In this final week of Science After School Cady Radcliff and myself only found it appropriate to go on a voyage through the ocean! So watch out for those waves, and critters Max, because it's going to be smooth sailing from here on out! The classroom was set up into group tables of four with the mask for the wild rumpus set as a placement so the eager students could get to work immediately! In front of the room we had a visit from our guest fish, set on top of a fishnet surrounded by seashells and our fish tank filled with water. Between our mural in the back of the room and ocean music playing in the background it was the perfect mood! Our exploration was with the classic sink or swim activity, the students loved participating and making an educated guess about what would happen. To help with vocabulary the matching game was great, it really helped the students stay involved and not get distracted. We used colored Popsicle sticks to give group roles and used the table placement as the group. This was very important in helping us maintain our time management. Once the vocabulary game was finished we sailed on to testing out the students’ knowledge of density by playing another game based around the liquid water and density levels (refer to lesson plan for more detail). Now that the students had learned about density and buoyancy it was time to put their knowledge to good use by proceeding to a classic application. Working together as a group, students were given a box full of materials ( foam, clay, bubble wrap, aluminum foil, tape, one popsicle stick) see lesson plan for quaintly. In a time frame of 15 minutes each group had to use their knowledge to build a boat that would successfully float. To test which boat worked the best we placed wildthings ( pennies) on the boat in the fish tank filled with water. It was a supper success, in fact one boat held 64 pennies! I was so impressed in the way the students worked together, stayed on task, and gave positive feedback to each other! As I reflect on this lesson, I would try to have incorporated more hands on activity and visual demonstrations. Such as when we played the density game, I could of brought in real life visual and tested them opposed to just having the picture. This is a lesson I am very proud of and plan to use in my future classroom!
FAIRMONT STATE UNIVERSITY
School of Education
ELEMENTARY LESSON PLAN FORMAT
Name: Cady Radcliff & Kelli Hickson Date taught: Week 4 Time/Period: 60 minutes
Grade Level: 3-6 Group size: Whole group/three groups of five
Content Area: Science
Content Standard:
• SC.O.3.2.05 relate the buoyancy of an object to its density.
• SC.O.5.2.12 through experimentation, identify substances by their relative densities
I. Instructional Objectives: At the end of the lesson, the student will be able to:
• Identify basic vocabulary through playing a whole class match game.
• Apply knowledge of density and buoyancy to make the most affective boat that will with stand weight in water.
II. Materials/Preparation:
• Fish Tank
• Aluminum foil
• Coins (pennies)
• Clay
• Cushion Wrap
• Felt
• Cork sheet
• Nu-foam
• Kit boxes (could use shoe boxes)
• Density Blocks
• Print out of Vocabulary and definitions
• Magnet strips
• Pictures ( ice, Oak wood, gold, air, bricks, aluminum, water) and density levels
• Decorations for mask ( stickers, jewels,
• Markers
• Popsicle sticks
• Glue gun to glue sticks to mask
• Paint fish mural
• Fish net with sea decorations
• Blow Up Globe
III. Vocabulary:
• Density- How tightly atoms are packed together in a given space.
• Mass- the amount of stuff (matter) contained in an object.
• Volume- the amount of space taken up by the amount (quantity) of matter.
• Buoyant force- the ability of an object to float when placed in water
IV. Instructional Processes:
A. Introduction/ Exploration:
Have a blow up globe and toss the globe around the room to the students, individually. Ask them where their thumbs land (most likely on water). When the globe has been passed from student to student, tell the class that 71% of the Earth is covered in water.
A. Intro: Cady will introduce with a short reading from the passage with max being on the boat to tie in the theme of our lesson which is “Ocean.” Placed in front of the room we will have our fish tank filled half way with water.
Exploration: (sink or float) In the front of the room there will be density blocks. Cady will pass the blocks around the class so that every student gets a better chance to observe the two. As the students observe the blocks Kelli will engage them with questions to think about such as: what do you notice are different about the two blocks? What is alike about them? After everyone feels the blocks Cady will then take a class poll of each block asking if they think it will sink or float. Then we will proceed with the activity to see which blocks will sink or float.
B. Concept Development:
• Kelli will then ask students questions to draw a conclusion about the why some blocks sank and the others did not. New vocabulary will be introduced to the class by asking each materials manager from each of the 5 different groups, (these have been pre-chosen and will have blue Popsicle sticks) to come up and pick up a random card that has a term on it. Then they will take it back to their group, and the group will have to decide on the correct definition that is placed on the chalkboard. Cady will then have the reporters (chosen with a red popsicle stick), bring their term up to the board and match it with the definition that their group decided on. She will then go over all the vocabulary as a whole class, and fix any that needs corrected, and mainly focus on the “rule”.
• On the board there will be two categories: Sink or Swim. Kelli will pass out pictures to each group, and let them decide if their picture sinks of floats. We will then have the facilitator (yellow popsicle stick) of each group come and bring up their groups picture and put it where it belongs. At this time we will then explain to the children that there is sometimes an exception to the rule. We will tell the children that if you have a piece of steel and just place it in the water it will sink. However if you take it and pound it out to where it is flat or forms like a boat then it will float. We will then show an example using a piece of balled up foil, when dropped the foil will sink. However when flattened out the foil will float, this will reinforce the exception.
C. Application:
Cady will begin by telling the children that Max from the story is going back home and wants to bring back as many wild things as he can on his boat so he has to have the boat that will float the best! She will then proceed to give directions as Kelli passes out the kits. The students will have to make a boat out of materials in their kit to see how many “Wild Things” or pennies their boat will hold. After ten minutes is up the facilitator (yellow stick) from each group will come up one at a time to test their boat. We will keep score by writing the total amount of pennies on the board. After each group’s boat has been tested, Kelli will go over why each boat floated, or sunk, and why the certain materials did what they did, this will be done by calling on the students with the blue Popsicle stick to tell how they made their boat. If there is any additional time students will continue to decorate the mask. We will also stamp the passports with boat stamp for the ocean.
D. Conclusion:
Since this is the week of Halloween we will have treat bags for each of the students to take home! Let the wild rumpus start!
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