The past two summers I have taught summer school for the gifted program in my school district, and I absolutely love it! The most students I had in my classes was 9.. NINE STUDENTS PEOPLE! What's not to love about that?
This summer I taught a science class and a computer class. It really is amazing what you can get done with a *single digit number* of students in your room. I taught the same science class last year, so it was much easier this year since I had already created most of the materials that I use. We do about one science experiment a day, and we record our information in a new foldable each time. Here are some of the fun foldables we have made with science.. Just FYI there's a ton of pics...Stick with me until the end, and you could find an EASY foldable to use with your kiddos next year!
Triorama
I really like using foldables like this one with groups because each person can create their own part of the foldable. They always turn out really well! Something about creating something 3D just gets the students engaged and working hard! This foldable went with the Dissolving Gummy Bear experiment. We had 4 solutions and 4 students in each group, so each student chose a solution, created a hypothesis, and described the results in words and pictures.
Diorama
This foldable went with the Egg Drop experiment. The students created their own egg drop containers out of recyclable materials, which basically was any random container I had at home. That part actually drove Matt crazy because I had to start saving the containers about a month in advance so we could have enough for each experiment. Soo.. here's a little shout out to Matt - Thanks for not throwing out the "trash"!! :) Anyways, back to the experiment.. We dropped the containers from various heights and tried to see who would have the best design. We had enough eggs to redo this experiment another day, and I had the students take another design and delete one item completely, switch a material with another, and add a new material to the design to improve it. This got them thinking since they only wanted to add to the designs and not remove anything. I wish I took pictures of their containers, but I guess I'll just have to remember to do that next year!
Flip Book
This foldable went with the dissolving egg shell experiment. Under each flap the students wrote about what was happening with the egg shell and drew a picture of the changes that took place. Super easy to create and use!
Trifolds
These foldables went with learning about the rock cycle and the water cycle. This one is really versatile and can be done on the fly! The students drew a creative image of the topic on the front cover, and the inside included note taking pages and written response questions as well.
Mini Book
This foldable went with the "Don't Let it Melt!" experiment where we tried to prevent an ice cube from melting, which during the summer in Arizona is NOT easy to do! I thought that the ice cubes would be completely gone within 10 minutes at the most, but the students created such great designs that some ice cubes lasted almost an hour!!! I had to call it at 45 minutes since we were out of time, but there was a lot of ice cube left. I was really impressed! Inside the foldable the students wrote the materials they used in the design, their hypothesis, recorded the results throughout the experiment, and what they would do differently next time. They had such a great time with this experiment that we actually did it again, and improved other students designs!
Window Flip Book
This foldable went with the "Don't Let it Melt! Part 2". On the flaps the students wrote about their materials, why they chose those materials, their hypothesis, and what happened. The students wrote about "what happened" after the experiment was completed, and they took their data and wrote a paragraph about it. On the back of the foldable the students recorded the data from the ice cube melting. Another easy foldable!
Window Flip Book - Version 2
This window flip book is similar to the one above, but slightly different to keep the kiddos interested in learning. This foldable went with the "How can a balloon inflate by itself"" experiment. The studetns wrote their hypothesis for how long it would take to inflate, what materials they thought they needed to use, what happened, and what they would do differently next time. Easy peasy!
Brown Bag Journal
The students had a brown bag science journal where they responded to daily journal questions, and if they needed additional space to write they could write in here, too.
Action Shots
My computer class focused on basics of Word and PowerPoint, and also how to properly research. The end goal was to research a nonfiction topic and give a presentation to the parents during our Open House the last day of classes. I was really surprised at some of the topics the students chose, and they were 100% engaged the whole time. It was music to my ears!
P.S. - I don't have any pictures from my computer class since I couldn't take pics of the kiddos giving the presentations and I didn't think pictures of kids working on computers is that exciting. So the pictures would have been boring.. but the class was informative and engaging!
What do you do with your summers
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