Spark Student Motivation: Owl Pellets-Gross or Cool?

Want to motivate your students with something REALLY fun??

With only five days left of school, I have to try to keep the attention and interest of my students! At the end of the school year we study food chains in science and I read Poppy (a fantasy book starring a bully owl), so owl pellets are the perfect integration!
This book is awesome! Such interesting facts about owl puke!

 

Kidwings is a fascinating virtual owl pellet dissection. Students remove the fur and then match up the bones from the pellet. This is the perfect introduction before dissecting.

 They come packaged like this:

I lay newspaper down and give them tools (toothpicks and paperclips) to dissect their owl pellet.
At first, many of my students are pretty grossed out, but it doesn't take long for them to really get into it!

As soon as one student finds a skull, then everyone gets excited! They all want to walk around and show everyone!

Scientists hard at work!

Some pellets contain 2 skulls, where some pellets have none. I let my students trade and share to make a complete skeleton of their own.



As they find bones, they use their bone identification chart to categorize their findings.

I'm not sure that everyone likes our hallway display (LOL), but the kids who walk by think it's pretty cool!

Here are some close up pictures: Some pellets contain more bones than others, so not all sheets have the same bones.

 This is a fascinating experience for students and if you have the chance, you should try it!

Answer to the post question gross or cool???

COOL!!

So cool in fact, I put the two extra pellets in my prize box!!!

**I definitely recommend purchasing the larger pellets, it's worth the extra money.

 

I hope you had a wonderful week! Please link up any lessons, ideas, tips, tricks, incentives, ANYTHING you do get your students motivated or excited!

Don't forget to grab my button and link back to this post!

Check out all the wonderful ideas from my friends who link up and don't forget to leave some love by commenting....we LOVE comments!
***Please include the topic in the link up with your blog name.

Must Read Mentor Text: ScienceSaurus and A Peek at My Week

Linking up with my cute friends Amanda & Stacia for their fabulous Must Read Mentor Text linky party!

 

The following text is more of a science resource that could be used multiple ways.

ScienceSaurus

We are currently studying energy and this book has multiple pages on the different forms of energy.

My students will fill in this Energy Fill In using the information from this text.

They can draw pictures, cut examples from magazines, write examples, definitions, etc. It's up to them to be creative! Makes a great bulletin board display!

You can grab it for FREE right here! Please be kind and leave feedback if you download. :)

 

(The following samples are from last year).

Closer view of a student sample: 

 

This is a perfect center to incorporate during reading. My students will work on this activity this week. We also have tomorrow off (it's not a snow day, but we'll take it!)

This is our last week to prepare for our BIG writing test the following Tuesday, so we'll be reviewing, playing writing games, and doing all the last minute activities for the big day!

Linking up with my funny friend Jennifer for her Peek at my Week party!

 

 

Don't forget the 20% off SUN DAY SALE at my store!

Workshop Wednesday: Poetry in Science

We're more than halfway through the week! Wednesdays are great because I get to join my BBB Jivey for her Workshop Wednesday!

Today's workshop topic is writing in the content area. How do you integrate writing?

Acrostic Poems for the planets!

(These 4th grade samples are from students who are graduating this year!)

 

 

 

 

 

Each student became an "expert" by researching a planet. They collected information and facts to describe their planet and its features.

Writing an acrostic poem can be a challenging task when you're trying to include factual information and write phrases, not just single words. Another challenging aspect is that the students have to be creative and concise with their word choice, so the beginning letter fits their information.

These poems can be used in any content area and students enjoy writing them! After displaying them on a bulletin board, we made a class reference book.

I hope you can use this idea in your classroom! Have a great rest of the week!

Five For Friday {September 13th}

 Happy Friday everyone! It's time for Five For Friday!

 Is anyone else having a hard time keeping up and balancing everything with the beginning of school? Please say I'm not alone...Here's a peek at my week!

We finished presenting our all All About Me Projects this week-my students were super creative with their pieces of posterboard! Here's a few samples:

A book...

with the table of contents! (Already using those non-fiction text features!)

 Pointe shoes...aren't they amazing (this is a piece of posterboard!)

 Radio with microphone! I'm not sure if you can see it, but in the section for school she has a picture of high heels to represent me! heehee TOTAL EXTRA CREDIT!

To start our space unit of study, I thought I'd "hook" them with this oreo cookie moon phases activity.

You know anything with food is very exciting! I think it was the perfect hook to get them excited about this unit! 

 Pick up this freebie from The Frizz in First Grade. 

We have open house next week and I'm trying to make my list of everything I need to get ready (big list!), but I did manage to get one thing done: my thank you mints!

Nice little treat to appreciate your parents!

 

Pick up these Thank You mint toppers freebie here if you're a Head Over Heels For Teaching Facebook Fan!

 

My friend Gary from Scrappy Guys is having a great giveaway and I'm so happy to be part of his 100 follower milestone! He's also having a fun linky "Remember When". Here is a link back to my post when I hit the 100 mark back in February! I've learned so much and still have so much to learn.

Don't forget to link up with me tomorrow any ideas, lessons, or tips you have to spark those students!!! See you tomorrow!



Spark Student Motivation: Science Experiments

Whoop Whoop! It's Saturday and time to motivate each other and our students!

 I have made a commitment to myself this year to conduct more hands on experiments for science! My students are loving learning about the science process and it's great for team building and cooperation too!

First we made Paper Helicopters, my class is on the second story so this was a perfect experiment!

We met up with my son's fourth grade class, don't worry I don't have 40+ students!

When they released their helicopter they let out such a squeal that my principal came out to see what was going on! haha

It's hard to see the photo below, but the white things coming down are their helicopters. We did this twice: once with a paper clip and once without. 

Click the link to the paper helicopter activity. They loved this!

 

Yesterday was my favorite because I broke out my class set of lab coats!!!

They couldn't get them on fast enough!

(I had a mad scientist party for my middle son a couple of years ago and I saved them because I knew my students would love feeling like "real" scientists! 

This experiment was the "Bears Afloat" from AIMS. They had to work cooperatively to see how many bears they could get on piece of aluminum foil without it sinking. They could shape it any way they wanted, but they had to discuss their plan first.

They loved being able to scream, "We need more bears Mrs. Miller!"

I have enough goggles for half my class, building my collection through the Lowe's Saturday workshops! :O)

They were all engaged and working great together!

Oh, who's this? This is the mad scientist who runs this class! 

I really needed several mad scientist teachers! I couldn't get to every group fast enough to see their progress! 

 My favorite part of these science experiments is when I see my students leaning in, encouraging each other, discussing why something worked or didn't worked, cheering, taking turns, and eyes wide!
If you think about it...have you ever seen a student NOT MOTIVATED to do a science experiment?
They think they're playing!

We're discouraged from having a "Fun Friday" (recess time), so I'll be doing an exciting hands on experiment every Friday afternoon! And, we'll come dressed for success! :O)

I hope you had a wonderful week! Please link up any lessons, ideas, tips, tricks, incentives, ANYTHING you do or plan to do to get your students motivated or excited!
Don't forget to grab my button and link back to this post!
Check out all the wonderful ideas from my friends who link up and don't forget to leave some love by commenting....we LOVE comments!

Two of my buddies, Diane and Amelia, are having a GREAT GIVEAWAY you might want to check out!

Fifth in the Middle and Where the Wild Things Learn!