Let the Circus Begin!

This week, my students are starting PHYSICS!! I'd love to chat with some other Texas teachers who are utilizing the 8th grade CSCOPE curriculum. I think the improvements made this year are vastly better than last year's curriculum. I still have to supplement quite a bit, but I anticipate the work load decreasing as the years progress and the amount of changes diminish.

For those teachers who are required to post objectives and guiding questions, I encourage you to start visiting my Teachers Pay Teachers site. As the new CSCOPE units come, I will be posting some signs I've created that include the guiding questions. I already write the objectives on my board (and leave them up over the course of the unit), but I wanted a way to easily change the associated questions that students should be able to answer, depending on the particular lesson.

I am going to purchase a thick black ribbon and hot glue tiny clothespins (from Wal-Mart) down the length of the ribbon. Each clothespin can hold a different Guiding Question sign and they can be easily changed out as needed. I plan on hanging this long ribbon on my board, right next to the area where I post my daily objectives. As soon as my crafty project is completed, I'll take some pictures and share.


As I begin to plan my next unit on physics (forces and motion), I thought I'd share some videos I found.

And my students all know that I absolutely love Hip Hop/Rap/R&B, so I had to include some rap videos to get the party started. (I'm secretly a rapper chic!)

Watch Circus Physics: Newton's Laws of Motion on PBS. See more from Circus.

Here are a few videos about Newton's Laws: