Pumpkin Decorating Contest 2012

Check out the pumpkins my advisee group made this year:

M&Ms

 

Mummy

 

Melted Crayons

 

 

Check Writing Activity

In accounting I created personalized checks for my students on the computer and then printed and assembled them into a checkbook. See the following link for the form I created (the formatting is not perfect when I uploaded it to google drive, so email me if you want the Microsoft Word version): Student Checks. We used these check books to complete the following activity to practice check writing and maintaining a checking account balance using check stubs. The students found this to be a fun and interactive activity, plus they were excited to receive small prizes and candy of course.  

1.      Have the students bring some kind of an item to "sell" to the class (candy, small prize, etc)

2.      Have the studnets set a price for their item that is between $5 and $100 but not a whole dollar amount (it must include cents).

3.     Then have the students create a sign that indicates a store name, what they are selling, and for how much.

4.      Maker sure the students number their checks starting with check #100, and enter a beginning balance on their first check stub ($1,000.00)

6.       Once the students havee the prep work done, they go around to the rest of their classmates and purchase 1 item from every person by filling out a check and completing the check stub.

7.       Once they have bought an item from every student, they return to their own station and complete a restrictive endorsement on the back of each check they received.

 

 

Keyboarding Magnet Tournament

In my exploratory keyboarding class we always have a double elimination keyboarding tournament to practice the QWERTY keyboard order. The students simply go head to head arranging magnetic letters and numbers in order on the board.

Editing Clip Art in Microsoft Word

Editing clip art in Microsoft Word is a really fun activity for students in any computer applications class. I simply have the students follow the steps below after showing a demonstration.

1. Insert a clip art (not a photograph)
2. Cut the clip art
3. Paste it back in as a graphic object or picture - enhanced metafile [Use the Paste special button]
4. Right click on the picture and click edit picture
5. Be create and change colors, sizes, deleting shapes, adding more shapes, etc
6. Once you are complete with your changes click and drag over the entire clip art to select all the parts.  Right click and group the points.
7. In order to resize your newly created clipart you will have to right click on the clip art once again and click on scale drawing.

Check out the student example below!
Original Clipart:

Edited Clipart:

Family Sculpture Activity

Today in health did an activity called the family sculpture activity. Basically the students act out various roles to illustrate family dynamics to see who has power, what each member is contributing, and what each member is receiving from the family. The family members include a dad, mom, the hero, the rebel, the lonely one, and a joker. See the full activity by clicking the link below:

http://www.teachersdesk.com/lessons/family_science/Family%20Sculpture%20Demonstration.htm

Political Party Posters & Presentations

This week in business law we covered the three branches of government and political parties. In order to educate the students about the political parties I divided the class into Democrats and Republicans and had them do research on the history, presidents, and platform issues of their political party and then create a poster. After the poster creation we compared the parties on the various issues side Following the presentation, the students wrote a paragraph about which political party they feel fits with their personal beliefs the best.

Needs vs. Wants

What happens when you give your 7th graders a needs vs. wants activity? You get political wit. [See photo below]

Typing Scategories

Today in Keyboarding we played a game I call Typing Scategories. Basically, I prompt the class with a category and the students race to make an A to Z list of items that would fall into that category.  The first student to complete their list first wins! See the example below:

Category: Westwood Football Game

• Audience
• Ball
• Cheerleaders
• Dancers
• Excitement
• Fans
• Game
• Hot dogs
• Injury
• Jumping for joy
• Kicker
• Linebacker
• Memories
• Noise makers
• Opponent
• Point after touchdown
• Quarterback
• Referees
• Score
• Touchdown
• United
• Victory
• Westwood
• X-rayed injuries
• Yellow and blue
• Zany fans

The QWERTY Keyboard

Ever wondered why the keys on the keyboard are in a strange order?! My students wonder the same thing, so we watch the follow clips which explains the QWERTY keyboard. My 7th graders particularly like the first clip :-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TmzuLa7TtM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCzk0rdPu-A

Check out the business cards the 7th graders made in exploratory:

Drugs Survey

The results to our drug survey is shown below:
The left chart depicts personal use - From left to right the responses are:
"I use/consume this regularly"
"I have tried this at least once"
"I havn't tried this"
"I don't even know what this is"
The right chart depicts other peoples' use - From left to right the responses are:
"I know someone that uses/consumes this regularly"
"I know someone who has tried this"
"I don't know anyone who has tried this"
"I don't even know what this is"

ABC Tournament

Congrats to Maddie, Hunter, Kailie and Shayna as they won our ABC tournament in keyboarding exploratory. They were able to put the letters and numbers in keyboard order the fastest!

Modeling Embryogenesis

Today in health we learned about how the embryo develops using playdough. Check it out below:

Modeling Embryogenesis

Embryogenesis is the growth and development of the embryo. An important point in embryonic development occurs at the beginning of the third week when the implanted blastocyst differentiates into three spate layers of cells that develop into very specific functions in the human organism.

1.       Flatten the three balls of play dough.

2.       Holding one disc horizontally (purple), imagine that it is connected by a bubble on top and a bubble on bottom. The top bubble in the amniotic cavity and the bottom is the yolk sac.

a.       Amniotic cavity contains amniotic fluid that regulates the temperature of the developing organism and provides a protective cushion from sharp movements

b.      The yolk sac produces blood cells until other organs are fully developed and able to take over this function

3.       The original disc represents the ectoderm (purple).

a.       The ectoderm is a layer of cells that will eventually become the nervous system and the skin.

4.       The disc of the inner cell mass differentiates into two layers (place a second flattened ball of red play dough beneath the first – without fusing them). The new layer represents the endoderm (red).

a.       The cells in the endoderm are destined to be the digestive system, the lungs, urinary tract, and the glands.

5.       A third layer develops between the first 2 (slide the third orange disk between the existing layers of play dough). This final layer represents the mesoderm.

a.       The cells in the mesoderm will differentiate into the muscles, the skeleton, the circulatory system, and other internal organs.

6.        At the same time that the mesoderm appears, the neural tube begins to form  (press the 3 layers together and then form the neural tube down the center of the ectoderm by pinching together two parallel ridges). In the developing embryo, this develops into a hollow tube.

a.       The neural tube is the place where the spinal cord and the brain will develop.

7.       Next, the edges of the disc begin to fold down around the shrinking yolk sac – resulting in a tube-like/burrito-shaped embryonic body (fold the three layers with the ectoderm (purple)on the outside and the endoderm (red) in the center.

8.       Note the three original layers of cells and their locations after this step in embryogenesis.

9.       The tube – like body bends into a C-shape (cephalo-caudal folding)

a.       Cehpalo – head

b.      Caudal – tail

Days of School Remaining!

Bag of Beans - Contraceptives

In Health we begin our contraceptives unit today. In order to introduce the topic I have numbered bags of beans with different % of black and white beans. Students reach in and pull out a bean noting the color. After repeating that 10 times we calculate a % effectiveness. Once all of the bags were lined up, I revealed the actual percents and had them guess what we were leaning about. Contraceptives!

HIV/AIDs Attitude Survey

I gave a brief survey to my health class before and after our HIV/AIDs unit. Picutred below are the results. Quite a few attitudes surrounding HIV/AIDs shifted over the course of only a couple weeks.

Friends to Block: STD Facebook Profiles

To reveiw the different types of STDs, my students created Facebook profiles for the various diseases. Look closely and you should be able to find lots of information including pathogen, number of cases, symptoms, dangers, etc.

Chlamydia

Genital Warts

Gohnorrhea

Herpes