What Living Things Need to Survive

A few weeks ago, I wrote about part one of checking prior knowledge and establishing some background information as we embarked on your temr three study of living things.  While in the first lesson, we classified things we saw on our nature walk as living and non-living, in this lesson, we talked about what living things need to survive. I divided the class into small groups of two or three.  Each group was given a piece of paper with the name of a plant or animal on the top.  I chose familiar plants an animals like hamster, cat, dog, tree, squirrel. They were asked to jot down notes on their paper about what this plant or animal would need to live.

After about fifteen or twenty minutes of working in the small groups, we came together as a class to share our information.  I started a master list of what each group shared about their plant or animal.  When one group mentioned an item that was already on our chart, we would put a tick mark beside that item. As we created our list, we noticed that the plants and animals need many of the same things.  We talked about how scientists come to conclusions based on what they know, what they observe, research and what they learn.

Each student was then asked to write in their science notebooks what living things need to survive.

One of our goals in science if for our students to make connections from one science activity to another, from our science to their own lives and from science to other subject areas.  When we hear a child make a connection, we often jot it down on a post it note and put it in their notebook.  You can see this in the example above.

We these lessons completed, we are ready to jump head first into investigating many local living things.  More posts on living things to come.

Nature Walk: Living and Non Living

This term, we are very excited to be embarking on a new topic.  We are going to explore living things.  But, we feel very strongly that students learn best by doing and when their learning is interactive and hands on.    We want our kids to guide their own learning.  We will not be standing at the front of the class spouting facts about different living things.  Instead the kids and their wonders will guide us.  But, before we get started we want to check for understanding and establish some background knowledge.  First order of business, a nature walk.

Armed with clipboards, magnifying glasses and pencils we headed outside.  The kids were asked to to write down everything they noticed.  We walked around the school examining trees, litter, rocks, spider webs and playground equipment.

Once inside, we sat in a sharing circle and each student shared one thing from their list.  As they shared from their list I wrote down what they shared on recipe cards.  Now we had 22 different objects from outside.  Next, we played a game where I showed a card and they had to decide whether the item was living or non- living.  We classified (a grade one process of science) our items and created a two column chart on the chalk board using masking tape.

There was a lot of great discussion and big thinking about how to tell whether an object is living or non- living.  Part way through our discussion we realized we needed to add a new column.  We decided to call this category, "used to be living" in order to provide a list for leaves that had fallen to the ground and dead spiders.

After our discussion, the students were asked to go back and work in their science notebooks.  I wanted them to classify the objects on their personal lists and record their classification in their notebooks.

This is a great opportunity to see the children's thinking skills in action.  How will they classify their own lists and how will they represent their learning?  Will they use a t-chart, a labelled diagram or a web.  These are all different tools that the students have been exposed to throughout the year from their peers and modeled by their teachers.  This open ended type of activity allows every child to succeed and show what they know.

This lesson leads nicely into our next lesson, what living things need to survive?  To be continued....

Thinking Outside the Box...Again

Okay, can you tell we are super excited about all the big thinking our students are doing during these challenges.  I thought I would share some of the things we have been doing on my days for Thinking Outside the Box.

Feather Challenge

I posed the challenge, who could get the feather to travel the furthest?  I told them they could use anything we had in the classroom/school.  I asked them to first create a labelled diagram of their plan and include a list of the supplies they would need. The students were highly motivated to write. There is nothing better than looking across a grade 1 classroom and seeing everyone totally engaged in their writing.  Once their labelled diagrams were done, the children started building.  I just loved going around the room and hearing all their ideas.  I especially loved hearing them chat, question and assist each other.  For example, one student had built a plane and was putting the feather inside.  His friend was watching and said, "Don't you think the feather will fall out when you try to fly it.  I think you should tape the feather inside."

Here are some of the solutions:

This student had taped a magnet to his feather and then threw it to the metal cookie sheet.  It was exciting
 to see him use what he was learning about in Science (magnets) to assist with this challenge.
Science to Science Connection!!!!

This was our second place winner!

It was exciting to see this student's thinking during the project.  Initially he had taped a bunch of popsicle
sticks to his plane.  After testing it a few times, he asked for a new piece of paper.  When I asked him why
he said, "I have to start over, I made my plane too heavy.  The sticks were weighing down the plane.
  If I want the plane to go far I need to make it lighter. " 

This was the big winner.  He had taped his feather to a ball and threw it across the room.

Instrument Challenge

Our school had a visiting Vietnamese music performance come to entertain us.  As part of the show, one of the musician's shared a few instruments he had created himself.  I thought it would be cool for the students to try to create their own instruments.  We began by looking through some books of instruments and having a discussion about how instruments make sounds.  I then raided the supply cupboard for anything I could find that could make a sound.  The children were given an opportunity to experiment and explore the supplies  Once again, I asked them to create a labelled diagram and supply list.  Not only did this give them a meaningful writing task, but also gave me a chance to see what other supplies I needed to gather for the students to create their projects.

The criteria for this challenge was:
-it must make at least 3 sounds
-it could not be an instrument that already existed

Here are some of the solutions:

This one was pretty amazing.  He wanted to make it like his piano at home with notes
that would press down.  Under each chopstick he put a different material so that each
 would make a different sound.  Pretty big thinking for a seven year old!

This one used the chopstick in different ways.  First he plucked it like a guitar then
he bowed the elastics like a violin.  It was great to see him problem solve different ways
 to get the popsicle sticks to hold the elastics.  It took many different tries before he found this one.

This instrument had two sides.  This side had different length and width elastics.
 It was neat to see them discover the different sounds they could make.

I just loved the variety of this one.  In fact, it was more like a one girl band than a single
 instrument.  I'm not sure what those blue things on top are actually used for but they did
make a cool sound when she blew on them.
   

I just loved this labelled diagram, complete with text boxes and wonders.

School of Snow

We had snow last week and in our neck of the woods, snow is a novelty because it doesn't happen too often.  When I heard the weather report and that the snow would likely disappear by the afternoon, I promptly shifted my morning plans to Monday.  We spent the periods between recess and lunch immersed in snow fun, snow math, snow science and snow art.

How cold is snow?
We bundled up and headed outside to gather snow.  Each person filled a cup full of snow.  We came inside and used thermometers to measure how cold the snow was.  We did a mini lesson on using a thermometer.  It was great to hear their connections between a thermometer and when their parents take their temperature to check for a fever.

How long can you hold snow?
Next we had a little fun with a challenge, how long can you hold a handful of snow?  Some kids held their snow for a minute, others for ten minutes.  There was lots of discussion while they were holding snow about what they noticed and how cold it felt.

After these two activities, we sat in a sharing circle to share as scientists.  Each person took a turn to share what did they notice (observe) and a wonder that they have about snow.  After each person had a turn to share, the students wrote about their observations and wonders.  Earlier in the week, they had written about snow as a poet, now we were looking at it through the lens of a scientist.

Some of their observations and wonders:
"When my thumb is on the red part of the thermometer the red goes up."
"My hand was really red after holding the snow, I wonder why it got red?"
" The snow melted and ran down my arm, I think it is because my hand is warm."
" I noticed that the snow is cold and wet."
" I wonder how snow melts?"

Salt and Snow
Before the students started writing, we set up one last experiment.  We put out two plates of snow.  One plate we added salt and the other we left as is.  Periodically as we were writing, we checked on the status of our snow.  Again I was so pleased with the connections that they were making to using salt on the sidewalks and why that might be.  One of our goals, is to encourage  students to make connections in their science and math.  We want to carry over our connections in reading to other disciplines.  Good readers make connections, but so do good scientists and good math mathematicians.

Art Collage and The Snowy Day
One of my favourite snow books and snow art project comes from The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats.

After enjoying the book, the children were given a blue paper for the background and a white paper for the snow.  Using scrap paper, they re-created a snow scene.

The final touch is to stamp or sponge paint snow to their picture in the style of the end pages in the book.

Any good snow lessons to share?

More on Magnets

This week, we have continued to explore toys and games that use magnets in preparation for our final project.  On Monday, the students brought in toys and games from home that used magnets.

The kids rotated through four stations each with different toys and games. After about ten minutes and before switching to a new station, we would have a quick debrief about what they were playing with and how magnets were used.  This enabled me to further build their background knowledge and give them an opportunity to think about what game they would like to create.

At the end of the exploring and playing time, each student filled out a planning sheet.  The sheet included what they were making and what materials they would need for their game or toy.

Today was toy creation day.  Before we got down to work, we created two games as a class.  This allowed me to model how to use different materials and support those who were not sure how to make their game.

Snake Charmer:

Cut a snake out of paper in a circular pattern.  Add eyes and a mouth.  Attach a paper clip to the underside of the head.  Use a magnet to charm the snake and make it stand up.

Boat Races:

This game required a wine cork, but I could not get my hands on one, so we improvised.  We used a plastic disc and glue gunned a paper clip to the bottom.  The idea is to create two boats and use magnets to have them race each other.

The kids got right down to work and it was so interesting to watch them complete their project and the different ideas they had, even when creating the same game.  Most kids created some kind of a fishing game.

An erupting volcano game:

Mazes:

Fishing Games:

Airplanes that find things that are magnetic:

There were two, but the other photo had some students' faces in it.

A magnetic truck that would stick to the chalkboard:

This truck was modeled after magnetic toy trucks that were brought in on Monday.  The trucks were able to drive up the chalkboard on their own.  A great connection.

We spent our writer's workshop writing about our creations.  I spent recess quickly printing up the photos of their creations so they could attach it to their writing. In all of our science, we have been really focussing on the students making connections from what we are doing to other science activities or things in their own lives.  So we talked a lot about what their toy reminded them of and what inspired them to make their toy (a student came up with the word inspired).  So I was hoping it would come out in their writing and in some cases it did.  Many students who created fishing games, talked about a fishing game they played at a year end carnival they had in kindergarten.  A great connection.