Orienteering

New Mexico Grade 8 Science Standard I (Physical Science):  5-8 Benchmark III.
 #6:  Know that the Earth has a magnetic field.

This could be a 2-minute lecture on the earth having a magnetic field.  But when it's the last day before spring break, why not make it an entire 90-minute class period?

Welcome to Orienteering 101!

I handed out the little compasses to each student and we practiced learning how to use them.  Always remember that North is with North.  Then find your direction.  

I then took the class outside to the baseball field. I had closed it off to everyone else with big signs, and during my prep period (there have been many times I’m grateful that prep is first for me) I set up the orienteering course.  It took me about an hour to get everything set right, and then the rest of the period to perfect it and get everything ready

 

My first class did awesome.  They were in groups of two and each had a different course to take.  There were 8 markers around the field.  They got their first clue from me in the center, and then went off in the direction of their clue.  There they would find a new clue for their group that would send them in a different direction to another marker.  The first group back to me with all of their markers in the correct order won and got a prize.  It was fun, because the first group back actually didn’t have their markers in the correct order, so I sent them back at their second marker where they had first messed up.  They ran back.  I had a couple other groups come back with answers really close, but had 1 or 2 wrong.  In the end, we had a winner.  There were only 15 minutes of class left when everyone had finished (of a 90 minute class), and it being the last day of the week I told them they could do whatever.  Some joined the PE class on the next field in playing soccer.  Other sat in the shade of the dug-out.  I went around and made sure all of my clues were at the right markers and then sat in the dug-out with my class.  

My second class came in and didn’t do as well.  They could not figure out that North had to go with North.  They were trying to get the needle in the compass to move instead of physically changing the direction of the compass to match the needle.  I still had a winning group, but it was harder with this group.  I think it’s a combination that I missed a step in my introduction and that this groups had a higher percentage of lower abilities than my last class.  Also, it was much hotter this time.  But we only had to do this for half the class because this class had finally earned their class party.  After the winner came in, I gathered them all up and we went back inside.  They were good enough to help me pick up the markers and take down the signs before we left, though.  Then they sat in my classroom for the party where they ate chips that they brought and listened to music.  It was pretty chill.  But it worked.  :)

An example marker.  The Marker paper should be under the rock.  This is what happens after kids have been by. 

Food Web Online Activity

This is a great activity to do with your class.  It can be done as a group on the smart board, with kids coming up one at a time to make a connection––this is how we did it.  Or, if you have enough computers for all of the kids, it can be done individually.  There are review questions at the end, which, again, can be answered together as a class, or individually.  I'm really glad I found this.

http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/explorer/ecosystems/be_an_explorer/map/foodweb_play.htm

You start with all of the animals separated. You drag the arrows towards the thing it eats.

Our final food web. You can move the circles around to make it easier to see. 

One last thing.  I like this a lot because you can see just how involved, complicated, and messy food webs are.  They really are like a spiders web, and can go multiple directions.  The kids see that even though they are making simple connections from one species to another, the result is a more complex system. 

Review Games

My kids often need a lot of review.

No, that's an understatement.

My kids always need A LOT of review.  A LOT of it.

If they don't review something over and over and over again, then they're not going to learn it. I don't know if that's because they're sped, or because the material is new (and let's face it, they don't have much science instruction in elementary school, so it's almost brand new when they start in middle school), or because of both factors.  Probably both.

So I'm always strangling myself trying to think of brand new ways to present the exact same material so they don't get bored of it.

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Management Skills:

If kids are bored, they start engaging in all sorts of inappropriate behavior that leads to a non-functioning class. 

It's a sad, hard truth. 

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Oh, wait!  You thought you'd actually be teaching when you signed up for this? 
Oh, no, no, no.  
You're there to entertain. 

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At the beginning of the year when my seventh graders were learning the parts of the cell, I created a large concentration game that we played all together one day, and then I used as a fast finisher later on during that unit.  It worked great. (I'll post those cards up another day).

My eight graders are learning about waves right now.  They appeared to know the information pretty well, so I gave them a quiz on it. 

Find quiz here

 

You'll notice that on the actual document I have 4 versions of the same thing.  It helps to eliminate cheating.

Yeah . . . they didn't know it as well as I thought. So I'm now looking for ways to reteach them these things: crest, trough, amplitude, frequency, wavelength, amplitude = volume, frequency = pitch.  

I found this great website that listed a bunch of new review games that I hadn't heard of before.  You check out that website here.  I'm using their Trash Ball game on Monday, because my kids already love throwing crumpled paper across the room (unfortunately).  

Since there aren't very many terms and concepts that we're reviewing, I have multiple presentations of the same idea.  The items have points assigned to them, with recall being 1 point.  Highest points are 5 points.  Is it perfect?  No, but I doubt the kids will care.  They'll just like being able to earn points.  I'm going to have them all cut up and folded so the questions are chosen at random. 

To see my review questions, download here:

All of the questions cut up and ready to choose from. 

I was really proud of my students.  This class did an excellent job of giving honest attempts when answering the questions, and they were all involved.  I really feel like this did the job at reviewing concepts again in a fun way.

The final result. 

My second class that came in and I did this with didn't do as well, but that class has too much middle school drama in it.  Too bad.  They enjoyed it, but it didn't go as well as the first.  It really depends on your students and if they can handle the excitement of throwing a piece of paper into the trash (they act like it's the best thing they've ever been allowed to do!).

All in all, I'd do this game again.  It was easy to make and fun to do.