Brain Ninjas

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science

How to Teach the Scientific Method in Your Elementary Classroom

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Teach your elementary aged scientists the scientific method while teaching safety and procedures during experiments. Come get this free scientific method lesson.

The scientific method has been around for thousands of years and if you went to school, you learned about it, too. The method helps keep experiments and investigations fair so they can be repeated and results can be verified. All scientists use this method which helps verify results.

When you are teaching science, it is important that students understand the method-even if they cannot remember all the names of the steps. It more important that students get to work hands-on and focus on curiosity than following and writing out a set of steps.

Come learn how we teach students about the scientific method in our science class.

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Dig Up Dinosaurs in Alberta With These Amazing Activities

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Whether you are teaching students about the different dinosaurs that lived in Alberta, how fossil fuels are created or how they died, these lessons and activities are designed for your elementary science class and only take moments to prep. Come take a look!

Most children go through a phase fascinated by dinosaurs. It only fits that living in Alberta means digging up dinosaurs and learning about fossil fuels. While learning about the specific dinosaurs is not in school curriculums, the result of their extinction is part of our lives today. Come learn about some of the ways we bring dinosaurs into our elementary science lessons. We’ve updated our lessons for the new Alberta science curriculum, but they work for any teacher wanted to roar through science (see what we did there?).

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How to Teach Coding Without Knowing How to Code

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If you don't know how to code, but you are expected to teach coding, we've put together activities you can use without any experience.

It seems that teachers are expected to have a wealth of knowledge about everything under the sun. Even as the world changes, they keep adding the new learning to the old content so that students will benefit.

Coding is a vital skill and there are so many ways it enriches the classroom. However, many teachers feel completely inadequate to teach coding because they have never been taught to code.

That’s ok. Coding isn’t about knowing how to code. It’s about knowing how to problem solve and we already know that’s where teachers excel. Come learn some of the ways you can teach coding without being able to code.

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Make the Best of Your Natural Resources Lessons

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We have written resources to use to teach your students about natural resources. Students will learn how the resources are extracted, which are renewable and how they are used. Come take a look and get the lessons you need.

What do you think of when you think of natural resources? Forests? Oil and gas? Wind power? Teaching students about natural resources is easy when you have them examine all the objects around them. Humans rely on natural resources to make life easier. We use them to make shelter, provide energy and sustain our nutrition. Come learn about some of the lessons and activities we use to teach students about natural resources.

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How to Teach Human Body Systems to Young Scientists

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If you are teaching human body systems to your elementary science students, we've got everything you need to get your unit planned in record time. Come check out these activities, lessons, books, videos and so much more. It's perfect for the new Alberta science curriculum outcomes.

Everyone needs to understand the basic systems that help keep humans alive. The Alberta science curriculum focuses on four main systems: circulatory (cardiovascular), musculoskeletal (bones and muscles), respiratory and digestive. There are many more systems, but this post will focus on teaching these four to your Grade 5 students. Come learn how we teach this unit from beginning to end.

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How to Teach Students About the Earth’s Spheres

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Are you looking for resources to teach students about the Earth's spheres? We wrote some lessons, found some books and videos and put it all together for you in one post. Come have a read and inspire your scientists.

The new Alberta science curriculum asks students in Grade 4 to learn about the Earth’s spheres and how they interact with each other. That meant we got the opportunity to learn about them, too. We pulled together some of the best resources we’ve used to learn about the spheres and the resources we’ve written to help our students.

When we talk about the Earth’s spheres, we refer to the lithosphere, atmosphere, hydrosphere and biosphere. We know there are more spheres, but these are the ones focused on in our science curriculum. Learning about the Earth’s spheres helps students understand how our planet survives and thrives.

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Create These 5 Fantastic Devices That Move

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Are you teaching a unit about simple machines or things that move? Use these tried and tested recipes to help get you started with student friendly instructions for devices that your students can build and test as part of their science units or makerspace. Come have a read!

One of the best sciences units includes making devices that move. One of the best things about teaching science is having students create amazing things when they are just left with their knowledge and their creativity. We love to foster this type of learning in our classroom.

If you teach simple machines, then there are so many different opportunities to have students create and build exciting contraptions. We pulled together a list of ideas and a few of our favourite recipes for devices that move to make your search quick and painless.

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Foster Environmental Stewardship in the Classroom

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Teaching students about environmental stewardship comes easily in most science classes, but there are lots of other ways to encourage being a responsible citiizen throughout your day in your upper elementary classroom. Come learn some of the ways we teach students to take care of the planet on a daily basis.

Climate change is a real concern for most young people these days. We have used environmental stewardship lessons as part of our overall science lessons, but there are lots of things that you can do in the classroom to help foster a love of caring for our planet. Little changes can make a big difference over time. Environmental stewardship is more than just taking care of the planet. It is about being a responsible citizen and thinking about how we impact the world. Come learn about how we integrate these lessons directly into the classroom.

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15 Simple Machines Activities that Will Hook Your Students

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If you are teaching simple machines in your science class, you need to read this post full of ideas.

One of our favourite science units to teach is about simple machines or wheels and levers (if you teach in Alberta). We love it because it provides many opportunities for hands-on learning and can be done inside regardless of the weather. Students love to build contraptions and we can use up materials that would generally go in the recycling bin so it’s also a very low-cost science unit. Which of these activities have you tried during your science lessons?

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Free Winter Classroom Activities Worth Scooping Up

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Are you looking for some simple and free classroom activities to keep your students busy during the long winter months? We collected many winter activities for language arts, math, scrience, art and some just for fun and put them all together in one big post. You can use these activities for instruction or give them to your students during indoor recess on those long winter days. Come take a look!

Depending on where you live, winter can be a very long season. In northern Canada, where we teach, winter can start as early as October. It continues up to the end of March. That means we are always on the lookout for winter classroom activities to use in class. More importantly, we use them during those dreaded indoor recesses when it is just too cold to go outside.

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How to Keep Students Accountable During Project Based Learning

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Does project based learning fall apart in your upper elementary classroom because you don't know how to keep kids accountable? Do they get to the end with nothing to show for it? These classroom management strategies will help you get the most out of project based learning in your classroom without the stress and strife. Come take a look and get some practical tools you can use right away.

We love using project based learning as one teaching strategy to engage students. The challenge with this type of learning is keeping students on track. Nothing is worse than getting to a deadline and discovering none of the students are done. So, how do we keep our students accountable during project based learning?

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How to Learn About Wetlands Without A Pond

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Are you trying to teach wetlands in Alberta but there isn't a nearby pond and you can't take a field trip? That's exactly why we wrote this series of lessons, activities and assessments. Come take a look to see if they can help you get your planning done so you can enjoy the activities along with your upper elementary science students.

Teaching students about wetlands can be a real challenge when you don’t have access to a pond or field trips to go to a pond. Each year in Canada, we struggle with winter sneaking well into spring, shortening the time available to teach the unit outdoors. If we try to teach the unit in the fall, we often end up with snow within a few weeks of starting the unit. So how are students supposed to learn about wetlands when they can’t actually get to a wetland?

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