Group items tagged

4.3.3 Design investigations to explore how organisms meet some of their needs by responding to stimuli from their environments.4.3.4 Describe a way that a given plant or animal might adapt to a change arising from a human or non-human impact on its environment. Differentiation: Have ELL students record their biome's progress and changes using a picture graph.

3.3.1 Identify the common structures of a plant including its roots, stems, leaves, flowers, fruits and seeds. Describe their functions.3.3.2 Investigate plant growth over time, take measurements in SI units, record the data and display the data in graphs. Examine factors that might influence plant growth. Differentiation: Have gifted and special needs students come up with a creative way to display their plant's structures.  This can be oral, artistic, acted out, etc...

I would read a book about shapes first as part of the discussion on shapes. I like in the end when the students come back and tally their results. You could also do a bar graph with the tally marks.

Scavenger hunts are usually motivating for kids.

Extensions: Math/History/Art (Leonardo of Pisa: Fibonacci) The Golden Mean Adaptations: ESL will be able to visualize Golden Ratio - proportions of art and architecture.  Special Ed will work in small groups paired with good math students. Teacher will provide completed sample of spiral and objects from nature that show this spiral.

This lesson offers a great chance to work with a writing lesson.  Students can learn how the wording of their questions might affect the answers they receive.  This could then spawn another lesson in critical thinking about how real surveys done by groups might be biased to their preconceived ideas.  Working in groups would allow students of various ability levels and learning styles to all contribute to the group.

3.MD.2 "Measure and estimate liquid volumes and masses of objects using standard units of grams (g), kilograms (kg), and liters (l). Add, subtract, multiply, or divide to solve one-step word problems involving masses or volumes that are given in the same units, e.g., by using drawings (such as a beaker with a measurement scale) to represent the problem." This activity can be modified for ELL students by having them work in pairs or small groups. The ELL students could have the role as "recorder" until they grasp the concept of how estimation works. This activity can be modified for gifted students by having them measure more objects, and then make a graph based on their results. For older ages, this activity could be used to measure objects, and then convert the weight into other units of measurement.

Extensions: Connect Earth Science with Math and Art. Also includes Natural Sciences. Adaptations: Gifted students can record daily weather observations in a notebook and create a graph or tally chart of the different types of weather that they examined. ESL & Special Ed students can draw daily weather patterns in notebook or create pictograph charts of weather with tally marks to indicate frequency. 

Nature of Science Standard: Make predictions and formulate testable questions; plan and carry out investigations-often over a period of several lessons-as a class, in small groups or independently; perform investigations using appropriate tools and technologies that will extend the senses; use measurement skills and apply appropriate units when collecting data; test predictions with multiple trials; keep accurate records in a notebook during investigations and communicate findings to others using graphs, charts, maps and models through oral and written reports; compare the results of an investigation with the prediction. This activity can be modified for ELL students by allowing those students to be the recorder for the group. This will allow those students to participate, without having the pressure of attempting to measure and use words they may not be comfortable with yet. Allowing these students to be the recorder keeps them involved with the group, while also allowing them to practice the English words for the numbers being recorded. This activity can also be used for younger ages by shortening the activity to throwing the ball five times, rather than ten. The act of throwing the ball make take longer for these students, as well as measuring an angle.

K.3.3 "Describe and compare living plants in terms of growth, parts, shape, size, color and texture."

Giving each student a bean plant creates a sense of ownership and responsibility. The students will be able to watch the plant grow from a bean to a plant, watering and measuring it's growth each day. This would be a great activity for partnering- An ELL student could be paired with an English speaking student and they could work together as a team to take care of their plants and record plant growth.