Final Assignment: Squid Dissection

In this lesson, students will dissect a squid to identify the different body parts and functions of the animal. First, each partnership at each table will get a tray with a squid. They will first get accustomed to touching it and getting a feel for the animal.  Then students will work on identifying the parts of the squid using the diagram. They will make certain cuts to see the inside of the squid and identify other major parts.  Finally, they will locate the 'pen' and ink and try to write with the ink that comes from the squid. Finding the pen requires students to work to pull out the pen. After the lesson, students will write a step by step summary of what they did in the lesson using the pictures. 

Blog Reviews - Assignment #6

http://mannardi.edublogs.org/ - this site is from a teacher in Australia. I thought it had a lot of useful information for teachers and students. It has many links for learning resources and pages dedicated to just teachers, literacy, and technology fun. The student blog links are also interesting to view to see what you could do with students. I think her links on the side of her page could maybe be better sorted or organized in a better way.

http://portableradio.edublogs.org/ - this site posts student produced podcasts. There are lots of helpful links to get started for teachers. It has everything from getting started to adding music. They also have links to other classroom blogs. I think the overall blog is a bit busy though. It seems overwhelming to find the resources at first glance.

http://missblessings.edublogs.org/ - this is a 4th grade class site. It's very simple and straight forward, which I like. On the right side of the blog are categories of topics within in the site, which I found to be useful. There are lots of pictures and simple text as well. I think as a class site, it serves its purpose well.

http://asktheauthor.edublogs.org/ - this is role playing blog site from a classroom. The students pretend to be an author and write posts. It's an interesting idea for a blog. I think the site is pretty simple and not too busy. However, adding some visuals or even pictures of the authors would be nice.

http://mistea.edublogs.org/ - this is a teacher's site from New Zealand. Even though this site has a lot of information and links, it's organized very nicely and it doesn't look too overwhelming.  The links on the right are clearly labeled and sorted into different categories. Her posts are easy to read and include appropriate visuals and places to comment. The only things I think are lacking are additional pages. She has a lot of links that could be on separate pages. Also some of her widgets seem unnecessary - like the  weather, time, and live traffic feed.

Assignment #5 - Mrs. Wu's Favorite Things

Cooking: Food is something I enjoy eating and making. I enjoy finding new recipes. Most of the time I use the Food Network site. It gives you access to thousands of recipes from the Food Network chefs. My favorite chefs are Giada, Tyler Florence, and Bobby Flay. For Korean foods, I like to use Maangchi. She is a Korean lady who uploads videos of her cooking the foods step by step. Living away from my parents makes it difficult to learn the recipes of foods I grew up eating, so this site is very helpful when I want a taste of home cooking.

Traveling: My husband and I enjoy traveling. We enjoy trying new foods and seeing new sights. However, travel takes lots of planning and we always like to be prepared. When we went to Barcelona last year, we borrowed a few books, but we liked using Tripadvisor. We liked being able to read people's reviews of restaurants, sights, and find helpful hints and tips to make the trip more enjoyable. We also use sites like Sidestep to find cheap flights because it compares fares to almost all the major airlines and lets you see the different combination of dates and prices to help make your decision.

Crafting: Given a free Saturday or day off, I also enjoy hand making something like a greeting card for someone. I have a collection of stamps, paper, and other embellishments. I like being able to make something for someone and give it to them. I am always looking for ideas. I find ideas on retail sites like Papersource or other blog sites like Controlling My Chaos. They inspire me and give me ideas for new projects. 

Assignment #4 - Food Webs

In Science, our class learned about food chains and food webs. We began by learning about simple food chains and what they are. Students read in their texts about what makes a food chain. Then we talked about examples of food chains that students knew of. I provided visuals on the board and arrows were also drawn to show the feeding relationships. I found a video clip on the internet that also taught the concepts and showed them this.

After that, we practiced making food chains with the food cards and arrows shown below. Students were to make simple food chains with at least three to four organisms using the information provided on the cards. They were to start with a producer and then find a primary and secondary consumer.

The next day, we moved on to food webs and talked about they represent all the feeding relationships within an ecosystem. The students then spent time using the cards and arrows to build a food web trying to use all the cards and arrows. The groups that sorted the organisms by food group (producers and type of consumers) were more successful at completing and displaying a more organized food web. Overall, they all showed understanding of food chains and food webs.

Assignment #3

Adding gadgets definitely helps to spruce up a site. It makes a site more user-friendly and more interesting to visit. I really like the gadget that allows me to add links to favorite sites for my classroom that my classroom could use. I also like the archives gadget so you can find previous posts easily. The search box is also helpful in being able to look up something written previously and just even finding something on the web. I think the 'Subscribe To' gadget will be helpful for parents who want to be able to have the posts come to them directly rather than going to the site. I find that when information comes to you, there's a better chance you'll read or use it as opposed to having to look up the information yourself.

Classroom Activity: Beetles

In science this week, we looked at the preferred environments of beetles and isopods. Students chose an animal to investigate in their science groups. The purpose of this investigation is for students to learn that all organisms have a preferred environment in which they live. For instance, penguins prefer the Arctic freezing temperatures over the hot scorching climate of the desert. 


First students tested with one variable - water. We had three different types of soil - dry, moist, and very wet. Students placed 5 of their organisms in the container with the different mounds of soil and waited for ten minutes. At the end of the time, we marked on our notes which mound of soil the organisms could be found. Then we did it again for a longer period of time - for three hours. 


After three hours, we again observed where the beetles and isopods were to be found. Then we made our observations. Students shared their findings and came up with their own conclusions.  Some of the isopods seemed to prefer the moist areas, whereas the beetles preferred the dry areas. 

Using a Blog for the classroom

There are many reasons teachers use a blog or a website nowadays for a classroom. One of the ways I'd use this blog would be to archive the year and all the activities I do with my class. It would serve as a place to look back and see and read about what this class did and how they progressed. It would be a great way for teachers to also get ideas and learn about what's going on in this grade/classroom.

Another way I'd use this blog is to provide links and resources for my students so it's all in one place for them to access. This removes the pain of bookmarking individual computers in my classroom with all the different sites I want them to visit for various subjects. By providing all the links on one place, I only need to bookmark one site on each computer.

Finally, this blog would serve as a great way to communicate with parents about what is going on in the classroom. They can read about what activities their child is participating in and what's coming soon. I can post newsletters, important dates, and reminders. Parents are becoming more and more tech savvy so they can easily click and read about their child's class.