For the most part, I enjoyed creating this weeks lesson plan for our application. I chose to create an electricity lesson because that is what we are currently studying in science this month. I say this month, because our adminstrator purchased three FOSS kits for 4th grade in an effort to improve test scores. She has required the 4th grade teachers to rotate the FOSS kits over the next three months. For the month of January I have Electricity and Magnetism. Our standards include Light and Electricity so this FOSS kit has been useful for the electricity part.
For the lesson, the students will be given a D-Cell battery, 2 wires, and a smal motor. They will be required to use these materials to create a circuit that will make the motor run. Other than our safety procedures, there are no specific procedures the students will follow. In other words, they will be required to create the circuit and then create their procedures for replicating the circuit they created. I think this fits well with the 5 E's we studied this week, mainly because the students are creating a finished product and the teacher becomes the monitor as opposed to the instructor. Once the investigation is complete we will discuss what they learned and they will have to write a summary of what they learned, draw a schematic of their circuit, and write an essay comparing their circuit to the circuit created when plugging up and appliance.
I am looking forward to doing this activity with the students and seeing what knowledge they gain from it. I did a similar activity with them in which they made a light bulb come on. I am hoping that this will reinforce what we have already discussed as well as lead into a discussion of series and parallel circuits.
As I prepared this lesson, I noticed that the 5 E's we used in our plan is very similar to the way the FOSS kits and our science text book is set up. Meaning there is an engage, explore, and ellaborate component in the FOSS kits as well as the science text.
The most trouble I had with this lesson was finding and identifying the NSTA standards, the NBPT standards, and the NSE standards. I found that getting to these standards was difficult because I had to sift through the organizations trying to sell books. There was not a direct link to the standards.
I always enjoy learning about diversity. Teaching in a very diverse and low socioeconomic setting keeps me on my toes in my strategies and methods.
Lisa,
ReplyDeleteI loved when I got to teach magnets and electricity, but sadly they redid the curriculum, and that went to 3rd grade. :( I used the FOSS kit for that and loved it. I even did a preformance assessment with the kids. I spent 2 days testing them due to limited resources and time. But, at the end of the unit I had the standard paper and pencil test that half the class did and the other half had to use the materials from the kit and make a fan work. When they were done they raised their hand, and I graded them on a rubric. If they weren't done in the alloted time, I still graded them, but they missed points in the category that showed they could demonstrate a working fan. Then te next day the groups switched. It was a great way to show if they really had the concepts down or not.
Hello lisa,
ReplyDeleteWhat a creative lesson plan you made!!!. I bet your fourth graders had fun carrying out these experiments. I am a fourth grader math teacher and we do alot of graphing and interpretation of graphs activities. I like teaching science too but I haven't had the opportunity to switch to a science teacher.
I am really impressed with what you are doing with your fourth graders. keep on the good work!
Hi,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed this unit when I taught 6th grade. I especially enjoyed having the kids make motors building upon the idea of electromagnetism. I respect your rigorous lesson plan. It is very important to have students learn to write and articulate what they did and why got the results they saw. The more students get to practice thinking like a scientist, the easier it will be for them to think critically in the future, as well as, possibly go into the science field.
I have taught this lesson with eighth graders. We went to the point of their complete circuit having to be an electromagnetic. We then had a "fishing" competition with their electromagnetics. The students had to draw out their electromagnetic and how the circuit was complete. The students also had to state how their magnetic would have worked better, or if if did not work, why. Having that time to figure out what to do different is great for the students and helps them look at labs from a critic point of view.
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