Teach Dailey

Inquiry Science and Investigation into the Marshmallow: In our graduate science course at UC Davis, we have been training in the Next Generation Science Standards. We ended our class with the the marshmallow challenge.  The Marshmallow Challenge  is a team building activity where groups work together to build the tallest freestanding structure using a measured amount of spaghetti, string, masking tape, and a marshmallow at the top. My cohort loved it, and we felt so much closer after working together in the 18 minutes to create a structure. My teams structure ultimately fell over too soon, but we were still having a great time seeing all the other structures that our cohort built. There is a fantastic video on the official website (see link above in purple) that talks about why kindergartners are more successful than most people. This activity really made me aware of how important the process is over the product. The notion of making prototypes along the way and testing is b...

Our team showing chemical reaction results Ingredients used in experament Graphic organizer to analyze data (place post its to show what happened) As part of our preparation for teaching science, we took a field trip to the Lawrence Hall of Science. We are discussing seeing science as a verb, instead of as endless facts to memorize. We investigated different types of sand, chemical reactions, and the varieties of bees that live in Costa Rica.  This picture is after a presentation we did where we got to design our ideal school science plan. We dreamed of a school where every classroom had earthworms as pets, worked in a garden, and composted. This science plan focused on student-centered learning, where inquiry was rewarded and fostered in a community of learners. Students had buddies that would carry out scientific investigations and update a newsletter monthly about what they had discovered. What I love about the Next Generation Science Standards is that this stude...

SEL Recently I found a delightful website that allows a person to add words to an image from a Dr. Seuss book.  This website  has inspired me to develop a lesson using the book The Sneetches . After reading this book to my 5th grade class during a lesson about civil rights and voting history in the United States, I was impresses by what students observed about this book. They made connections to bullying, diversity, and how people should be comfortable being different. I think that part of creating a safe place in the classroom should be having discussions like this, where we talk about the importance of diversity and treating each other with kindness. I look forward to making bulletin boards with The Sneetches and other wonderful trade books that promote social and emotional learning in the classroom. An update about the letters to the Governors:  Students have been steadily receiving packages from various states that in total have spent over $40.00 in postage. It ...

Let's start with some standards: This text set will aim to introduce and teach 5th grade students a foundation to standards 5.3 and 5.4. I have crossed out the substrands that will not be addressed by this text set. This text set will not completely teach every part of the standards, but will aim to provide a jumping off point. Students will understand the differences between a primary and secondary source. They will begin to look at sources with a critical eye. For example, near the end of the lesson they will watch a portion of Disney's Pocahontas. They will note historical discrepancies that stand out and make inferences about why they may be present. Students will also analyze various images and observe how Native Americans and colonists were portrayed by Europeans. The goal of this text set is to show students that Native Americans had a developed society when the colonists arrived to create Jamestown. That the colonists would not have survived without th...

This weekend I had so much fun making a visual thesaurus that my students can work with to determine the shades of meaning that various words can have. I started with some paint swatches from my local hardware store. I wrote words that were synonyms on similar colors and then cut the colors apart into equal strips. I have them grouped by meaning and ready for the students to work with.