Word Wall

It's been a looooong while!  Hopefully I can put up a few posts in the next few days, because we've all been working hard and learning a lot!  I definitely have the pictures to show for it, I just need to post it. 

First up:  Word Wall.

I haven't been totally good at updating this word wall, but what I have updated is totally beautiful (if I do say so myself).  I got this idea from another teacher, who sold her word wall words.  Unfortunately, I'm a brand new teacher who is not ready to buy funds (especially when it's unsure how long I'll actually be teaching this subject--special ed, you know... we change around some times).  Instead, I created my own.  Thus the reason why I've kind of slowed down and need to remember to make more when I go home!

Our first unit for both 7th and 8th: the Scientific Method.

The arrows are supposed to show how the words are connected.  I would cover this up with a sheet whenever we took quizzes, but the kids have been good to use it when they need it.

7th grade Cell unit.  I don't go over all of the organelles, but make sure my kids know the important ones.  By the end of the unit most know these in and out; I'm really proud of my kids.

The Scientific Method & Bias

The last day of Review week I decided to take all class reviewing the scientific method.  We had just finished our ecology unit, so I didn't want to take time reviewing that again.  There are probably going to be questions on the test dealing with making a hypothesis or conclusion, or evaluating bias, so we needed to spend time on that.

Because the term bias was newer to kids, this was a little slower than the last two days of review.  Basically, this day wasn't review at all, but just test-prep.

Also, notice that each day there is an additional Brain on our worksheet.  Our brains are getting stronger.  Isn't that cute????? :)

Reviewing Heredity

Review Day Two: Heredity.

This covered 2 months worth of material.

sexual/asexual reproduction
inherited vs. acquired traits
dominant and recessive traits
karyotypes
a little bit of natural selection mixed in there, too.

The kids did well on this, though not as well as cells. But there was still many good answers and good energy in the classroom.

Click here for the review worksheet.

Reviewing Cells

Two weeks ago my 7th graders and I engaged in a week-long intense review of everything we had studied this year.  The reason:  7th grade Standards Based Assessment in science was the following Monday.

Day one: Cells

Everything about cells

Plant/Animal Cell Structure and Function
Unicellular/Multicellular
6 Characteristics of Living Things
Biotic/Abiotic
Mitosis
Photosynthesis
Cellular Respiration

That's about 3 months worth of material that we went over in one day, and I was wondering how my kids would do.

Answer: AWESOME!  My kids did SO well on this review and it really made me so proud as a teacher.  The only thing they had trouble with was unicellular/multicellular, but we never spent much time on that and they're big words and if you have a learning disability and can't read very well in the first place then big words like that will scare you off.  Yeah.

We spent half of the class going over everything and then I gave them the other half to complete the review worksheet, which can be downloaded at the bottom of this page.

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

Final Wave Review

We are officially done with waves––both sound and light.

Today we finished off our last class of it by having a mini-lesson on what a lightyear is and why it's important, and then we did a final review for powerpoint.



These questions on the review are pretty close (if not word for word) to the questions on their test next class.  I had them get out a piece of paper, copy down the question, then we'd talk about what they thought the answer was, I would show the answer, and they would copy it down.

Most of the kids were doing really well on the review.  I had two boys in front for one of my classes that would celebrate with multiple, loud high-fives with big smiles every time one of them answered a question correctly.  The girls in that class just rolled their eyes at them. hahaha.  Middle school.

To download my powerpoint, click here.