Wednesday, September 30, 2015

Plicker at GREEN!

What is Plicker?
Plicker is a free website/app teachers can use in the classroom to conduct quick, formative assessments. 

How does Plicker work?
Students receive a card with a special pattern that corresponds to their name through the Plicker software.  As multiple choice questions are projected onto the classroom screen, students choose an answer by turning their cards the correct way (A, B, C, or D).  Using a tablet or phone, the teacher scans the student cards and the answers are recorded and saved.

Mrs. Reynold's Music classes use Plicker!

For this Plicker Quiz, students were shown images of rhythms, rests, and pitches and were asked to correctly identify them by name.  

This year at GREEN, music students in grades 3-8 have used Plicker to show they understand a topic and are ready to move on. 


Tuesday, September 29, 2015

Holy Smokes!

The 7th graders in Mr. Sonmez's Science class have been exploring Matter along with chemical reactions. It has been an exciting time in class as the students performed many experiments with lots of "AHA moments"! 

What do you know about sublimation?











Friday, September 25, 2015

Falling For Fall in 2nd grade


2nd grade students in Mrs. Mendiola's Art Classroom were discussing the changes of weather in Fall. They analyzed and described the changing leaf colors by creating leaf prints. The students utilized clay and paint in order to mirror the details in an actual leaf.






Mrs. Harmon's Geologists

Mrs. Harmon’s third grade class is experimenting with the properties used to identify Minerals. Some students pictured are discovering that Streak is the color of the powder left when a mineral is rubbed across a white tile. Other students are discovering that the Hardness of a mineral describes how easily it can be scratched with a penny. Not pictured is the property of Luster which students discovered how light bounces off a mineral with a flashlight. GREEN's 3rd graders have had fun exploring with Rocks and Minerals!








Thursday, September 24, 2015

LIGHTS! CAMERA! ACTION!

GREEN Charter's First Graders have been learning about Light and Shadow. Through inquiry based activities the students have come to understand that light makes all things visible, light moves in a straight line, and shadows are caused by blocked light.


Students created shadows using clay, craft sticks and flashlights. They put the stick into the clay, set it on paper and shined the light on it. They traced the shadow and explored what happened if they moved the light or stick. 



Flashlights in Action!








                  The unit of study ended with lessons on Light and Shadow at The Greenville Children's Museum.


Monday, September 14, 2015

6th Grade Energy Debates

GREEN Charter's 6th graders explored Renewable and Nonrenewable Energy sources in order to have a debate. The students utilized the NEED Infobooks and online resources in order to discuss their energy source. The debate consisted of an introduction on the source, 2 questions from the moderator, and a wrap-up. The students discussed where their source is found, how we use it, the cost-effectiveness, benefits and most importantly why their source is more beneficial than the opposing source. The students quickly realized that these sources could be debated all day and that there is no one source that stands out as the best for the economy, environment, and people!