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While some of us stand out in a crowd others tend to blend in and it's the same in the animal kingdom. This animal camouflage lesson plan explains some of the concepts and offers a fun activity to help kids understand how camouflage works. This lesson involves learning about adaptations of animals in their environment. Specifically, we would be discussing camouflage. In the activity that goes with the lesson, students would make cardboard cut-outs of animals, color them, and try to hide them around the room in areas where their camouflage would benefit them most. Students would also learn how some animals prefer to stand out in their environment as a warning to others. For extensions of this lesson, we could discuss how hunters and soldiers use man-made camouflage. I could also take the kids outside and have them find somewhere that they would blend in the best based on their clothing.

This website includes several different lesson plans on recycling. The one that I enjoyed the most is teaching them how long trash lasts, discusses decomposing along with other things. The lesson plan includes what subject areas are included in the lesson, a brief description, grades, objectives, keywords, materials, along with many other key components. It is a very good lesson for teachers to use as a guideline.

While this is interesting information, the activity focuses on a lot of guessing without linking to prior experience or involving students in finding out for themselves. You say "guideline" as a use, and I would suggest it be only that, perhaps related to a unit on food chains that involves the concept of decomposition. Students could design their own experiment to observe the decomposition of different objects over time.

This is a lesson plan resource that covers the explanation of simple machines and a couple activities in which students create their own simple or complex machines. The lesson plan also lists some great books and activity pieces to buy that would go great along with each of the lesson sections and also lists a few ideas for homework materials. The only ones that were working correctly were #3 to see the design of a lapbook and #5 to see simple machine coloring pages. Also note that choice #6 under Homework Ideas does cost money. I personally loved the ideas for creating simple and complex machines. It would be a chance for students to work together on creating a solution (3-5-ETS1-2). This would be a great way to breakdown the learning of simple machines into easy pieces that can be organized and taught well.

This resource has a huge collection of early elementary science activities, projects, and labs. It also includes homework that is less pencil-and-paper based and more activity/exploratory based. Each category has different types of lessons outlined within it. Each of these lessons in meant to be 90 minutes long but they can each be changed very easily.

Karen Pavlik discusses an inquiry-based lesson for an elementary weather unit. The students will predict which thermometer will have a higher temperature, one in a white sleeve or one in a black sleeve, and record their findings. I like this experiment because something is being tested, yet it has such a simple design. If I were to give this lesson, I would do a single experiment as a class, with one thermometer in a white sleeve and one in a black sleeve. I would allow students to write down their individual predictions beforehand regarding which, if either, would show a higher temperature after being left in the sun. I still remember a similar scenario from my early childhood years. One of my "alternate conceptions" was that darker would be cooler because shade is cooler. This lesson opens the door for further student inquiry and extensions to the lesson, such as testing different colors beyond just black and white.

In this lesson, you are asking the students to compare the ways in which animals move: which body parts they use, how quickly, etc. The students then compare as a class and in small groups. The lesson asks you to take them outside or to bring animals into your classroom to observe them, but that is not necessarily an option, so I would alter the lesson by pulling up videos of animals for them. If multiple computers are available, one could have a different animal video going at different spots around the room for the different groups to go to. This lesson could be very fun for the students. I really think they'd enjoy actually seeing the animals move as opposed to simply talking about it.

Students will Learn and understand the term habitat. Discover that forests, deserts, wetlands, and grasslands are unique and separate habitats. Identify animals that live in four different environments. _______________________________________________________________________________________ In this lesson, students are learning about four different habitats: forests, deserts, wetlands, and grasslands. Students learn about the different environments of each habitat, as well as the different animals that live in each habitat. To show their understanding, students will create a drawing of the habitat they would most like to visit, including the different animals and plants that live there. I selected this resource because I think it's important for students to understand that there are many different habitats around the world. Students (as well as adults) often forget that there is a world outside of where they live, and I think it's important for students to learn about and understand these other habitats. Also, many students are interested in animals, and incorporating animals into this lesson will make it easier for the students to be engaged. I would follow the lesson the way it is written, and incorporate what we learn into a discussion about the type of environment we live in. Students would be able to compare where we live to other kinds of habitats. To add to this lesson, I would have each corner of the room decorated with a different kind of habitat (ex: forest corner: trees, monkeys, etc). Each student would make their own drawing, and go to their desired corner to share with their group first and then share their drawing to the whole class.

Looks good!

In this motions and mass lesson plan, which is adaptable for grades 1-4, students use a free online science game to explore the principles of physics, mass, force, and motion. Interactive whiteboard Computers with internet access for BrainPOP This lesson plan uses a free online game called SpaceForce.

I would use this lesson as a transition from plants needing sunlight and water to now the importance of birds and insects to plants. Throughout this lesson students will learn the role of flowers and pollinating birds and insects in the garden and that different pollinators have different needs.I chose this lesson because it is important for students to understand that insects and birds play an important part in plant life. I also liked this lesson because it explains why certain insects are attracted to certain flowers. This is a lesson I would use to introduce the new topic to my class.

In this lesson, students learn about the varying sizes of ocean waves, what causes the variation, and where to find giant waves. Students will learn the parts of a wave, and discuss wave height, wavelength, and wave period. They will experiment with creating waves on the National Geographic Wave Simulator and discuss how geography affects waves. I like this lesson because it gives students rural country areas (areas without oceans) insight into our oceans. This lesson could be paired with a lesson about ocean currents or temperatures (and temp. change). In addition to using the on-line program, I would bring in a giant aquarium with toy boats to show what happens with waves.

Great lesson idea for teaching about plant and animal cells. Watch this video for an overview of this biology lesson and how you can bring it into your classroom. Lesson plan print out is also available. This lesson helps students see a cell in a way that they can understand, which involves food! I think that when students make something they are more likely to understand what they make.

This lesson is cool because it involves what students can see everyday outside. It is something they can experience on their way to school, on their way home, or on a summer day at the park. The study of songbirds will help students with some vocabulary words they should be exposed to and learn about why some birds are song birds. Plus, this lesson has an awesome in class activity at the end that allows students to make their own bird sounds and compare their sounds to actual birds.

This site includes games, lesson plans, worksheets and activities, and more. This website would be useful to gather information and plan lessons and activities for students. It also has the grade level expectations.

This website was uploaded by BPS Elementary Science Exemplars Project. It is a great lesson plan on how to teach first graders to differentiate between living and nonliving things. This would be a great way for me to introduce the lesson plan to my class. I really like how it still has a lot of pictures to match with the words, in case some readers are not as advanced as others. This lesson plan is very kid friendly, and would be engaging for them, because I could also use several objects in the classroom/around the school to ask if it is living or non-living. After the students gave me their answer, I would then go into characteristics of each living or non-living thing.

* This lesson is focused on the identification of structures and functions that plants and need to survive. It lets the students think about what job each part of the plant has to survive along with how important it is for each plant part to do its job or else the plant will not. I selected this resource because I thought it would make for a great introduction lesson for teaching students about plants and how their internal and external structures help them to support survival, growth, behavior, and overall reproduction (4-LS1-1). The structure and processes of plants and animals is my main focus of this lesson, but I feel that this lesson would benefit the teaching of plants.

Ask students to look at a glass of water with a pencil in it and have them draw their observations. Tell them to look at the glass from all angles. Ask them to explain their observations and hypothesize the cause of this discrepant observation. This would be a good follow up lesson after the bending light lab/experiment. I would use this to introduce the lab and experiment. Then finish and summarize the lesson by adding the questions.

This is a lesson on the properties of the electromagnetic spectrum. It is structured much like a lesson plan that we learned about in EDU 309, and as such, is easily broken down into individual parts. The lesson itself provides introduction to the electromagnetic spectrum, UV beads, prisms, and diffraction gratings, and also explains the origins of rainbows. I selected this resource because it provides a clear example of the use of the Next Generation Science Standards (despite its origins in California) as well as a valuable way for elementary students to look at the world around them in a different way. It also provides reading and mathematics connections. I would use this resource as a guidepost to structure my own lesson about light waves and the electromagnetic spectrum.

Excellent first post! you've got the hang of Diigo!

This resource is a lesson segment that can be used to introduce biodiversity and also teach the students what biodiversity is. I selected this resource because it will give me an idea on what to teach my 2nd grade classroom when it comes to biodiversity. I would use this resource as a tool to help me in making my lesson plans for my lesson segment on biodiversity.

This is a lesson plan over clouds and what they are made of. It involves activities for the students during the lesson and includes a worksheet that also incorporates math. I would use this lesson in my classroom as an introduction lesson to clouds because I feel that it would really grab the students' attention and curiosity.

I will use this information for planning my lesson on lightning and Benjamin Franklin's invention of the lightning rod. This web page on The Franklin Institute's webpage explains Benjamin Franklin's fascination of weather, particularly lightning, and why he invented the lightning rod. This website also provides other information about Benjamin Franklin that I may find helpful in planning my lesson.