8th Grade Final Exam

It's been a while.  But I feel the end of the year is like that.  I'm not really going over anything new, we're just reviewing everything we've already done.  And then there are a lot of activities and meetings towards the end of the year.

Does anyone else feel like the end of the year is both a drag (still 3 more weeks left??) and a sprint to the finish (only 3 more weeks left??)?

Today my eighth graders took their final exam.  My first class left me very pleased with the results.  More than half the class received A's and B's.  That's awesome.  I don't give easy tests and I expect a lot.  So I was very pleased.

My second class was not as good. Only one kid passed, and he passed with a 95%.  How can there be that much difference?  This class is hard to control, they're often yelling at each other, and don't always try their best.  Even during the exam they were asking why they couldn't take notes (um, you don't even have any??) because "all" of the other classes let them use notes.  Well, looking from experience, I've never let you use notes on a test, so why would I let you use notes now?  I want to see how much you have learned, not how well you can take and read your notes.  Needless to say this second period was difficult and hard.  I don't think I'm entirely to blame, but I do have a lot of notes on how I'm going to improve next year.

After all, I'm a brand new teacher.  There is much room for improvement.

Here's my copy of the eighth grade exam.  I was quite pleased with it.  :)

How well would you do on an eighth grade science test?

Magnetism

This will be a worthwhile post.   I'll not only tell you how to do cool experiments with your kiddos, but how to get your very own iron filings for free.

Hear that?  FREE Iron Filings!

When you have iron filings you can do cool experiments like this with the kiddos:

Pretty Magnetic Field Lines

I cut the corners of a piece of paper and folded them up to make a tray.  That way the iron filings wouldn't go everywhere.

I wish I could have let the kids try this on their own, but I don't trust them enough––I can see iron filings going everywhere and kids accidentally breathing in too much iron and then dying.  Not the best situation you want to be in as a teacher.

So instead we did a demonstration where they all stood around one table and watched.  It was cool and I the kids really liked it.  They also all asked me if they could do it themselves.  Since I don't want anyone dying, I said no.

Now for the part you've all been waiting for: How to get your very own iron-filings for free.


Method #1: 
Grab an old iron or steel nail and file it down with a heavy-duty file (not the wimpy kind you file your nails with, but a "manly file," as my husband called it.)  File down the nail.

I actually did this method for an hour during my Saturday afternoon.  I didn't get very much iron.  There was a small lump, and I could do some things with it, but you really don't get very much.



Method #2:
Place a magnet in a plastic bag.  Go outside. Rub the plastic bag in the dirt.  Lift and shake. There should be iron on the outside of the bag, attracted to the magnet.  Put this in a cup and take the magnet out of the bag to release the iron into the cup.  Tadaa!!  Repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat.

Depending on how much you want, this can also take a while.  The ASL interpreter in my first class told me about this, so during lunch I went out for ~5 minutes and just played in the dirt collecting iron.  It was awesome.  I got enough for our little demonstration above for my next class.

My little collection of iron filings from 5 minutes of Method #2.

I did also collect some dirt with this method.  So I took my dirty iron mixture and purified it even more by moving it from the cup to the final container using the same magnet-in-a-bag technique.  That lessened the amount of dirt quite a bit.  I used this second separation in my demonstration.

Method 2 would be a fun activity to do with your kids, too.  Make them go out and collect

real, natural iron from the EARTH!!!

and then use it to learn more about magnets.  (This could also go with any mixture separation lesson plans you may be doing.)

Yay for magnets.

Electricity Quiz

Electricity has been a really short unit.  My kids have enjoyed it.  I don't know if they fully understand the concept of electricity, but they know series and parallel and whether or not the light bulb is receiving electricity or not.  That good, right???

We're going to do a final review day.  We're going over all of the concepts and then they'll take this little quiz that they can use their notes on.  At the end, we'll also do a little review on our light/sound unit for those who want to retake the test next week.  If there's time we'll start learning about magnetism!  ooooh.  Exciting.

I hope it goes well.  I have had a lot of problems with behavior recently, resulting in one of my students being place in ISS (in-school suspension).  One other student probably also should have been place in ISS, but hasn't been.  We'll see what happens tomorrow.  So because of all of the problems, I'm not quite sure if the kids got all of these concepts like they should have.  Well, we're going to review and then I'll see how they do.

Here's the quiz.  It's meant to be printed double sided and cut in half.

Here are the quiz answers

Series or Parallel Circuits

This should have gone before my last post, but I'm not going to worry about it.  There are too many papers on my desk to worry about any kind of order in my life!!

Occasionally I try to organize my desk.

Occasionally the occasional organization project is actually successful.

So we can't expect my blog to be that much more organized!

Okay, here is the worksheet I had for my series and parallel class.  Our lesson was to be able to tell the difference between the two (series has one path for the electricity to flow, whereas parallel has two or more paths).  We went through multiple examples where the students had to show with their fingers how many paths there were.  Once everyone had the correct number of fingers, I asked them if that made it series or parallel.

We also had to be able to tell if the light bulbs would turn on.  If one is broken, what happens to the others?  If switch A is open, but switch B is closed, which light bulbs are on and which are off?

Lots of fun.

I like this kind of stuff because my mind loves puzzles.

Electric Circuits

On of the great memories I have from middle school science is learning about electric circuits. We would go to the lab room and get to fiddle around with all of the wires, batteries, light-bulbs, and whatever else there was at our disposal.  I knew when I got to this unit, that I would have to let my kids enjoy the same experimental freedom.  There is more power in doing the science than in reading about it.

For this unit, I always have a little lesson at the beginning, then sometimes a little worksheet to make sure they are understanding.  Afterwards, they have their little experiment they have to do.  If they are done, I let them play around with the materials before the end of class.

Oooh . . Science!
Apologies for my lame phone picture quality

We have done the following experiments:

1. Conductors and Insulators –DAY 1
2. Build a simple circuit –DAY 2

• Materials:
• A battery (no battery holders), 
• A free light bulb, 
• simple wires (no alligator clips) 
• Make the light bulb turn on, then draw your circuit and label the following:
• Conductor
• Insulator
• Power Source
• Light Bulb 
• (the gen-ed classes labeled this as "resistor."  I did not worry about that term with my kids. I wanted them to focus on "conductor" and "insulator" and understanding how a circuit works.)

3. Build a working series circuit –DAY 3

    Build a working parallel circuit –DAY 3

• Materials:
• 2 batteries (with battery holders)
• 2 light bulbs
• wires (with alligator clips)
• 1 switch
• Make the light bulbs turn on, then draw your circuits and label the following in each circuit
• Conductor
• Insulator
• Power Source
• Light Bulb **see note above
• Switch

5. Exploration with series and parallel circuits –DAY 4

• The lesson I had at the beginning of this class was two fold: review series and parallel circuits and practice drawing circuits correctly using symbols.  We used the mini white boards for this lesson so each kid could practice drawing the circuit instead of just watching me draw it. 

• For this experiment I wanted them to continue solidifying series and parallel circuits and to play around with the variables in a circuit.  How do you get a light bulb brighter? What happens when you have a lot of wires?  I had them follow this worksheet to get going.  The kids could go at their own pace on this one, which is what I loved about it.  For those who finished fast, I had a challenge circuit for them to build for extra credit.  

Conductors and Insulators

There isn't very much time to teach electricity.  Maybe 2-3 weeks?  So there are only a few points I want my sped kids to master: (1) conductors and insulators, (2) will the circuit work?, and (3) series and parallel circuits.  Today we briefly went over simple examples of which circuits will and won't work. The second half of the class was their experiment.  Excuse the dirty whiteboard.  I clean it, but it's an old board that isn't very good quality, so it doesn't stay clean for long.  The kids were to copy this format on a sheet of paper.  Once they and another person were done, they grouped up and completed the experiment together.  I had a few objects set up for them to choose from, but I wanted them to look around for themselves.

I wrote this up really fast, since I only have this one little whiteboard in my room and I had used it previously for two other things that day.  So the definitions are not perfect, but they work.  

Translation:

Conductors and Insulators Experiment

1. A conductor will allow electricity to flow. 

2. An insulator will not allow electricity to flow.

Find 10 conductors and 10 insulators.

(table numbered 1 - 10)

They did really well.  I was impressed with which things the kids thought to test. I had kids taking random things out of their bags to test, I had kids carrying their set up to the door handle or the sharpener that's bolted to the wall.  It was pretty good. And they had fun with it, too. 

Simple circuit. Light works. 

Simple circuit with metal scissors conducting electricity. 

Simple circuit that doesn't work.  The plastic is an insulator. 

This is the little Electricity kits I had in the classroom.

There were three kits, so I had three groups of 2 or 3 kids.  Some kids also got into it and built more complex circuits and then tried their object to see if it would conduct electricity or not.

Today was mostly an exploring day.  I could have just told the kids that metals are conductors and basically everything else is an insulator.  But sometimes, you just need to explore it for yourself.  It makes it easier to remember, and these will be the classes they remember most.

Electric Circuits!

Once you teach the kid about electric charge (positive and negative charges), and after they understand that opposites attract, then you can introduce the circuit.

Basically,

the electrons (-) are racing through the circuit trying to reach the positive (+). This creates electricity. 

I discovered this great online tool that I'm going to use in class tomorrow.  I wish I could introduce the subject and have them all work and discover this on their own computers.  However, that is not possible.  I have one computer in my classroom open for student use.  So far I have found no reason to have one student on the computer while all of the others are doing something else.  So I'll have this up on the screen, we'll do it together, and they'll fill out their guided notes. 

Here's the AWESOME online tool!

Guided Notes Page 1

Guided Notes Page 2

Guided Notes Page 3

The Quiz:

Quiz Page 1

Quiz Page 2

Static Electricity!

Eighth graders are starting electricity this week.  To begin, we need to talk about electric charges.

Like Charges REPEL

Unlike Charges ATTRACT

This is a dating show, people.  Would you want to date someone you're related to?  NO!  Continuing down that route leads to inbreeding and all sorts of preventable diseases.  You want to date someone who you're not related to. 

Here was our experiment.  I changed one thing when I got to school that morning and tested it out.  I don't know if it was because it's really dry right now, but that balloon stuck to that wall for a long time! So this experiment as it was wasn't going to work out.  Instead, I found that you could stick it onto your hand (hand on top, balloon statically attracted to your hand underneath), but since you're grounded, it doesn't last as long.  I had one group get fabulous results that really showed that the longer you rubbed the balloon on your shirt/in your hair/etc. the longer it stayed attracted to your hand.  The other kids had some warbling results.  Overall, the kids liked the experiment and understood that an electric charges creates a force (push or pull) without touching something.