Back To School Link Up | When Thursday

It's When Thursday at Blog Hoppin' linky party!

Part of the benefit of being a middle school teacher is the chance to work with so many students throughout the day. My schedule looks different than many of those that I've read on the linky post as they are primary grades. I taught 4th grade for a large part of my career, and I loved having the same students in my room all day long. But I'm looking forward to the rotations and the ability to focus directly on science all day!

My day begins with homeroom where I'll have{20} 6th grade students. Following homeroom, I'll have those same 6th graders for science class. We're beginning the year studying astronomy. Part of our studies will include reducing the solar system to approximately 1,000 yards and we'll be making Constellation T-Shirts.

After 6th grade science, I'll jump to the first (of two) eighth grade science classes. Eighth graders will begin the year studying glaciers and glacial deposits. We'll take our first field trip on Day #4 of school! After glaciers, we'll breed fruit flies.

After 8th grade science, I head to the Makers Lab to work with various grade levels.

After Makers Lab, I have a planning period that will no doubt be used for working really hard {insert science shenanigans here}.

My planning period will run into lunch which, no doubt, will be one of the best parts of the day {and not because it's lunch!}!

I plan to show science-related movies during the lunch hour and it will be open to students. I with show movies with a science theme including, "Gravity", "The China Syndrome", and "October Sky" (based on the Homer H. Hickam Jr. book, Rocket Boys).

After lunch I have an RTI period which is a focused reading group. Then I finish out the afternoon with the second section of 8th grade science, and back-to-back 7th grade science.

Seventh graders first area of study will be to build their own chargeable batteries from lead sheet and magnesium sulfate. They will charge the batteries on a harness and doing experiments and math to measure force and distance.

I'm excited to get started. We're going to do a lot of creative things this year. I'm going to focus on hands-on activities and students evaluating themselves and the work that they do. I have scoped out our field trip destination and you'll hear more about that in future posts!

~Jerry