Sunday, October 14, 2012
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Modeling layers of the Earth
I was in a real bind with the lesson on Earth science since I won't be teaching this topic for months to my own students. It's very difficult to get them to shift gears, unfortunately, but I did have an inspiration when I remembered that the third grade was working on Earth science at this time of the year.
So I went and offered my services to one of the third grade teachers as a demonstration lesson in model building. As luck would have it, that week she had just completed working with the kids on the layers of the Earth, so I was able to bring a model creating activity to their classroom.
I had forgotten that third graders were so LITTLE! At least next to my seventh and eighth graders... But they were very cute, and very eager to please. That was a breath of fresh air after my super sophisticated teens, that is for sure.
I had decided to do an old fashioned, low tech activity where the students work in pairs to create models of the Earth from clay, starting with a spherical inner core, and building layers on top of it until you have one large globe. Then the globe is sliced in half, revealing the four layers which the children then attach labels to.
I had planned to use the class Smart Board to display some video about the topic, and talk about the best laid plans of mice and men... because wouldn't you know that our entire network crashed that day and wasn't restored until the afternoon. (This lesson was in the morning.) I had to laugh, as I was thinking about how I had wanted to integrate technology into my lesson only to have it fail me.
Just as well, with only 45 minutes to establish a rapport with the class; activate their prior knowledge; demonstrate the procedure; AND help ten pairs of eager little ones to construct and cut their models in half... I can't imagine also having time for video!
The kids were thrilled with the lesson though, and I was SO proud of their performance. They worked hard to complete their models, they helped each other and got along very well with no problem sharing the two rolling pins I had brought. Every student completed the model with correct labeling in the time allotted, which was really great, in my opinion. I saw the class passing by the principal at the end of the day and they all stopped to show her their models (thank goodness I had remembered to bring plastic bags to wrap them in for transport home!).
Though the lesson felt a bit hectic to me due to the intensity of the pacing of the lesson, I felt it met the goals completely. The students were engaged, and had a lot of fun doing the activity. It was one of the fastest 45 minutes in the classroom ever!
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So I went and offered my services to one of the third grade teachers as a demonstration lesson in model building. As luck would have it, that week she had just completed working with the kids on the layers of the Earth, so I was able to bring a model creating activity to their classroom.
I had forgotten that third graders were so LITTLE! At least next to my seventh and eighth graders... But they were very cute, and very eager to please. That was a breath of fresh air after my super sophisticated teens, that is for sure.
I had decided to do an old fashioned, low tech activity where the students work in pairs to create models of the Earth from clay, starting with a spherical inner core, and building layers on top of it until you have one large globe. Then the globe is sliced in half, revealing the four layers which the children then attach labels to.
I had planned to use the class Smart Board to display some video about the topic, and talk about the best laid plans of mice and men... because wouldn't you know that our entire network crashed that day and wasn't restored until the afternoon. (This lesson was in the morning.) I had to laugh, as I was thinking about how I had wanted to integrate technology into my lesson only to have it fail me.
Just as well, with only 45 minutes to establish a rapport with the class; activate their prior knowledge; demonstrate the procedure; AND help ten pairs of eager little ones to construct and cut their models in half... I can't imagine also having time for video!
The kids were thrilled with the lesson though, and I was SO proud of their performance. They worked hard to complete their models, they helped each other and got along very well with no problem sharing the two rolling pins I had brought. Every student completed the model with correct labeling in the time allotted, which was really great, in my opinion. I saw the class passing by the principal at the end of the day and they all stopped to show her their models (thank goodness I had remembered to bring plastic bags to wrap them in for transport home!).
Though the lesson felt a bit hectic to me due to the intensity of the pacing of the lesson, I felt it met the goals completely. The students were engaged, and had a lot of fun doing the activity. It was one of the fastest 45 minutes in the classroom ever!
.jpg)
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