Group items tagged

Indiana State Standard: MA.5.3.1 2000 C.C. Standard: 6.EE.2

Expansion: As suggested by the activity, this can be used to add and subtract negative numbers, as well as more complex equations.  

ENL: Practice and communication with peers will help ENL students understand the concepts of variables.  When paired with a peer who can translate, this allows for a peer to help them with the game. 

6.3.5 Describe how all animals, including humans, meet their energy needs by consuming other organisms, breaking down their structures, and using the materials to grow and function. 5.3.1 Observe and classify common Indiana organisms as producers, consumers, decomposers, predator and prey based on their relationships and interactions with other organisms in their ecosystem. This activity works really well for all types of learners because it is interactive and involves group knowledge.  For English Language learners, it would be a good idea to not only write the names of the species on the card, but to place pictures of the species on these cards as well.  This will help your ELLs, but it will also add another layer of knowledge for all students because they will start to notice that how the animal looks reflects its place on the food chain.  Animals that are fast and have sharp teeth and claws are probably at the top of the food chain, and plants are near the bottom.

Standard: 1.NS.3 - Observe, describe and ask questions about living things and their relationships to their environments.

Extension: Students could maintain terrariums for various lengths of time, depending on the goals behind building the terrariums. Students could make representations of what they have observed over time in the terrariums.

Adaptation: ELL students could work with English Speaking students to bridge the language gap needed when following instructions for making terrariums. ELL students could also get support from English Speaking students when writing down what they observe, because it may be unfamiliar language. Graphs and charts could be made as a class, to keep track of height of plants and number of insects.

C.C. Standard: 3.OA.7

Expansion: This board game could be recreated to be longer or shorter, or to have different numbers.  In addition, larger dice with more sides could be used for practice multiplying two digit numbers.    

ESL: Cooperative games, interaction with peers and repetitive practice help esl students retain math fact information.  

Standard 6.NS.1 - Understand that the properties and behavior of matter can be explained by a model that depicts particles representing atoms or molecules in motion. Extension: Once students understand properties of different liquids, they can think how to manipulate those liquids and their properties. One example would be to heat up one liquid to several different temperatures and see how they interact. Adaptation: Teacher could split students into groups of 3-4 and have them stack liquids on their own. Students could bring in several liquids from home (all approved) and try stacking them based on the observed properties.

Standard: 5.NS.3 - Observe and classify common Indiana organisms as producers, consumers, decomposers, predator and prey based on their relationships and interactions with other organisms in their ecosystem.

Extension: After playing game, students could break up into small groups and create their own food webs and food chains with animals and other living organisms of their choice.

Adaptation: Activity could be modified for ELL students by placing short definitions on the backs of their cards for "Consumer" and "Producer" so they can observe the relationship even if they don't know the words.

Pictures could be added to index cards for ELL students who struggle with the variety of animal names that they might not be exposed to yet.