Crosscutting Concepts

I gotta say, I don’t really like the next gen standards. I mean, really?!! The only part I can really wrap my brain around right now are the crosscutting concepts. Whether you point them out (the fact that you teach them) or not, I have to believe that a good teacher teaches these things anyway… because that’s what science is. But alright, the powers that be have given us yet another thing to do in addition to the already very full job. So being the positive chickadee that I am, I will find a way to make this fun.

I have 2 ideas pertaining to CCCs.

Idea #1: Interactive bulletin board: So I loooove the honeycomb pattern. Sue me. It’s so versatile. You can arrange any which way you want, and it SO lends itself to seeing how relationships exist among things. Pretty much ANY thing. Put it along the top of your classroom, a bulletin board, narrow cabinet doors, whatever. So I went and bought some AMAZE-BALLS clip art from NGSS Nerd, you can find it HERE. She’s amazing, btw.

Seriously, can you IMAGINE the possibilities with this one? You can have a separate part of the room for EACH crosscutting concept! You can be adding on to these ALL YEAR LONG. You can check these bad boys out in my store right HERE.

Idea #2: T-shirt, baby. Yes, you CAN get sharpie marker to set in cotton and not bleed. There are some tricks, though. First, create your shirt. Use permanent sharpie markers and 100% cotton shirts. Once complete, iron on the highest setting the shirt allows. Allow shirt to cool. Soak shirt in very cold salt water solution. I leave mine overnight, just to be sure. Wash it by hand first, cold water always. After that, you can wash it in cold water with other laundry. If you add one drawing per chapter, students will leave school at the end of the year with a super cool science shirt! So fun!