Spur-of-the-Moment Snowflake Lesson

Snowflake taken on black paper with Ollo-Clip lens on iPhone.

Take your students outside while it's snowing BIG FLAKES!

Give each student a piece of black construction paper and a hand lens.
They'll also need a clipboard with a piece of white paper and a pencil.
Wave black paper in the air to cool it down to the outside temperature.
Lay flat on ground or bench, even teacher's cars!
Watch while SNOWFLAKES collect on paper.
Start sketching SNOWFLAKES!

When inside, give each student a piece of colored chalk and have them draw on large paper or the black board if you have one, whiteboard with colored markers, otherwise.

Take time to admire each sketch, challenge those without the six-stem structure, and take photos of all the beautiful SNOWFLAKES!

Great lesson!

Try My GeoGenius PowerPoint!

I love showing PPTs to my students! The best kinds start or end the day and don't relate  much to the lesson of the day. (Yes! That's "legal!") They're just good general interest PPTs that catch your students' attention and raise awareness of the Earth and all its Glory!

My GeoGenius PPT checks out how Geo-Savy your students are. Give them the half-page FollowSheet to be handed in as they leave the room.

You can certainly tailor the last slides to your own state! I've added a couple of Missouri-specific questions there, but go ahead and change, by all means!

Email Marcia (mjkrech at yahoo dot com) for a download of the PowerPoint and Followsheet.

And have a great time chatting with your students about all things Geology!

Marcia's Teacher Tutorials

Have you seen my new feature called Teacher Tutorials?

I know many of you miss the Newsletter I put out last year. What with all the new demands in my life, I wasn't able to continue with the Newsletter this year.

However, I think my Teacher Tutorials are a good alternative! And I hope you agree!

Teacher Tutorials came about like this:
I get so many "How do you do that?" questions.
I thought I would address them one by one.
I LOVE decorating tutorials. I love anything that tells you step by step how to paint a chair or your kitchen cabinets, or how to make a quilt binding, or how to clean your shower stall with a Dawn-vinegar solution (via Pinterest.)

Why not do the same thing for teachers? 
CONNECTION! Marcia's Teacher Tutorials! 
Including lots of free materials for new and "new" Science teachers!

The first one covers the Most-Frequently-Asked Question of all time: How should I arrange my classroom so I can do all the wonderful active-learning, hands-on activities and labs you suggest?

Here's the beginning of my first Teacher Tutorial: 

Sure Fire Method for Setting Up Science Tables for the Beginning of the Year!

Step by Step Set Up!

Looking for a good way to set up your classroom tables for the beginning of the year? Follow Marcia's suggestions to get your new school year ready to go, prepared for an active learning atmosphere, starting on the first day of class!

Step 1:

Arrange your tables or desks in any arrangement you are comfortable with. I do NOT usually start the school year with the arrangement in the above photo! But if you are comfortable with this set up, use it! I usually used the traditional all tables facing the teacher podium. Click here for seating chart tips that can be used throughout the year with rearrangeable sticky photo tiles!

Click here to see the rest of the first Teacher Tutorial!

Hope you are liking the new Teacher Tutorials! 
Go here to see them all.

Earthquake in Alaska

"A major earthquake measuring a preliminary magnitude of 7.1 has rocked remote portions of Alaska, the U.S. Geological Survey reports. The USGS issued, then canceled, a tsunami warning for Alaska's Aleutian Islands. It also lowered the magnitude to 6.8."

Click here for more details.

Hurricane Irene heads for the United States coastline

Aug 26 (Reuters) - President Barack Obama on Friday warned Americans to take Hurricane Irene seriously and urged them to obey orders to evacuate from the path of what is likely to be an "extremely dangerous and costly" storm.

"All indications point to this being a historic hurricane," Obama said in a statement to reporters from the farm where he is vacationing on this island off the Boston coast.

Fifty-five million people are potentially in Hurricane Irene's path, from the Carolinas to Cape Cod on the U.S. East Coast, and tens of thousands are evacuating as cities including New York brace for the powerful storm to hit.

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Track Hurricane Irene with your students! 

Use this graph: http://tinyurl.com/3u9375a 

and this site for the data: http://tinyurl.com/4xu452m. (Put cursor over dot for coordinates.)

Or try this:

Hurricane Student Booklet from NOAA.