Video-of-the-Day: Invasion of the Body Snatchers?!

I'm not going to spend too much time on this post as I should be prepping for bed. If you watched the video above then you really need no explanation. I am intrigued by the awesomeness, yet horror of Cordyceps. It reminds me of two movies - Invasion of the Body Snatchers and John Carpenter's: The Thing; these are probably the reason why I sometimes have nightmares involving this organism. Anyway, I watched it again today and thought I would share it with you. Enjoy and I apologize for any nightmares this may cause you in the future. ;)
--Bond with James--

Artistic Classroom Ceilings

One of my earlier blog posts highlighted a decorated classroom ceiling.The pictures shown below are from a school in Austin, Texas named Travis High School. It is one of the campuses I support. Travis HS was also where I completed my student teaching experience.  The ceiling art (pictures 1 - 4) has to be over 10 years old because that's how long ago my student teaching experience was. I know other classroom ceilings have recently added art (pictures 5-6).

This was something I wanted to do in my own classroom but never got around to it. However, one of my goals is to return in a few years and I plan to have my students decorate my room. Anyway, enjoy the pictures and I hope they inspire you to create something similar or unique in your classroom.  
-Bond with James-

Human Body Systems Interactive Graphic Organizers & Activities

After the success of my interactive chemistry graphic organizers, I decided to branch into biology (it's what I received my degree in). I immediately wanted to create a human body systems graphic organizer set based on human body clip art I purchased a few months ago (I used several of the images in my chemistry task cards series). However, the set was missing a few of the body systems and caused the project to be put on hold. I contacted another clip artist on TpT to determine if she could expand her set. Unfortunately, I never heard back after a few messages between us. I decided to ask the artist whose set I used in my task card series to expand her original set (check her out here). Anyway, she came through as promised and now I have this fantastic addition to my TpT store. 

There are 11 Interactive Graphic Organizers (IGOs) that incorporate all the human systems and 1 Human Systems Interactions activity (seen in the bottom right of the above picture). I plan on expanding the product to include more activities and graphic organizers for classroom use. As with all my sets, I've included color and black & white versions. While the IGOs are okay in black & white, I highly recommend the Human Systems Interactions activity be printed in color.

Includes:

• The following human systems are represented: integumentary, digestive, lymphatic (immune), endocrine, excretory, circulatory, reproductive (male and female), skeletal, muscular, nervous, and respiratory.
• The following human tissues are represented: epithelial, connective, nervous, and muscle.
• All IGOs come in two versions: color and black/white
• Directions, ideas, pictures, and suggestions are included for immediate classroom use

Finally....
Happy New Year! This is my first blog post of the new year. I took a break from creating new items, Pinterest, and a bunch of other things. Now I'm back and ready to add new ideas for 2014. :)

The Mint Bag...

Skip to the bottom if you're only here for the Mint Bag ;)
I co-facilitated another science instructional leadership seminar today. The seminar is made up of the science instructional coaches and department chairs from our high school campuses. I haven't had the chance to blog about instructional rounds; however, this was the second one of the year.

I'm sure you've had a group of suits in your classroom, poking around, asking questions, providing cold stares, not providing feedback etc. during an observation. I did not want this to be that. I know that observations can be frightening for many teachers.However, I think a paradigm shift is needed if we truly want to develop our pedagogical skills, increase student performance and close the achievement gap. From what I've seen and experienced, teaching is an isolated profession. Yes, we have PLCs but I can easily say one thing in a PLC and then go about my business behind a closed classroom door.  

To make a long explanation short, my teaching program encouraged the observation of other teachers. As a full-time teacher I always wanted to observe my peers, but for one reason or another I never had/made time to do so.  My current position has provided hundreds of teacher observation hours and I feel I have grown tremendously as a result. I now am working with other instructional leaders/current teachers to:
(1) develop our capacity as science leaders
(2) visit and assist host campuses with self-identified challenge areas, and 
(3) bring ideas and/or new learning back to the home campus to share with colleagues

I wanted to make sure that our leaders were providing appropriate / descriptive feedback to teachers at their home campus.  For example, instead of saying that the students were engaged, I might say 17 out of 20 students could be seen looking at the teacher and writing notes as s/he talked. The first description is judgmental in nature. I don't know if the students are engaged - perhaps they're just compliant for whatever reason. The second description is specific and, for the most part, objective data a teacher can use to gauge his or her instruction. A teacher and I can interpret the second statement in many ways; however, the point is to provide the teacher with as much data as possible in order to help improve his/her instruction over time.

Okay, I'm getting off track. The main reason for the blog was to talk about the Mint Bags. :)  

I wish I could say this awesome idea was mine but it's not. I saw a picture similar to this on Pinterest when I first joined a few months ago. Actually, the mints were tied in pretty ribbon and wrapping paper. Unfortunately, these teachers were getting the $0.99 Ziploc baggie bargain deal. It's the thought that counts, right? I created Mint Bags as a way to say thank you to the host teachers for allowing the science leaders to observe their classrooms today. I personally delivered each one. I even heard one teacher (who had his blue tooth microphone on) reading it to his class - I chuckled as I walked by. 

Looking back, this time of year was hard for me as a novice teacher. I found strength and renewed commit-"mint" to press forward through the encourage-"mint" of students and colleagues. :)

Facebook Frenzies...

Do you know what a Facebook Frenzy is? If so, have you participated in one as a member and/or a participant? If not, let me briefly explain what a Facebook Frenzy is so that you are up-to-speed and can join in on all the fun and great items.

The Facebook (FB) Frenzy idea was created by Heather (Creation Castle) a few months ago. Since then it has taken off and become a fun event to obtain free items and follow great FB pages. Since I was a co-leader in the December 6th-12th group, I will use this group as an example. 

The 6th-12 grade group hosts educators from all background and content areas - math, science, social studies, ELA, technology, etc. Everyone in the group offers a FREE product that you can obtain by liking their FB page. Once you LIKE a page, you receive a free item and access to a link that will take you to the next person's page. You repeat this process until you've gone through all the pages. This is a great way to find new pages and be alerted to future sales and/or free items from that particular individual.

Groups are: K, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th-12th, Music, and Clip Art (starting links are below)

 A PDF of the image with clickable links may be found here.

Make sure to look for this tab (located on the top right) of each page. Once you click it, LIKE the page to gain access to the free item and link to the the next page.

Remember, the December Frenzy occurs for a limited number of days (December 6th-9th, 2013). I hope you LIKE a lot of pages and stay with them. Many of the pages offer flash freebies or other great ideas.

THE DECEMBER FRENZY HAS EXPIRED - ALL LINKS HAVE BEEN REMOVED

 

Reaction Types Interactive Graphic Organizer & Card Sort

What did I spend my time on leading up to the USA Thanksgiving holiday? Well,  as you can see from the pictures below, I spent it creating my latest product - Reaction Types Graphic Organizer and Card Sort. I recently finished my molecular clip art set (which you can see projected on the TV and the finished product) and was working on another graphic organizer when this idea popped in my head. I stopped Project A to start this project (actually, I seem to be working on at least 4 other projects at the same time).  Also, please excuse my make-shift office :)

Approach reaction types in an engaging yet rigorous way by utilizing the Reaction Types Graphic Organizer and Card Sort. Each reaction type has its own interactive flip tab illustrating the reaction type using clip art representing elements and compounds. Students can tape and/or glue these tabs into their Interactive Notebook (I did not glue/tap in my notebook as I still needed to take pictures for how to use the tabs). The teacher can have students write notes on the backside of each tab or the teacher can write notes on the back prior to printing. 

Additionally, students can practice identifying reaction types through a card sort. If you're interested, please click here: Reaction Types Graphic Organizer and Card Sort.

UPDATE: I have added a Spanish version.

Molecular Compounds Clip Art

This is going to be a short post. I wanted to update you all concerning my newest product, the molecular compounds clip art set. I was actually working on another project, an interactive graphic organizer, when I realized I needed molecule clip art to finish it. At first, I browsed Teachers Pay Teachers. However, I could not find anything. I did notice that many clip art artists there tend to make the same clip art (it's very obvious) but make subtle changes by adding one or two new pieces to try to offset it from a competing clip art seller. Anyway, then I tried to find clip art that was copyright free and/or was available through a commercial use license but I did not find anything I liked (or I had to pay a large sum of money). Then I realized that I was completely capable - to some degree- of creating my own clip art. I mean I only created the beaker and graduated cylinder clip sets last year.

Overall, I am happy with the way the set came out. There are 94 PNG images total. If you are interested in obtaining a set, click here. I think I may add include larger molecules at a later time/date.