!!

I am super pumped to get to work with these students!  I have heard of a lot of different STEM challenges lately for students, but these two stood out as the most interesting and easy to manage (for me!) I urge you to check them out and take advantage of these opportunities!!!

I DID IT!

I posted my first item in my Teachers Pay Teachers store!  Please check out my Inventions & Innovations Unit and download it now for FREE!  Please post feedback either in my store or on my blog after reviewing my unit!  Have a fabulous holiday and make sure you watch my store for more goodies!  (I have a feeling I will have most things for free or at the most $1.00!)

Opening a Teachers Pay Teachers Store

Happy (Early) Thanksgiving!!!

I know I am a few days early, but I doubt with all of the holiday hustle and bustle I will be able to find time to post.

As I comb through the lessons, activities, games, and resources I have created over the last two months for my STEM class I began wondering if there would be value to opening a TPT store.  I rarely find resources I can use anymore on TPT since I teach such a unique class.  With this said, I have created a number of thematic units that encompass science, technology, engineering, and math that other teachers can use.  Does anyone have any experience with TPT?  What I can sell and is it worth the time?  Should I use Teachers Notebook - a site that does not take a percentage of my sales?  Can I post on both?  Please post any information you might have on how to open a TPT store.  Have a lovely Thanksgiving!!!

What does a STEM classroom look like?

As I complete my budget request for the 2012 - 2013 school year, I am thinking...

What does a STEM classroom look like?  What does it have in it?

We all know what we would find if we walked into a literacy room.  Comfortable places to read, visual reading cues for students and an overflowing library.  You would see literacy journals and notebooks as well as examples of paired books.  There would also be obvious evidence of guided reading and possibly Cafe.

In a math classroom (which I use to have) you would see my colorful bins of math manipulatives, a library with math fiction and non-fiction books, and calculators.  I had containers of general school supplies as well.  Reference charts and helpful information filled my walls.

But STEM?

What should that look like?

Well, starting with the units I currently plan on teaching (more to come) - money management, Rubik's cube, renewable energy (wind), green building, and restaurant design and management - I should have the supplies for those units.  So, I have my K'NEX kits organized in Ziploc bags stored in their plastic bins, general classroom supplies for building projects tucked neatly away in drawers, and my Rubik's cubes in colorful bins.  But what is next?  In order for an inquiry approach to learning work, I need my classroom to promote open-ended exploration.  Enter... THE STEM LIBRARY!  Scholastic and Delta Education (Green Collars and Mechanical Engineering) offer some great STEM library starter kits.  Continuing down this road, I decided an additional K'NEX kit may be the way to go.  The Discover Controls K'NEX Education kit offers students the opportunity to play around with computer programming - something I am very familiar with!  But will this be too much in the way of K'NEX?  I do not want a K'NEX curriculum.  So off to Amazon (my favorite place to shop and search for goodies)!  I found a number of Solar Energy, Renewable Energy, Force and Motion, etc. kits for sale, but are they meant for repeated use in the classroom?  Will they survive the kids and me?  Most of what I teach is computer based, so in addition to wanting a few laptops I am at a loss of what else would create a true STEM environment...unless that is what I am already doing?

Please post comments, suggestions, and links to resources that you have found helpful when teaching STEM (or any of the four subjects individually.) 

Vistaprint & Classroom Decor. UPDATE!

I got my posters from Vistaprint and they look AWESOME!  For one, they are HUGE!  The large is way too big for my classroom, but I made room for them all over my classroom - inside and out.  I had them laminated so that I could hot glue them to the wall.  (The humidity in my room is unbelievable!  Everything peels and/or falls off the wall.)  

In addition to hanging my posters, my fun goodies arrived from Oriental Trading and I was able to hang the striped & polka dot banners as well as the apple shaped dry erase stickers.  My pencils turned out great too!  So, banners, tissue paper decorations, patterned Duck tape, and Dollar Tree wall stickers are helping me create the classroom environment I am striving for.  Next I plan to remove all of the hardware from the cabinets in the back of the classroom and cover the cabinets with black paper.

Above the cabinets, I have my character pillars and school required posters on bullying and our vision statement.  The posters had some water damage and I could not keep them on the wall, so I glued them to clean poster board, added colored Duck tape with a Chevron pattern, and had them laminated!  They look a lot better and stand out against the plain walls.  

Next, I had to decide on both a display for my Essential Questions and my tickets-out-the-door.  So, I laminated some white paper and made day-of-the-week signs with my Cricut for my EQ display.  It works really well, especially since I do not currently have a white board in my classroom.  For my ticket-out-the-door I turned the side of one of the cabinets near the door (with the fire extinguisher) into a Twitter display.  I have green and pink baskets at each table group with various supplies, including Post-it Notes.  The students will "tweet" a response to the EQ for the day and post it according to their class period.  I will be going over "tweeting" with the kids on Monday. 

Things are slowly coming together.  It is my first year in this position in a new school, so I am chugging along.  I am sure I will be putting in countless hours over the summer putting all of the finishing touches on my classroom.  My Word Wall is a little challenging to see, so I may be moving that to the cabinets after I cover them with black paper.  I am still torn on what to put where, so PLEASE share thoughts and ideas!!!

 

L.F.S. Training

Today I spent my day in Learning-Focused Training.  I have always been a foldable junkie, and now I am an officially trained foldable junkie.  Here is K.U.D. - Know Understand Do - chart I made during training.  My next unit is Green Architecture.  The kids will be redesigning our school using green building materials.  I am very excited to be starting this unit in a week and a half.  More to come...

Vistaprint

I am in LOVE with Vistaprint.  I really liked Vistaprint before, but now I am in LOVE!  Through the use of RetailMeNot (a site that provides you with discount codes and offers) and the amazing Vistaprint, I just ordered 6 classroom posters (size LARGE - 24" x 36") and 250 business cards for only $64.  The original total for this order was $150.  I can not wait for them to arrive!  Pictures coming soon...

I have also fallen in love with the cute pennant banners (hot pink and lime green, of course - $3/9 feet) and the pom-pom banner that is on sale right now at Oriental Trading ($4.99/9 feet)!  I have also ordered personalized hot pink pencils for my desk!  I am super PUMPED!  I need to find tissue paper cheap (in hot pink and lime green) soon to make those awesome tissue paper balls that have been all over Pinterest and the School Girl Style blog!

Please share pictures and decorating ideas for my classroom.  I will post before pictures soon as well as what I have been able to accomplish thus far.  I NEED HELP & INSPIRATION!