A Reading Experiment in Growing Beans

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An experiment in growing a pinto bean

This science reading product was created to teach my students the importance of reading instructions, reading technical instructions, and of course bringing awesome science into the reading curriculum.

Students will follow instructions on how to grow a pinto bean. They will keep track of its growth for 6 days, filling out a Data Observation Table by sketching the changes and writing down some of the observations that they see going on. I have my students write the observations in complete sentences.

This is a Google doc so you can change instructions as you see fit.

Volcano Vocabulary Word Search and Crossword

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volcano vocabulary worksheet and activity

Two volcano vocabulary activity worksheets. The first one is a 20-word search. The word search contains images of a shield, cinder, and composite volcano. There are some fun volcano puns that encourage reading and are fun to share. The second worksheet is a crossword puzzle containing a word bank with more words than students need. This helps eliminate students counting how many boxes there are for each word.

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Create Circular Fractions and Polygonal Fractions For Workseets or Presentations

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Fraction shape creator

This web tool can allow teachers to build images that represent fractions of circles/pies or polygons.  It is simple to use.  Just say how many equal parts you want represented and then how many parts to shade.  You can also determine the line width, shade color and rotake the shape.  Once finished take a screen show of the picture or right click and save the image.

Explore Area and Perimeter with the Phet Simulation and Game

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area and perimeter exploration image

In this activity, students will first begin by exploring area and perimeter.  Tell your students to make a shape that has a specific area or perimeter and then give them time to explore and create.  As you go, make the math challenges more difficult.  When they have had a chance to explore, have them play the game.  The challenge is to see how many levels they can complete.  Keep in mind that the last level is unique in that students now have to create a shape with a specific area while creating fraction of shaded color like the second image below.

Students Learn to Read a Ruler with this Game

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The Ruler Game

When my 3rd grade students are learning to read measurements to the quarter inch, I use this game.  Most kids get really into it.  As students get the measurement correct, the timer goes faster and faster.  You can change the settings to display rulers the measure just the inch, half inch, quarter inch, sixteenth inch, thirty-two seconds of an inch and even sixty-four seconds of an inch.