Thursday, January 06, 2011

For Those Who Inquired - Science Notebooks and Weber Grills

I love it when you guys leave comments!

First off, Jessie left a comment asking about my science notebooks.  First off, I'm not an expert.  At all.  In fact, I've done science notebooks for a whopping two days.  However, I'll lead you to some of my resources.  First off is Dinah Zike's book "Dinah Zike's Notebook Foldables for Spirals, Binders & Composition Books"  We have used her foldable techniques for years and one thing Mrs. Eagle and I did not want to get rid of were foldables - we saw this book at the NSTA conference in December, and attended one of the conference workshops that her organization put on about doing science notebooks.  That workshop may have been the best one I've attended in ages.  Now we know how to keep doing foldables and at the same time, utilize notebooks.

Mrs. Eagle also went to an in-service (I was supposed to go but my father was in the hospital) where another teacher in our district shared his notebook ideas.  There are lots of teachers out there who do them.  If you are a member of NSTA, you can go on their website and find a lot of things.  Also, Google them like mad.  You come across a lot of resources that way.  And of course, one of my favorite bloggers, But Wait! There's More!, does a lot with notebooks so you may want to check out her site.  (And if you aren't interested in notebooks, check out her site anyway).

As for the Weber Grill...My mother refuses to get my husband books for Christmas.  She feels, rightly so, that we have run out of room at our house for books so she won't buy any for him.  He loves to cook out, and really needed a decent, larger grill.  So, she got him a grill for Christmas...

Okay, let me back up and explain why it's a Weber grill.  A few years ago, Mother Dear was transporting her grill to a BBQ her GOP ladies were putting on at a blackberry farm.  She had the grill in the back of her little pickup and took a turn a bit too fast (for a grill) and looked in the rear view mirror just in time to see her nearly new Weber grill go sailing out of the bed of her truck and bounce down the street.  She was sure she had just ruined her grill and was not happy.  Anyhow, she stopped, went back, picked up her grill only to discover that not only was it still in two pieces (grill and lid) but they weren't even dinged or dented.  The lid still fit perfectly on the grill!  We've pretty much decided after that experience that Weber grills were the best made around.

Okay, so Mr. Bluebird gets a grill for Christmas and it was sitting there in a big box in my living room.  For about 3 days.  I kept hoping he'd get a clue and either assemble it himself, or something.  However, I'm the one in the family with most of the tools, so one morning I decided to go ahead and put the thing together myself. If not, it probably would still be in my living room.  It was remarkably easy.  I had it together in about half and hour, and had it put out on the deck (complete with cover) by the time Mr. Bluebird rolled out of bed.

I also am good at fixing toilets.

3 comments:

leesepea said...

Oh no! I haven't done notebooks in years! Last year I switched to packets to simplify grading this year I'm relying solely on the students' Interactive Reader workbooks and don't collect anything but lab notes and tests/quizzes for science.

But thanks for the major props - and I love foldables! I will definitely have to check out the DZ book!

R2P2 said...

Yay foldables! I need to get a book on those myself. I love them and try to work them in whenever possible. Sometimes I feel like it's just playing "coloring" when we take 20 minutes out of a 50 minute class to make one, but then again, the info really seems to stick with the kids, so maybe I shouldn't worry about justifying it.

That said, thanks for the advice on the grill! We don't yet have one, but I have a sneaky suspicion we'll need one come summertime.

Dan Edwards said...

Foldables are really cool. I have some info on my blog about Interactive Notebooks (same thing as you are doing?) with a History/Social Studies angle, but lots of it is generic. That being said, my switch to teaching 8th graders has led to discontinuing interactive notebooks.....using packets instead because (1) Science 8 does packets and (2) it was taking too much time in class to assemble interactive notebooks....students were not, would not deal with them at home. Strongly advise users to buy lots of glue, color pencils and spiral notebooks at back to school sales when it is cheaper.