One Teacher's Adventures

My Grade 8's have been learning about the respiratory system in science.  This week, we made models of the respiratory system using a pop bottle, a balloon, and a plastic shopping bag. I got the idea from Habits from the Heart and created a lab worksheet for my Grade 8's to follow.  I have guided the students through all the labs we've done up until this point, but for this lab, I stepped back and let the kids take the lead.   I told them that I would help if they got stuck, but it was their job to work with their partner to follow the instructions on the handout. Most of the kids followed the instructions very well, but the trickiest part was creating the handle on the bag, and securing the elastic band. Here is one of the finished models: I loved going around to the different tables to see the reactions from the students when they pulled and pushed the diaphragms (plastic bags) of their models and saw the lungs (balloons) inflate and deflate.  T...

Over the past couple weeks, my Grade 8 Science students have been learning about the structures of plant and animal cells.  The culminating project for this topic was to create a 3-D model of an animal cell, highlighting the organelles that can be seen with an electron microscope. For each organelle, the students needed to create something that looked accurate, and needed to label each structure.   Here are a few of the completed models: I think they turned out beautifully!    Looking for more great tips and ideas for middle school? Subscribe to my email list and receive an exclusive FREE sub plans resource. It includes plans for math, ELA, science, social studies, and Core French. Click  here  to subscribe.

Last week, my Grade 8 Science kids completed a lab to observe the characteristics of living things.  In it, they compared dry yeast and salt, then put each into apple juice to observe the reactions.  The first step in the lab was to describe the dry yeast and salt in a table, looking at the colour, size, texture, and shape of each. When I looked over the lab reports my kids had turned in, I was more than a little disappointed with their observations.  I had more than half of the class simply writing the word "small" for size of the grains, and I even had about 5 or 6 kids write "salty" for the texture of the salt!  This made me realize that I hadn't given them enough clarification on what was acceptable, scientific language for observations.  To help them understand the level of description I wanted, we completed a simple activity.  We went outside, and I asked each student to find a leaf.  We have a beautiful maple tree that takes up a large ...

My feet are sore, I'm exhausted, and I already have a cold, but I made it through the first week back! Tuesday was our first day back with the kids.  I am teaching Math, Science, and French to two groups of Grade 8's this year and both classes seem like great kids.  One group is much more active and energetic than the other, but the kids seem really nice and respectful towards each other and to the adults in the school, which is a huge relief! Our school is a 6-8 Middle School, so my kids this year are the oldest.  I have been reminding them daily that they are setting the example to the 6's and 7's of how to behave at school, and they are rising to the challenge of being leaders already. I wanted to start the year off with my homeroom group with expectations for the year.  I really like the My Job/Your Job model of establishing classroom rules and expectations.  Students write down what the teacher's job is and what the teacher's job isn't, and ...

While my first day back to school with the kids is tomorrow, the staff had our official start day last Thursday.  In our district, we have a School Planning Day built into the calendar, usually in the second or third week of classes.  This year, it falls on September 21.  Most schools, however, decide to do the planning day before classes start - which makes a lot more sense! I'm switching schools (again) this year, and my new school decided to hold our planning day off site at a salmon enhancement centre.  Although the majority of the day was spent in grade group meetings, part of the day was dedicated to touring the facility and taking in the beauty of the surroundings.  We took a walk through some of the trails and breathtaking doesn't begin to describe the beauty.  These pictures do not do it justice! This is a salmon ladder.  It has run dry because our summer was so dry.  Hopefully, we will have more rain and the stream will connec...

  I've used this format to teach independent novels to students in grades 5-9.  Because it is so open-ended, it allows for easy differentiation of kids in the same grade, or for kids in split classes. I like this project a lot because it is very student-centred, and once I hand out the project outline, the students can work at their own pace.  Because there is so much choice involved, the quality of work is usually very high, as well. I have borrowed pieces of this from other bloggers and teacher friends.  I've also been adding to it/changing things around for a few years, and I have forgotten which pieces came from whom.  If you see one of your ideas, please know that I love it (which is why it's still in my project), and let me know in the comments so that I can credit you! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Choice Novel Project Over the next four weeks, you will complete a choice novel study p...

I live in Victoria, on the southern tip of Vancouver Island in BC.  We have had hot, dry weather for weeks, which has caused many wild fires to blaze around the province.  Here is a map with active fires in BC. With so many fires blazing for so long, the smoke has gathered in the atmosphere and has settled over Vancouver Island.  Residents of the southern island woke up this morning to an orange haze filling the sky.  It was so bad that NASA took this picture from space showing the smoke. Here are some photos that I took today as the smoke got heavier and heavier. This is the sky when I first woke up The sun had a ring around it. There were crows circling around the park, which gave off a scary movie feel to the day. The smoke became so thick that the sun could barely shine. My sister and I took my nephew to the park and it was really creepy with the orange haze. I'm wondering if anyone in Washington State, Alaska, or in other parts of...