Group items tagged

In this activity, students completely build a habitat. They choose the weather, who lives there, vegetation, etc. The game has a compatibility meter that tells them how close they are to building the perfect habitat. I chose this resource because the game tells the student when they are doing well, or if the conditions are not working together. I would use this as a part of a lesson about biology and wildlife.

This animated science movie for Kindergarten to 3rd grade classes helps students understand magnets, magnetic fields, and poles. The video explains many things about magnets including that magnets attract things that are made of iron and have two poles. I chose this because it touches on so many facts about magnets in one fun video. I would use this video to introduce the idea of how magnets work and what uses they have.

This process is called 'capillary action'. In this experiment you will need a little bit of time. You need a minimum of two glasses, one filled with water and the other one empty. You then will twist a paper towel and form a 'rope' out of it. You will place this in the glass with water in it. You will also place the other end of it in the empty glass. If you do this in the morning first thing when the students get there you could check on it at lunch and maybe a gain before you leave for the day, either way this takes time. You cant start this right before science. What happens is the water travels up one side of the paper towel, across the cups, and down into the other cup until both glasses are evenly filled. This shows students how water is capable of travel. It also is a bridge into talking about how root systems work in plants. What the students will be able to observe throughout the day is the same process plants use when they take water from the soil and carry it to the other parts of the plant. I would do this as an all day thing. Maybe between every subject, or every other subject, I would have them record observations in their journal. This is great for observational skills. You can even use more cups and put food coloring in them, this helps you track the water as it goes from cup to cup.

I would love to take a class here! I worked at a daycare over the summer and we took our kids here. I wish you could have seen the excitement in their eyes when they were there. There were all kinds of interactive attractions that engaged my kids. I would also give my students a check list of attraction that I absolutely want their group to cover. This list would also have space for them to write down their questions about each attraction. We would discuss each question upon returning to the school.

This resource shows instructions, materials and photos for creating a shoe box habitat. The website lists that this craft is for 1st graders, but I think that it could be just as easily used in a 2nd grade classroom. Students get to choose which type of habitat they would like to create and are able to work on it at school and home. I selected this resource because I feel that it would be a great activity to reinforce 2-LS4-1. This craft would not be necessarily a lesson, but rather something that ties into the after math of learning about animal/plant habitats. I would use this resource as either an end of the unit craft to discuss in the class and compare/contrast each others, or as an extra credit project to do at home.

This website contains an interactive game on food chains. Users are to place the animals in the correct order they would appear in the food chain. It allows you to choose between two different food chains. I chose this website because it includes this fun game, but also challenges students to understand food chains. I also think the game is engaging for students. One thing I really liked about this game is the ability to tell the user if they have chosen the correct order. I would allow my students to play this game in their own time, after they have finished their work, or during computer time.

In this lesson you go over 6 different habitats in the world. The list contains grasslands (or savanna), temperate forest, tropical rain forest, desert, polar ice, tidepools. You separate your class into six groups and assign each group a habitat. Each habitat has its own assigned question that the students need to find the answer to through research of their habitat using a computer. For example the grassland group has to explain why speed is such a good thing for animals who live there, while the temperate forests are going to explain what tree leaves have to do with frozen water available in their climate. When the assignment is done students have to present their work to the class and teach each other what they learned through their own research. The lesson is basically about adaptations and how they come in handy in certain parts of the world but not others. This link also has web links embedded in it to help students look for their answers. I think this is great for a unit on adaptations and habitats. I would have loved to do this in my upper elementary classes. i feel like i would have learned and remembered so much more. It definitely fosters more constructive learning. I don't tell you about adaptations and then ask questions, you are sent to find the info on your own.

This a science experiment that involves students making a cloud in a bottle. I would use this in my classroom as a fun activity to extend a lesson over clouds and reward my students for all their hard work at the end of the week.

Learn about evaporation, condensation, precipitation and collection. In this activity students will discover how the water cycle works as well as how evaporation, condensation, precipitation, and collection are conducted. During this activity students get to control the water cycle as they learn about the important process. I believe that this activity can support students in memorizing the water cycle as well as understanding why the process is important.

This WebQuest teaches the states of matter through the use of research, activities, music, and games. The site allows chances to go back and forth between tasks, and is very user friendly and easy to navigate. The students will examine solids, liquids, and gasses in an interactive and fun way that will keep them focused. I like this webquest because it allows the students to learn about the states of matter in multiple different ways. This gives each student a chance to excel at some part of the program, and makes it fun for everyone. I enjoy how many different pieces there is to the site, and it has tons of useful information that is shown in an interactive way. The students also get the chance to use technology independently and are able to do some research. I would introduce this web quest after an introduction day to the stages of matter, and have the class work on a few tasks each day to keep them motivated and wanting to keep going.

Electricity -- we depend on it every minute of every day. And yet to many of us, electricity seems a mysterious and even magical force. Before Ben Franklin did his famous and very dangerous kite flying experiment, electricity was thought to be a type of fire. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ I think this is an excellent lesson to teach to grades 3-6. I am pleased with this lesson that it lists the lesson sequence, materials needed, and the objectives. I really like the variety that this lesson includes. It allows students to get up and move in acting out an electric circuit as well as get up close and personal with electricity and how it works with the activity. Not only does this lesson involve interactive components for students, it also provides many videos that correlate with the lesson. This lesson plan seems easy to follow with the instructional sequence and I think it would be easy to fit within the McKendree lesson plan template and add a bit of flair from the teacher candidate. I think this lesson also allows teachers to impose his or her own spin on the lesson and choose what parts to include or omit as well as what might need to be added to the lesson. A lesson like this with so much instructional variety helps to reach students that learn from hands-on activities, students who learn more visually, as well as students who learn best from discussion and instruction. I would follow the instructional sequence if I were to use this lesson in the classroom, but I would tailor it to fit my time allotment for teaching Science, thus it would be done in smaller segments. I would choose one or two videos to share with the class, but post the rest on our class website so the children could view them if the wanted to.

This website includes lesson plans and activities to use in conjunction with Weather Channel's classroom program "Elementary Weather". Specifically, it includes weather concepts, scientific method, climate, weather terms, and the water cycle. It gives five lessons with background information, objectives, procedures, outcomes, prep time, materials, and standards. I chose this resource for a number of reasons. It's cross-curricular in at least one other area, provides handouts, has extension and modification plans, includes hands-on lessons, assessment tools, and a long-term project. I see myself using this in the classroom because there are many different directions each lesson can take. Modifications and extensions are important in our districts to meet the needs of diverse learners. I put a $ in the tags in case purchase of the videos is necessary.

This pdf file provides many different lessons on weather for many different grade levels. The pdf file assist the students in understanding the meaning behind the weather as a whole and gives great insight into what students need to do during these weather conditions. I believe that these lesson while give students great insight into how weather works as well as provide the teacher with many different ways to teach the lesson or grade level.

I chose this as an activity resource. This would be a great activity to do with students near the end of the school year after they have gotten the hang of creating their own solutions and putting them to the test to see if they work out well. This particular activity treats a water balloon as a brain and students construct a "skull" made out of different objects to keep the brain safe and secure when it's dropped from a certain height. I would use this with many different materials for students to use so we could study the outcome of all of the materials and then complete some kind of chart or graph to show our findings.

Go on an exploration of what we're made of and how we work with this Human Body app, from Tinybop. This app will help students explore the body. I think that using this app in the classroom students will get a better understanding of the human body then just a picture. They will have an interactive experience of exploring the human body. It also shows what different aspects of your body can do, such as seeing sound waves with the ear. I think that the new technology will help students learn more efficiently.

This interactive activity assist students in understanding the main parts of the plant cell. The students have to assist the conductor by getting the train to the right part of the plant cell, which provides memorization and practice skills for the student. This resource is valuable because it provides a lesson about the plant cell and how the plant cell parts work and what they are. I see my students using this resource as a fun way to study for their assessment, it's a wonderful memorization material.

In this game, students are separated into teams. Each team is given a block of Legos. Students must then take turns crab-walking from one side of the room to the other. Once the student reaches the other side, they are to break off one Lego from their block, set it on the floor, then pass the remaining piece to the next classmate in line. This game is a fun and easy way of explaining the process of the weathering away of a rock through the effects of erosion and deposition. I chose this resource because I thought it was a great way for students to become actively involved in the process of erosion, while allowing them to be active and work with their classmates. I would use this game in my classroom as a conclusion to a lesson on weathering, erosion, and deposition.

This website has a variety of unscrambling puzzles for young children. I would use this as an activity probably in the middle of "Recycling Week" to get children away from "schoolwork." Not only are the children learning words associated with recycling, they are also working on spelling and handwriting as well.

This lesson is used to teach young students the importance of nature. Many students don't realize many manufactured items come from nature. Bring in everyday items from home and ask the children where they think the item came from (paper and books from trees, glass from sand, etc). Have different colored dots and walk around the classroom and label items with colors from what the item might have came from (green=trees, red=animals), this requires the students to think critically. It's important for children to respect nature and understand most everything we interact with on a daily basis is from nature. As a teacher I can use this to teach children respect of nature and each other because everything must work together.

Although this field trip would only work for a school in Chicago, I found that the Adler Planetarium has an amazing exhibit about the solar system. Besides extensive information about each planet, students can participate in a space walk where they have the chance to explore the different terrain and atmospheres on the other planets. My favorite thing about this exhibit is that is gives the students the opportunity to touch a piece of Mars and the moon! I think the students would find this field trip very interesting and it would be much more entertaining to them than staying in the classroom and watching videos of the solar system!

The Saint Louis Science Center has a number of resources available for educators to assist in enhancing your classroom curriculum. From field trips to the Science Center or programs brought to your location, Science Center staff work hard to provide you with the resources you need to be successful. The Science Center is full of interactive science that students can be hands on with. You can study many different aspects of science then reenforce these ideas at the Science Center.