Designing Skyscrapers

Tall buildings and modern designs are fascinating aspects of architecture and engineering, so it is no surprise that students love the idea of learning more about these as they take the role of a designer.  Studying existing buildings, learning about how they are designed to withstand natural disasters while still being aesthetically pleasing, is our starting point for the unit.  As a part of this, students choose a skyscraper of interest to research and then replicate its design using Sketchup (CAD), a free download, to create a scale model.

Empire State Building

Our next lesson lets them use what they've learned to design their own skyscraper, again to scale in Sketchup.  I love seeing the creative ideas they have!

Finally, using a budget and a limited amount of time (just like real engineers!), teams construct a skyscraper together.  The finished product needed to be to scale, and able to withstand both wind and earthquake!

If you'd like to use this lesson with your class, you can obtain the full lesson plan here.

Winter Holiday Cards & Animations

With Winter Holiday break just a few weeks away, it can be tough to keep students engaged in their work.  It doesn't matter whether they celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa or just being off school for two weeks, they need something fun as we head toward break that still benefits their learning.

This year, I expanded the lesson I usually do to offer a few more choices for students to create a holiday greeting.  Their choices include creating a standard, printable greeting card in Microsoft Word or creating an animated greeting using PowerPoint or Kizoa, a cool new FREE (no need for download!) Web 2.0 tool.  

I have the benefit of each student having their own computer in my room, but all these options could also be completed in partners or on iPads.  

Animation has my 8th graders fascinated this year after an earlier unit where they wrote and animated a Choose Your Own Adventure in PowerPoint.  Lots of them wanted to do more with that and have chosen PowerPoint for this project, but I also have a sizeable percentage that want to try something new in animation and have opted for Kizoa.

If you'd like to do use this with your own students, you can get the full lesson here.

Building a Musical Instrument

One of my students' favorite units is our unit on the Physics of Sound.  Middle schoolers LOVE music, whether they are in the Fine Arts program or just active listeners to their MP3's.  So, when I tell them they are going to have a chance to learn more about those sounds and then design an instrument of their own, they're pretty excited!

We start with learning the physics of sound by doing several online simulations along with some research.  Then, with that knowledge, we learn about sound waves using a Slinky toy.  Be prepared to address potential silliness with this BEFORE the lab.  We always review the difference between having fun and being immature :)  

Designing the instruments, requires some research, but most students jump right in to figuring out how their instrument can be the best.  The instrument needs to be able to play three different notes and repeat those notes three times.  YouTube videos are great for this if your school has access to that.

We used a variety of recycled materials - some that I provided in the classroom and others that students chose to bring themselves.  During the planning and design phase, students draw their project and create a materials list before construction begins.

One of our more interesting final products was this carrot recorder:

If you'd like the full lesson, it is available here to download.

Choose Your Own Adventure Stories with Technology!

Do your students groan when you mention writing?  Even my reluctant writers LOVED this activity!  Choose Your Own Adventure books have always been popular with kids.  The aspect of having control over how the story goes and how it ends has appeal to everyone.  Giving students the chance to write their own AND incorporate technology with it to animate the story got everyone interested!

We started by having students write a draft of their story in Microsoft Word (any word processor will work though).  I teach 8th grade, so I had them write 12 scenes - each scene ends with 2 choices which then branch the story.  After discussing several methods for organizing that on paper (numbering paragraphs, using color, using a chart, etc.) I turned them loose to create.

This wasn't a quiet, writing environment though.  Instead, students were actively engaged not only in writing their story, but sharing as they went with their classmates.  They refined their ideas, tried different ones, and came up with some great stories!

Next, it was time to animate them.  We used Microsoft PowerPoint, but you could also use Google Slides.  After a quick demonstration of changing backgrounds, inserting transitions between slides, including animations on the pictures on each slide, and adding in hyperlinks to take them to the next point in the story, they were off and running.  Again, lots of interaction between students, showing off their ideas to each other and helping each other make it better!

Prior to this project, I have my students do some short tutorial/projects in PowerPoint to learn the basics.  My Information Technology classes are large (32 students) so students know they can't always have my undivided attention and have to help each other too.  We call this 3B4ME - they need to do three things to help themselves BEFORE asking for my help.  I use this poster to remind them (click here for your own free copy!)

If you'd like the full lesson for creating a Choose Your Own Adventure Story, click here to download.

Humor in the Classroom

I teach 8th grade (Information Technology and Engineering) and while I admire those teachers who can act goofy with their kids, that's just not me.  However, I do still like to share my own sense of humor with the kids, just in my own more reserved way!

One of the things I like to do is post amusing posters in my room that still have a purpose.  I found this quote that I really liked on the Internet, and "made it my own" with a Grumpy Cat meme generator.  The pretty background digital paper is courtesy of The Cottage Market,

My the second week of school, my students know I love Grumpy Cat's attitude (I want to be her when I grow up!) and have a couple other signs using her in my room too and she often shows up with some of her attitude in my PowerPoint presentations or just at an odd moment on my SMARTBoard.  

How do you share yourself with your students?

TpT Seller Terms of Use

This summers TpT Challenge #tptsellerchallenge has gotten me totally energized about adding products and updating things in my store, adding this blog, a Facebook page and LOTS more.  I'm loving all the suggestions and information other teachers are sharing with each other too.  One of the things that was shared was creating a Terms of Use page to include with lessons on Teachers Pay Teachers.  Since I don't do clip art, backgrounds, fonts or any of the creative stuff, I hadn't even thought of that!  So, one of my tasks this week was to create my Terms of Use.

Now I'm working on a better looking credit page (the one that credits all those creative folks who do the digital papers, borders, clip art, and stuff that make our lessons look so awesome.  #tpt

I've also been reading other blogs and getting ideas and just loved one that Teacher Mom shared on her blog about getting in "Go Mode".  There are some really awesome resources in her post that are helpful to all teachers!  Check it out.

So, now I'm back to working on new lessons, revised lessons, and other great stuff for my classroom for next year.  I teach 8th grade Engineering and Information Technology so my lessons are always changing to keep up with the latest things.  I love creating lessons, so that works great for me!