For the past few weeks a fellow student and I have been in charge of creating science lessons for an elementary school that has been struggling. In this system students do not even get to experience a science class until middle school, therefore an after-school program was created to give the students exposure to science while giving them information that they can use in their daily lives. I plan on keeping a weekly post going to update lessons and feedback on how well they went over.
Students in the program range from 3rd to 6th grade. In my classroom I am in charge of a group of 3rd graders and the same for my fellow student. As there are fewer of them in the program, there is another volunteer that is in charge of the 4th, 5th, & 6th grade students. So far it has not only been a great pleasure but such a rewarding experience working with not only the students but the other volunteers that have given their time to this school.
Let me go over what has been done so far:
Week 1:
This week we decided to do more introductory activities to get to know the students and give them an opportunity to become comfortable with us. To begin the day we had they students create their "flag" on the Manila folders that we will use each week. To make the flag the students had to pick four things that represented them (ex. favorite sport, music, hobby, etc) and draw these on their folder.
Once everyone had the opportunity to illustrate their folders we began with the lesson of the day, which was scientific method/investigation. We accomplished this with the art of thumb wars! Students first took their thumb measurements and recorded their personal information on a handout we created. Next all of the students made their hypothesis as so what makes a thumb wrestling champion....will it be the longest thumb?? why? will it be the shorter thumb?? why?
All students took turns thumb wrestling and recording their observations (data collection) and wrote it in their charts. Once they had filled their charts they analyzed their data and wrote what they found and how it compared to their original hypothesis. Students were very engaged during the process, however, one warning I will give is that no one likes to lose! If anyone tries this in the classroom be prepared to have some students become upset if they did not win a particular round. Aside from that, the day was great and the students were amazing!!
Week 2:
This week we began the skeletal system!! To begin, students were asked to draw what they think their skeleton looks like. I saw skeletons of all types and numbers of bones....the most bones that were drawn was 26. Imagine the students surprise when we handed out the next worksheet describing not only the skeleton, but how many bones there actually are. 206 bones is a bit of a difference, so we had a class discussion on why there are so many, and why they are important.
Just for fun students pantomimed what having no bones would look like. I did not get to see the other classrooms, but let me tell you 3rd graders are fabulous actors. I could not help but laugh at how silly everyone got, but how well they did!
After our discussion we talked about nutrition and where we get nutrients for our bones. Students were good at pinpointing out the dairy products and were guided to figure out the vitamins and minerals that keep the bones strong.
To conclude we did the skeleton dance! I brought in my computer and speakers to play the song and we all danced along. The song was so much fun, and students were actually singing it still the following week for us!
Week 3:
In continuation with the skeletal system we decided to do an owl pellet dissection. This lesson went fantastically. Students were engaged and discovering the entire time. I could not believe how lucky we were with the pellets...they were action packed with bones!! At first I had to laugh when students started yelling and asking why I had just handed them "doo-doo". I giggled and reassured them that despite the less than appealing appearance this was not fecal matter and that they would all be just fine.
With in minutes all of the students were completely intrigued with the owl pellets and began to be the discovering scientists they are and dissected the pellets picking out the pieces bone by bone by bone.
The dissection itself took the whole time this week, and therefore we will be doing a continuation next week. Students were given a bone chart so that they can all identify the bones that are found, and if time permits hopefully put a skeleton together!!!
