resources

Teaching Science Through Art: 3 Art Integrated Lesson Plans That Hit

Posted on June 14, 2023October 17, 2024 by

One thing I’m proud of this year is teaching art-integrated lessons. It’s been fun for me and it’s been fun for my learners. You’ll see.

In this post, I will share three of my favorite middle school arts-integrated science lessons from the 22-23 school year. All lesson plans, slides and rubrics are links to make a copy in your google drive. Clicking the link *should* ask you if you want to open as a copy in google docs.

Plant Reproduction – Observational Drawing

This was my first official AI lesson and it went so great! It was also my first time with a co-teacher and I learned a lot from seeing another teacher do her thang.

Standards

Visual Arts: Cr.2.3.8.a: Select, organize, and design images and words to make visually clear and compelling presentations.

NGSS MS-LS1.B: Growth and Development of Organisms: Plants reproduce in a variety of ways, sometimes depending on animal behavior and specialized features for reproduction. (MS-LS1-4) Rubric

Lesson Plan

Slides

Additional Resources: Plant Reproduction Guided Notes

Punnett Square/ Ratios

I worried about the glue aspect of this activity, but with my arts integration co-teacher, it was only a problem in one class! There’s an opportunity to collaborate with Math to help students develop a deeper understanding of ratios.

Standards

Visual Arts: VA Re 8.1.8a: Interpret art by analyzing how the interaction of subject matter, characteristics of form and structure, use of media, artmaking approaches, and relevant contextual information contributes to understanding messages or ideas and mood conveyed.

NGSS: MS-LS3-1: Develop and use a model to describe why structural changes to genes (mutations) located on chromosomes may affect proteins and may result in harmful, beneficial, or neutral effects to the structure and function of the organism.

Resources

Lesson Plan

Slides

Earth Day Poster Project

I always go big for Earth Day, and this year was no exception. Several students chose the digital option, and each one of them said it was to reduce waste. My teacher heart just about melted. I tied this into ELA as well.

Standards

Visual Arts: Cr2.E:6-8:2 Explain the environmental, social, and ethical implications of using various tools, materials, equipment, and images to create works of art and design. Rubric

NGSS: MS-ESS3-3: Apply scientific principles to design a method for monitoring and minimizing a human impact on the environment. Rubric

ELA Rubric

Resources

3-Rs-project Download

Exit Ticket

Arts Integration is a great strategy for differentiating instruction. I hope you find these resources helpful and if you test any out, please let me know how it goes.

5 Tech-based Teacher Tools for School and Life

Posted on July 27, 2021July 27, 2021 by

This post highlights 5 tech-based teacher tools proven to be useful both in and out of the classroom.

1. remove.bg

Sometimes you need to remove the background from an image. Fast. Like when you take a lovely photo with your nieces in front of a trash can.

I heard about remove.bg quite some time ago and understood it to be a fast and free tool that could remove the background from any photo. I’m delighted to share that it’s so much more than that. It also provides options for alternate backgrounds, and I had a lot of fun with that feature.

Now that’s what I call fading into the sunset.

2. Google Lens

Privacy concerns aside, I was excited to learn that Google Lens can be used to identify plants, animals, and bugs. I use Lens through the Google Photos app since I already have it on my phone.

It’s easy – once you have an image of something to identify, open it in Google Photos and click the lens icon on the bottom of the screen (3rd icon from the left in the image below).

Before you know it, some possible results pop up and with a little clicking, you’ve got yourself the knowledge that you almost stepped on a Fowler’s toad. Almost.

While I’ve only used this to satisfy personal curiosity so far, I’m looking forward to testing this tech-based teacher tool with students in the fall.

3. Vocaroo

Vocaroo is a free online tool that allows users to record, send, and download voice messages. Teachers and learners can use Vocaroo in different activities, such as podcasting, digital storytelling, broadcasting, and giving feedback. Recordings can be downloaded, sent, or even scanned with a QR code reader.

Here’s a rough tutorial I made for how to record and share an audio file using Vocaroo. No one can judge me harder for this than my students did when I played it for them, but it worked – a handful of students used this tool to demonstrate knowledge whenever I offered it as an option.

This tech-based teacher tool is a must-have for differentiation.

4. Wheel of Names

Maybe it’s my love of Wheel of Fortune that sold me on this tool, but regardless of the reason, Wheel of Names is a free and easy-to-use website you can use to pick a random name (or item) from a list.

Simply enter names, and spin the wheel to pick a random winner. You can customize the look and feel, and save and share your wheels with others.

5. Kahoot!

Learners young and old enjoy the sense of competition and excitement that accompanies every round of Kahoot! I used this tool as a review activity, which usually looked like 8 – 10 questions at the end of class on Friday.

Fellow science teachers, here is my teacher page. Feel free to reuse or repurpose any of my stuff. Let me know if you do and how it goes!

I also created a Kahoot! that covers some community and school history. My idea is to play it at a community-based event or school assembly, but I’m not there yet. If you’re interested in Bay Brook Elementary Middle School #124 or the Brooklyn, Curtis Bay, or Masonville Cove neighborhoods of Baltimore City, here’s what I have so far. I’d love your input

Tutorial: How to Use Canva to Generate Color Palettes

Posted on September 29, 2019October 17, 2024 by

In this post I debut a video tutorial for generating color palettes using Canva. I also share an image of the resulting color palette.

Video Tutorial

This video tutorial demonstrates how easy it is to generate a color palette using Canva’s Color Palette Generator.

Discover More Color Resources

Color Palette

Here’s the color palette that was generated in the video:

In a previous post, I outlined several resources for finding free images. This image of Planet Earth is from from Pixabay.

Conclusion

It’s rare to find a tool that works well and is easy to use. Canva’s Color Palette Generator is so much more. Plus, it’s free!

Please show me your color palettes! Find me on Instagram or leave a comment to share your images.

Thanks for learning with me!

The Truth is Out There – So Are Free Images

Posted on August 22, 2017 by

A few years ago, I was looking for some images to include in an eLearning module. I wanted to incorporate visuals into some of the more text heavy slides, but didn’t have a budget. I thought it would be easy breezy to find free images to use.

Man, was I wrong.

At the time, free images were scarce. I spent countless hours searching, but in the end, I used my personal account to purchase stock photos.

Thanks to today’s collaborative and open resource sharing culture, free high quality stock assets are easy to find, if you know where to look.

Free Stock Photos

In my first obsessive search for free images, I found this super helpful article that lists 14 Free Stock Photo Websites.

Jacqueline Thomas one-upped that list, providing the image-obsessed 73 websites to geek out in this Canva resource. It’s truly a gift!

These articles provide so many options for finding free images that it seems silly to compile my own list. Instead, I’ll just highlight a few of my favorites.

Gratisography

I’ve never met, or even talked to, photographer Ryan McGuire, but I really enjoy his images and the way he views the world. Many of his photos are offered as free images on Piktochart, which I thought was interesting.

I can always find something that inspires me or makes me laugh, like this praying mantis smoking a ciggy:

Negative Space

This is a cool and easy to navigate site that I like a lot. They hooked me with this shot of a beautiful blue volkswagen beetle (sigh):

This list compiled by Adobe Stock is similar, but includes sources that offer additional free assets, such as video and illustrations.

Adobe Captivate Asset Store

This is pretty specific to eLearning developers that use Adobe Captivate, so I won’t dwell on it too much. I learned about this resource during one of my research binges for a class I was taking. It was perfect timing, and it helped me provide specific instructions in the reboot of a storyboard I was working on at the time.

Free Images

These next few sites may be considered something other than images, but I’m not exactly sure how else to classify them. All I know is they’re super cool and I’ve lost time – lots of time – geeking out and downloading my heart out.

Vintage Printable

This site requires a bit of patience to navigate, but I’ve found it to be well worth it. For example, I found this gem that I plan to use as the foundation for one of my next tattoos:

Vintage Posters

As I put together this post, I included Vintage Printable as an afterthought – I had actually forgot about it! When I went to find the site, I came across this Vice article that is a must read if you’re into vintage posters. I spent about a minute looking around before I found this gem:

Have fun exploring these sites! Keep in touch with any suggestions or additions to the list. Feel free to share this with your pals!

I’ll keep these free resource posts coming, so be sure to subscribe to my blog if you like what you see.

So Many Colors: 4 Great Resources to Make Life Easier

Posted on July 24, 2017October 17, 2024 by

I struggle with colors, especially when it comes to matching. Without any formal training, it’s been tough to know what really works and what colors to use if I’m trying to achieve a specific purpose, like motivating learners or gaining subscribers.

I’ve spent countless hours obsessing over colors and have found several helpful resources that help take some of the guess work out of it for me. Hopefully one of my four favs will save some color-challenged designer from the eyestrain that I’ve come to associate with color matching.

Material Design Palette

The feature that I use the most on this site is the palette. You simply choose two colors that you want to work with and voilà – you’ve got yourself a palette! Since I invested in Camtasia for school, as well as to build my video editing skills, I made my first very short, very silent tutorial on how this baby works:

Besides the palette feature, the icons and colors sections are worth checking out as well.

Color Lisa

This site is more inspirational for me than it is functional, but I spend a lot of time on here looking at beautiful colors. If you love a famous work of art, this site might be able to provide you with the color palette. For example, one of my favorites is The Great Wave off Kanagawa by Katsushika Hokusai, and with the click of a button, this site provided me with an inspired color palette to use as I wish:

The Psychology of Color

I became enamored with Neil Patel a few years ago when I stumbled upon the guide that he co-wrote with Bronson Taylor, The Definitive Guide to Growth Hacking. It really spoke to me and helped me uncover my natural ability to understand consumer behavior. I subscribed to his blog and was really excited when I heard about another guide that he co-wrote with Rita Puri, The Complete Guide to Understanding Consumer Psychology.

Chapter Four, The Psychology of Color is amazing and is one that I look at on a regular basis. For example, this is just one section of an infographic that conveys a lot of super helpful information:

Screenshot 2017-07-24 12.47.16 — Source: Patel & Puri, The Complete Guide To Understanding Consumer Psychology

Hell-ooo-OOO Red Orange, Black and Royal Blue!

Colordot

I took what I learned from designing the first business card in my series, networking like a shark, and got to work on the next one.

I minimized both screens (Canva and Colordot) and put them side-by-side to use Colordot to find a green close to one on the image on the back of the card.

Please let me know if you have any recommendations for color matching resources – I’d love to hear what you use and how you use it so I can give it a try!