Scientist Labs Coats in 3 Easy Steps

I'm so excited to be joining up with some of my teaching/blogging pals to bring you

My "bright idea" is one that causes my kids to beg for science:

 A little confession--I L.O.V.E. teaching science! Funny story--I discovered this while creating a plant unit for student teaching and I have the farthest thing from a green thumb out there. Seriously, I think a plant dies just when I look at it! Ha! Good thing that even dead plants work as great scientist projects! ;)

Now, whenever I tell my students that we are going to be scientists (a.k.a. have science) my kids let out a cheer that rivals the cheer that they give when I tell them we have gym! ha! Ok, so maybe the gym cheer is a *little* louder, but it's pretty darn close! ;)

Since science involves lots of hands-on experiments (which I LOVE) and often incorporates supplies and instructions that need to be handled and followed carefully, I came up with the idea to turn old, white T-shirts into scientist lab coats! During science, I address students as "Scientist {insert last name}." All scientists must listen to the head scientist {a.k.a. me} or they will loose their scientist lab coat and the privileges that come with it. Trust me-I've only ever had to take away one lab coat and then there are no problems! At the beginning of the year, I ask parents to send in a clean, white t-shirt and then after learning about being scientists, I have the kids make their own lab coats.

Here's how you can have your class become scientists!

I promise that not only is this very easy to do, but it is also very effective!

Don't forget to address your students as Scientist whenever their lab coats are on AND be sure to make you one as well! You are after all going to be the head scientist! :) My students get such a kick out of calling me Scientist Foxwell during science! Love.love.love when students are engaged and motivated to learn!

I have the students keep their lab coats in their reading book bags on their chair, so that they can easily get and wear the scientist lab coats for science, but they could easily be stored in other places in the room too!

Looking for more great ideas? Then please hop on over to the next blog on this Bright Ideas blog hop, written by Alyssa Roetheli over at:

Alyssa is sharing some great tips on review ideas for making connections! Just click HERE or on her button to check out her great Bright idea!

You can also visit the link-up below and choose a topic that interests you! I don't know about you, but I'm pinning like crazy on this hop! Don't you just love collaboration--such great ideas!! :)