Summer BOGO #3!

Have you been waiting to see what my newest summer BOGO will be? Well, the wait is over! For this week (from today through Saturday, 6/20/15), I have decided to offer a project BOGO. If you purchase my best-selling and highly-rated Probability Project, you will receive my Scale Model of the Solar System Project for free!

Both these projects are fabulous ways to assess your students’ understanding in a hands-on, authentic way. In the Probability Project (which is designed to take place at the END of a probability unit of study), students create their own carnival-style games, predict outcomes, play the games, record data, and analyze the data they’ve collected.

In the Solar System Project (which is designed to take place at the END of a unit teaching scale and scientific notation), students research the planet sizes and distances from the sun in our solar system. Then, they create a scale model of the solar system and discuss (through writing) their processes.

My students LOVED both of these projects, and I’m sure yours will, too. They are aligned to CCSS (Math), but would apply to any state’s standards regarding probability, scale, and scientific notation.

Depending on your standards and curriculum, these projects would be appropriate for students in grades 6-9.

I hope you’re having a great summer!

Follow this link to the BOGO offer!

Teachers are Heroes!

It’s true, teachers really are heroes! Teachers are leaders, nurses, parents, psychologists, social workers, friends, confidants, and so much more. If you’ve been waiting for the perfect time to check out Teachers Pay Teachers, it has arrived! Today (only for a few more hours!) everything on the site – in every single store! – is at least 10% off! My store has everything 28% off! That’s right! If you’ve been eyeing that perfect lesson, activity, or resource, now is the time to stop by and stock up! There probably won’t be another sale until my birthday (that’s all the way in April, people!), so get test prep, Common Core and LAFS resources, math lessons, writing resources, reading activities, and so much more! And don’t forget, there’s a TON of free stuff on the site, too – not just my store, but hundreds – thousands (literally, there are over 70K stores on TpT!) – of stores with something for everyone. So no matter what or you teach – in a classroom K-12, early childhood, college, or even homeschool, there is something for you! Head on over and check it out!

Get your teaching resources while the getting is good!

Taking Over the School

Have you ever wanted to be “that teacher” who had their students’ work plastered all over the school? Yeah, that was me, too. I wanted my students’ work to be seen by everyone, but it seemed a little odd to post random 7^th grade math assignments down in the 6^th grade hallway. So I thought about it and came up with something that no one would have a problem with if it encroached on their wall space: a project!

I waited until we came to the scientific notation unit and then I assigned my “scale model” project. I overlapped this with the science class’s unit on the solar system and came up with the “Scale Model of the Solar System” project. The kids had to do all the research on the planets and then build a scale model of the solar system. They did it in pairs, because it was a lot of work.

The results were amazing! I was lucky enough to teach at a K-8 school, so by the end of the project, we had Pluto (this was before Pluto was demoted to non-planet status) down near the Kindergarten rooms with the suns all in the media center. The kids loved measuring the distances from the sun and displaying their work all over the school. The project took about 2 weeks and the kids really understood scientific notation because they had to do so many conversions for all the data. They also knew their solar system inside and out.

It turned out to be a great way for them to learn and be excited about it.

Scale Model of the Solar System