Coffeechug Daily Education Links 08/31/2012

• Use Google Forms to Make Grading More Efficient

  Something to think about for my classroom

  tags: education grading google forms

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Lego Building Challenge Student #2: Duck

Here is the second creation in the BMS Lego Challenge.

This one is simply titled, "Duck", and is another impressive build from the 20 pieces available.




Great job Josh Turner.

Who will be next?

And what will they build?

Monarch Caterpillar Days 3 & 4

Well, our caterpillars(we have 3) are not real active yet. We don't seem to see them do much of anything, but when we wake up in the morning the leaves are starting to be consumed more and more. I believe that Aiden and Addy have hungrier caterpillars than mine. I need to take some pictures of theirs to document their growth as well.

Monday(Day 3) we noticed that they had indeed become slightly larger. It is noticeable.



This photo was taken in the morning. Some of leaf had been consumed, but not as much as I expected. Not that I have any prior knowledge to draw on, but I thought they would eat more, but in reality those holes are bigger than the body of the caterpillar so that is impressive.

Here are a few photos from Tuesday(Day 4). I could once again tell this little guy is growing every single day.







I think today was very clear that he has grown since Saturday. Hard to believe how quickly they grow.

Here a few facts about the monarch caterpillar/butterfly.

• They only eat milkweed. They will starve to death before eating anything else. Nature is crazy.
• When this guy gets bigger(over 1 inch) he will eat two leaves a day! Insane hunger pains this guy must have.

I will be back again tomorrow with updated photos and a few more facts. Thanks for checking things out.

Lego Building Challenge Student #1 - Duck on the Bank

How about setting the bar high with the first creation in the Lego Building Challenge that I started here at BMS? Dave Schmidt, a 7th grader took on the challenge first by being the first to sign up(you can read the challenge details here or click the tab on the menu above).

Here is his creation

Not too shabby! What I like about this the most is how he created a platform that shows the duck on land on the bank of a water source.

Student #2 has the pieces and I look forward to seeing the next creation. I will keep you posted. We have several students/teachers signed up so I will continue to update as the creations come in.

Until next post, keep it nerdy....

Coffeechug Daily Education Links 08/28/2012

• Free Old Movies, Black and White Movies, Classic Movies

  tags: education free movies film bnwmovies black&white download

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

The Journey of a Monarch Butterfly: Day 1 and 2

Saturday morning, Aiden and I headed to the Putnam Museum for a cool presentation about Monarch Butterflies. We were able to see some amazing butterflies and learned quite a bit. I think I learned more than Aiden as he already knows a ton about butterflies.

I thought it would be cool to document the life cycle of our Monarch Butterflies. Aiden, Addy, and myself each took home a caterpillar. I have my own that I will taking care of along the way.

As of right now the caterpillar is quite small. We brought them home in these tiny little containers. Yes, those little black dots are poop. All these little buggers do is eat and poop. You can see the holes in the milkweed from their nonstop eating.




I transferred mine to a larger jar. Here you can see how small the little bugger is in the photo below. This image below was magnified. We are talking a centimeter or so in length.




Today, Sunday, August 26th, marks day 2 of our journey documentation. Notice how much more of the leaf has been consumed compared to the pictures above. Also, a ton more poop balls.

I then had to transfer in some fresh milkweed. We have plenty of milkweed leaves and we store them in the fridge to keep them fresh. Crazy to think that in about a week or so this guy will be eating two leaves a day! 

Tomorrow I document more. I tested out streaming video online of the caterpillar while away at school so classrooms can check it out. I will try to get that setup before I leave tomorrow morning. Hopefully this helps out some elementary classrooms. I know Aiden will get a kick out of this documentation.

I will be sharing some facts this week as well. Crazy stuff!

Lego Teacher Nametag Prototype

I decided to go all out and be super nerdy! What better way to do this than by creating my very own Lego nametag for school. Perhaps I can generate a Lego minifig trading frenzy like Legoland. Here is what I have crafted so far. I can tweak this a bit more and make it better, but this works. I just need to figure out a way to make it attach to my shirt. I need a pin type operation for the backside or some rare earth magnets. I have a bit of time left this Sunday to figure it out.