Science Matters!

It's been awhile since I've posted anything, but I've been a little busy. I was chosen at the end of last year to participate in a grant called Science Matters! It's all about science (duh!) and it's for the next 3 years. We've been participating in a summer institute for the last 2 weeks and I just have to share what our first week was about.
If you haven't heard of Picture Perfect Science Lessons, you really need to check the books out! They are AMAZING! Through this grant, we got to spend an entire week with Karen Ansberry and Emily Morgan. These ladies are amazing at what they do and I couldn't imagine the science activities we could create if we had them in our district.
These two ladies are awesome! They received an Ohio Board of Regents grant in 2001 and a Toyota TAPESTRY grant in 2002 for their Picture-Perfect Science program. Ever since then they have been helping teachers learn how to incorporate read alouds into their science lessons. They pair a fiction book with a non-fiction text to help students fully understand science concepts.
I sort of tried a few of the lessons last year with my kids when my science coach gave me some of the fun lessons. If I could really get myself organized this year, I would love to do more of the lessons that Karen and Emily have created for teachers. At the beginning of the week, we all received copies of BOTH books that the ladies have created. I'll add pictures and links to the bottom of this entry so that you guys can check them out. They said that they are currently working on another book for grades K-4 (I think).