Living? Nonliving? Dormant? Dead? Even though teaching living vs. nonliving seems very elementary, you’d be surprised by how often high school students get confused when you throw examples at them. Fossils? Fire? Slime mold? How can we test if they are alive or not? Teaching characteristics of life is a
It’s almost time for me to start planning out my first week of school (yes it’s crazy, I go back end of July). When I first started teaching, I spent the first week reviewing the syllabus, class rules, and (duh duh duh duhhhhh) spent time reviewing all the lab safety
As much as we would love to have our lessons end 30 seconds before the bell rings, it rarely happens. Even if it does work out perfectly in 1st hour, 2nd hour is a completely different group of students and the lesson might require more or less time. It sometimes
If you couldn’t already tell by the name of my blog and TpT store, I really enjoy looking at and collecting rocks and fossils. My house and classroom are full of them! Many kids might tell you rocks are stupid, but you’d be surprised how interested they get when you
Whew! You made it to the end of the year! (insert happy dance here). The last week of school all most teachers have on their mind is posting grades and summer vacation. Buutttttt….. I’m here to give you a few tips on things you can do NOW to make your
This is one lab that you don’t want to miss! It’s easy, the materials are inexpensive (you probably already have them at home), and it ties together multiple concepts. Winner! In this lab, students will analyze a pedigree of a fictitious family. In the introduction, students read that “Jon and
Teaching English language learner (ELL) students is not for the faint of heart. In my teaching career, I have always had ELL students trickled throughout my classes. This year is the first year that I have had a biology class made up of entirely all ELL students. They vary in
It’s April. Sigh. If you live in the US, you are likely experiencing testing season. Between ACT, SAT, and state exams, it seems like the entire month is taken. Kids are burned out and teachers just want to start teaching again. Students have to be quiet when they finish testing
Do you have some awesome coworkers? I do. My students have been preparing for a debate on GMO’s that was going to take place after school. We needed judges that would be willing to stay late and score them on their performance. We got 3 volunteers without hesitation that were
Have you heard these statements before?“Why are we doing writing, this isn’t English class!”“Do I really have to write in a complete sentence?” Believe it or not, in science class we integrate almost all of the content areas. The key to this integration is making the learning interesting so you
Every teacher has that one unit they don’t like to teach. For me, it was cells. Having taught every grade from 6th to 12th, it seemed like no matter how hard I tried, the same thing happened every year. I taught organelles, students memorized them for a test, and then
Lately there is a big push for STEM in the classroom. Data has projected that STEM related jobs will increase to 9 million by the year 2022 (www.bls.gov). As teachers we need to not just teach science, but let students truly experience it first hand. Every year when I teach
