A break from school!

I am so excited to be going to Florida tomorrow.  My husband is the band director in the same school in which I teach.  He is taking his 300 piece marching band to Universal Studios to march in a parade in the park, and I am going, too!  Just wanted to say I wouldn't be posting for a few days.

The Bio I students are continuing with DNA.  We are getting pretty deep into it now, and you can see the bafflement on the faces of a few of the students.  For this topic, it takes repetition, repetition, repetition!  Here are some links to some homework assignments and quizzes that I use to keep them studying:

Homework #1:  The Basics of DNA
Homework #2:  DNA Replication
Homework #3:  RNA and Transcription
Homework #4:  Translation

They are available separately or you can get all of them in one bundle.

       

     

And finally, here are a few quizzes that will keep the young 'uns studying!

Quiz:  DNA and Replication
Quiz:  RNA and Transcription
Quiz:  Translation and Protein Synthesis

Or all available in one bundle!

Have a great week.  I will see you when I return from Florida!

DNA here we come!

I started teaching one of my favorite topics today:  DNA, RNA and protein synthesis.  I am always fascinated by the complexity, simplicity, and beauty of DNA.  Try as I might, it is sometimes very hard to get the students to be as amazed by it as I am.  So being the perfectionist that I am, I spent HOURS AND HOURS putting together this PowerPoint presentation.  It has 61 slides.  Here are a few photos....

I hope to WOW them with the soap opera drama of Watson and Crick tomorrow.  Want to take a look at my Powerpoint?  Check it out!  It also includes a set of notes for the teacher and a set of notes for the student.

DNA, RNA, and Protein Synthesis  

I made the newsletter!!

Each week TeachersPayTeachers.com puts out a newsletter.  The newsletter is packed with information about all sorts of subject areas and covers all grade levels.  It comes out every Sunday.  One of the best features about the newsletter is that it always includes links to "10 FREE downloads".  These are 10 great products that are being offered for free.  They are the complete product, not just a preview.

You can sign up to receive the weekly newsletter by clicking here, TeachersPayTeachers.com.

Today, one of my many FREE items is listed in the newsletter.  I usually write about my Biology I class, but most of my school day is spent teaching Advanced Placement Biology.  My students have to take the national AP Biology exam in May.  If they score well enough, they can earn college credit for their efforts. So we are very busy learning new material, but also trying to review old material.  I use PowerPoints packed with questions to help them review.  Each day I try to spend a few minutes going through one of these reviews.

One of these review PowerPoints is in the newsletter today.  It is a review of Carbon and Organic Compounds. I hope that it will help someone out there!

Have a great week end!

Bye, Bye Genetics!

Well, my Biology I kids are finished with their unit on genetics.  At the end of the week we covered sex linkage, pedigree tables, and had a unit test on Friday.

Sex linkage practice problems
Quiz on sex linkage and multiple alleles
Pedigree tables
Genetics Unit Test

Before the unit test, my students really enjoyed playing PowerPoint Genetics Jeopardy!

I have put together an entire biology unit on a CD. This unit contains at least 3 weeks of materials depending on how many lab activities you want to do. The title of this unit is "Genetics". This unit has everything that a Biology teacher needs to teach a unit on genetics to Biology I students. You will receive a 61 slide powerpoint, teacher notes, student notes, 2 labs, 1 jeopardy review game, 5 quizzes, 7 practice problem worksheets, 1 crossword puzzle and a unit test. 

All answers are included.

Topics covered are:
1) Extensive coverage on the work of Gregor Mendel
2) Mendel's Laws of Dominance and Recessiveness, Segregation and Independent Assortment
3) Using probability and Punnett squares to work genetics problems
4) Monohybrid or one factor problems
5) Dihybrid or two factor problems
6) Summary of Mendel's principles
7) Genes and environmental influences
8) Incomplete Dominance
9) Codominance
10) Multiple Alleles
11) Polygenic Inheritance
12) Sex Linked Genes
13) Pedigree Tables

There will be a shipping and handling charge of $2.00 to cover postage, new CD and hard case, and bubble mailing envelope.   Take a look at my genetics unit by clicking HERE


So what is coming up next for my darling biology I students?  Well, on Monday we start my unit on DNA, RNA, and Protein Synthesis.

Teachers Pay Teachers.com is rocking!

Happy Friday!

Today I want to post a link to an article.  The article is about TeachersPayTeachers.com.

If you teach, you need to read the article and then visit the Teachers Pay Teachers.com site.  It is a win/win for every teacher.  You can always find quality products that will enhance your classrooms.  And you can sell your own high quality product to make a little extra cash.

After reading the article, check out the site!

And more importantly, check out my TPT store!!  Science Stuff

Thursday!!!

It is Thursday again, and you know what that means!  It's time for the Thursday Round-Up!  Be sure to go to the Teacher 2 Teacher Blog to see the list of awesome products that are on sale today.  As usual the variety is amazing - it covers all subject areas and all grade levels.

I have listed my Microscope Powerpoint With Notes for Teacher and Student in the Thursday Round-Up.  I am very pleased with this product and it is ON SALE today through Saturday night!

The Corn Grew!

We have been out of school for a week for our Spring Break holiday.  A week prior to the break, my biology I class started growing some corn seeds for our lab, The Effect of Environment on Gene Expression.  This lab requires 2 observations after the corn starts to grow.  We did the first observation over a week ago.  Today we did the second observation, collected our data and wrote our lab reports.  We expected to get a 75%:25% ratio of green stems to albino stem.  Our actual data came very close to this.  Here are a couple of photos of the growing corn:

The students really love doing this lab.  Many of them took their corn home with them!  A good extension of this would be to do a chi-square analysis of the data.  This particular class is not prepared for that kind of data analysis, so I did not do it with this class.  Maybe next year!

After we finished the lab, we did a practice problem worksheet on Codominance and Multiple Alleles.  I am giving a quiz on these types of problems tomorrow.  Good luck everyone!

Practice Problem Worksheet on Codominance and Multiple Alleles
Quiz: Incomplete Dominance and Codominance
Quiz: Multiple Alleles and Sex-linkage

My New Microscope Products

As I wrote a few days ago, I have been helping a friend develop some teaching materials on the microscope.  I have been on Spring Break this week, and was happy to have some extra time (for a change) to help a friend.  I just added these yesterday to my TeachersPayTeachers.com store.

Microscope Homework and Study Guide

Microscope PowerPoint Jeopardy Review Game


But this is listing you need to take a look at.  I bundled up 7 different microscope products all into one digital download.  You will get 2 microscope labs, a 27 slide microscope PowerPoint presentation, Notes for the Teacher, Notes for the Student, a microscope quiz, a microscope jeopardy review game, a microscope crossword puzzle, and a microscope study guide.  All of this will come together in one bundle. Check it out here:

The Ultimate Microscope Teaching Bundle

Happy Spring Break!

It's Thursday and Time for the Round-Up!

If you are reading this, I assume you are looking for ideas in science teaching, especially for biology.  But I want to tell you about another blog that you should follow.  It is called Teacher 2 Teacher.  Contributions to the blog are made by an assortment of truly awesome educators.  You will find articles each week written by different teachers.  And the best part is the Thursday Round-Up.  Each week, a group of 20 teachers places one of their best products on sale.  These products cover a wide range of subject areas and age groups, but they are all on sale from Thursday morning through Saturday night.  This week has more math and science products than ever before.  Way to go teachers!

Here is the product that I have on sale:     The Ultimate Lab Safety Bundle

Come back tomorrow.  I have been helping a friend of mine develop some products for a microscope unit.  I am putting the finishing touches on several new products and will list them here tomorrow.

Microscopes? At this time of the year?

My Biology I students and I are still slugging away through genetics, but I took some time out of an already really busy schedule to help out a friend.  My friend has taken an interim teaching position for a teacher who got sick and cannot complete the year.  The position is for 7th grade middle school science.  The students have not had a great year;  evidently the regular teacher has missed quite a few days this year. My friend is not a certified science teacher, and is in need of direction, guidance, and most importantly materials to teach with.

It is an odd time of year to take up the microscope, but the students have not learned this material, so I guess there is never a bad time to learn something you don't know!  I wrote this powerpoint for my friend to use with her new students.  It will help her get through a few days, and I have also supplied her with all of my supporting materials.

I hope that some of you will find something here that will be useful to you as well:

Microscope Powerpoint with Notes for Teacher and Student

Lab: The Compound Microscope

Microscope Quiz

Genetics, genetics, genetics!

We continue to move through the study of genetics in my standard Biology I class.  We have now completed nondominance problems, codominance problems, and problems with multiple alleles.  The key to getting this across to the students is practice, practice, practice!

Here are links to the practice problem worksheets I use to teach these genetics problems:

Quiz on Nondominance and Codominance

Practice Problem Worksheet: Nondominance and Codominance

Remember, everything is on sale at TeachersPayTeachers.com.  Use the promo code G2R2M at checkout to get 10% off all purchases.  The code is going to expire tonight!

I love Genetics!!

My Biology I class is continuing their study of genetics.  We are working through my powerpoint on Genetics:  Genetics Powerpoint with Notes for Teacher and Student.  This powerpoint has everything you would need to teach a genetics unit to a Biology I class:  Gregor Mendel, laws of genetics, vocabulary, monohybrid crosses, dihybrid crosses, nondominance, sex linkage, multiple alleles, blood groups, geneology tables, etc.

The students in my Biology I class are of such varying abilities.  Some are very bright and should be taking Honors Biology.  Others are very slow learners with learning disabilities.  It makes it quite a challenge to teach a group of such varying abilities.  Everyone seems to have mastered a basic understanding of Mendelian genetics.  We have worked many practice problems on dihybrid crosses and we had a quiz today on the dihybrid cross.

Dihybrid Practice Problem Worksheet

Dihybrid Problem Quiz

Tomorrow we will begin to learn about Incomplete Dominance or Nondominance.

Nondominance Practice Problems

Nondominance Quiz

Teachers Pay Teachers Sunday Newsletter

I am so excited to have one of my FREE items posted in the weekly TeachersPayTeachers.com newsletter.   The newsletter is sent out each Sunday and contains 10 free downloads for all age groups and all subject areas.

Today, this FREE item of mine was listed:  Use of Lab Equipment and Data Analysis Skills

Download it and save it for the start of the new school year.  It is a great first week activity!

Also in the Sunday newsletter was a promotion code.  Use this code at checkout for 10% off your entire purchase.  The promo code is G2R2M.


To coincide with this great offer, I have placed my entire store  (all 412 products!) on a 10% off sale.  This means all purchases are 20% off when you use the promo code.


Let's sweeten the deal even more!  Add me as one of the sellers that you follow on TeachersPayTeachers.com, and I will send you (via email) one product of your choice from my store.....absolutely free!  (Digital downloads only;  does not apply to books and CD's).  All you have to do is to add me as a follower in my TpT store (Science Stuff TpT Store).


To get your free product, send me an email at amy1007@aol.com with the name of the product you would like.  Offer good through Saturday March 12.

It's time for the Thursday Round-Up on Tchr2Tchr!

Once again, we have reached a Thursday and it is time for the Thursday Round-Up on the Teacher 2 Teacher Blog, tchr2tchr.  This blog is a group of sellers from TeachersPayTeachers.com who place one of their best products on sale.  You will find quality products for students of all ages and for all subject areas.


The product of the week that I have on sale is:  The Effect of Antiseptics and Disinfectants on Bacterial Growth


I hope you will check it out!  Have a great Thursday!

Genetics is so fun!

The seeds have been planted for the genetics lab called The Effect of Environment on Gene Expression.  The students had a great time planting the seeds, and are having fun watching for the first signs of germination.  Hopefully, in a week or so, the plants will be big enough to classify them as green or albino.

Today, we are starting the monohybrid cross.  Genetics is one of my very favorite topics to teach to students.  It is so easy to keep their attention.  Over the next two days, I will be using several handouts that I have developed on the monohybrid or one factor cross.

Check this one out since it is FREE!!!  Monohybrid Mice!

And I will also be having my students complete these:

Monohybrid Cross Practice Problem Worksheet

Monohybrid Cross Quiz