The Z- Chart
The Z-Chart is a strategy you can use to help students summarize reading passages or content from videos. It is a great way to help your students focus on the main ideas and sequence.
- Provide each student with a Z-Chart graphic organizer.
- Title the graphic organizer based on the reading passage or video.
- Explain to students that they will be watching a video and using the graphic organizer to gather important ideas and details.
- Play the video (or read the passage), pausing three times. During each pause, instruct students to write one key idea on the left side of the Z-Chart.
- Replay the video or reread the passage and prompt students to add details or correct misinformation.
- Ask students to write one sentence that explains the main idea at the top of the Z.
- Finally, have students draw a visual representation on the right side of the Z.
Resources from Discovery
Math: Cha-Ching Money Smart Kids – Go beyond counting coins with these fun and engaging videos and activities that introduce concepts of finance to younger students.
Science: Sid, the Science Kid – Meet, Sid, an inquisitive student who uses scientific principles to help satisfy his curiosity about the world around him. • Social Studies: Liberty’s Kids – Travel back in time to witness and discover the birth of democracy in America through the eyes of James and Sarah, two teenage apprentices who worked in Benjamin Franklin's print shop.
Health & Wellness: Healthy Decisions –This channel provides grade-banded instructional materials and classroom resources to support students in developing healthy decision-making skills around such topics as alcohol and drugs, mental health and wellness, nutrition, and physical activity
Visual Glossary
Our students are very visual and will remember pictures and video before they will recall words. Writing glossary terms and their definitions as a means of learning them will NOT work for 90% of your students. Consider having your students create a visual or illustrated glossary that incorporates words and images. This will also help your students with special needs and those learning English.
Have students use the visual glossary that is available in stemscopes to help them create their own.
New Events and Timeline
I've met with nearly every team, and I only have a few more to go.
To review our meetings below is a synopsis:
1. Classroom competitions take place between Nov. 27th and Dec. 8th.
2. You have a Science Olympics Sponsor at your school that will take care of purchasing materials and collecting names of winners. They will submit the winner for all grade levels to me.
3. Some events have changed:
- 2nd: Foil Boats
- 3rd: Airplanes
- 4th: Marshmallow Towers
- 5th: Straw Bridges
- 6th: Roller Coasters
Important Things to Consider:
1. Look through the directions for your event to make sure you have all materials. Convey any material needs to your Science Olympics Sponsor for your school.
2. Have students work in groups of 2 or 3 only.
3. You can help clarify directions, but you cannot help the students in any way.
4. Give students MULTIPLE opportunities to practice their event before competition takes place.
5. This all takes place in the regular education classroom. None of this project goes home.
Below is a link to the full handbook. Please refer to it if you have any questions. You are always welcome to send me an email if you would like to clarify anything.
From K to Careers: How to Connect STEM Career Pathways at Every Grade
Nob. 8th 4:00 - 5:00
Don’t miss the opportunity to explore Discovery Education’s growing library of career videos and free STEM activities with real-time instructional support from STEM education specialist Jackie Smalls. She will introduce ways to pair these resources with thinking routines and problem-solving skills that highlight career connections in school.
Career-connected learning not only introduces complex problem-solving and creative-thinking skills but ultimately produces more well-rounded students and employees beyond K-12 classrooms. Career connections help ignite student curiosity and play an invaluable role in expanding students’ horizons and preparing them for success in the future.
The STEM Careers Coalition is an alliance of industries and non-profit organizations working to solve critical diversity gaps in the STEM professional workforce by providing teachers and students with equitable access to innovative, standards-aligned content and learning experiences. The Coalition aims to reach 10 million individuals with its STEM resources and career connections by 2025.
Content Literacy: Teaching Comprehension Strategies Across the Curriculum
Nov. 14 - 3:00 - 4:00
If you cannot attend at this time, register and you will be sent a recording.
Content matters. Thinking matters. We teach comprehension strategies in the literacy block and also across the curriculum in science and social studies so kids can learn, understand, and remember it. Above all, comprehension is a knowledge-building activity. The more content knowledge we have, the more likely we are to grow it. Content literacy is all about how kids acquire knowledge, as well as how they make sense of it and use it in their daily lives.
When we teach content literacy, we build a foundation of thinking strategies. We teach kids to ask and address questions, infer to read between the lines, determine what’s important to remember, and synthesize big ideas within and across texts. In this way, students turn information into knowledge by thinking about it. During this edWebinar, attendees will:
- Consider research-based thinking strategies for comprehending and deepening engagement with content
- Learn how students use comprehension strategies flexibly to read, write, talk, draw, view, and create in science and social studies
- Learn ways to engage students in rich talk and discussion about content
Astronaut Training by Aneta Cruz
When Astrid’s first space mission goes disastrously wrong, she realizes she needs a bit more training than she thought!
My Indigo World by Rosa Chang
This gorgeous celebration of the color blue and the indigo plant, by a Korean American debut artist and storyteller, powerfully connects art and the natural world.
Mysterious Patterns
Nature’s repeating patterns, better known as fractals, are beautiful, universal, and explain much about how things grow. Fractals can also be quantified mathematically. Here is an elegant introduction to fractals through examples that can be seen in parks, rivers, and our very own backyards.
Buzzing with Questions by Janice N. Harrington
Can spiders learn? How do ants find their way home? Can bugs see color? All of these questions buzzed endlessly in Charles Henry Turner’s mind. As the first Black entomologist, he was fascinated by plants and animals and bugs.
