We're working through a biome/habitat science unit right now.
I decided to cover prairie dogs in those lessons. However, prairie dogs could be covered in many history topics such as Lewis and Clark, Westward Expansion, and even the Dust Storms era so I decided to link the prairie dog lessons as an individual unit here.
Showing posts with label science. Show all posts
Showing posts with label science. Show all posts
Saturday, September 10, 2011
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Science--Plants Unit
Note: for the vast majority of the Core Knowledge science objectives I found the online lesson plans were terrific just as written. For most I simply got library books and materials for the experiments to perform as written. If there is a Magic School Bus book and/or video on the topic I try to use one or the other depending on availability.
I found materials and specific books for studying plants so I’m including them here.
Parts of Plants and Water Transport
I used this work sheet and we examined a plant we pulled out of the ground by it’s roots.
We ran the celery experiment here to talk about water transport. This could fit in other parts of this plan perhaps better than this lesson but I used it on this day.
Seeds
We read the book A Seed is Sleepy to introduce this lesson.
We performed and discussed this experiment or here is another.
Seed Dispersal
I read Eric Carle’s book The Tiny Seed
Note: this covers only a seed flowing through the wind—so it can be used as an introduction here or as an introduction to talking about how a plant needs certain conditions to thrive. We tied this to the biblical parable about the farmer’s seeds.
You can run a little experiment to emphasize the points by placing seeds in various hospitable and inhospitable conditions.
I also used the book to introduce seed dispersal and followed up with this video clip which shows various ways seeds are dispersed. It’s really interesting! Note that a rhino does poo at the end--dispersing seeds of course!
Go exploring to find seeds and talk about how those seeds might disperse.
Plant Growth
Frog and Toad Together has a fun story—The Garden--which works nicely to introduce this lesson. Toad tries to get his seeds to grow in Lobel’s typical silly Toad fashion. I used this as an introduction.
Then we used The Magic Schoolbus Gets Planted for the meat of this lesson. Either the book or the video will enjoyably explain conditions seeds need to grow and photosynthesis.
Plant some seeds—talking about conditions to grow, how they will grow, etc.
Flowers
I integrated some core knowledge art and music objectives into this unit by using flowers.
I used the wonderful book The Gardener to introduce this lesson on flowers.
I played Tschaikovsky's "Waltz of the Flowers” using this clip as we moved to the music.
We talked about Vincent van Gogh and his love for sunflowers. We also talked about sunflowers and measured how large the biggest blossom on record, 32 inches, would look—reviewing ruler use. Then we looked at this panting and talked about what we liked and didn’t like about it. We talked about using thick paint techniques.
We ended by painting our own flowers talking about textures as we applied more or less paint.
Farming/Plants as Food
We talked about the parts of plants we eat (with real examples—here are pictures though) and here is a quick video on the topic.
I then used the Little Red Hen (this one by Jerry Pinkey is really nice) to introduce the next part of today’s lesson.
Farming Process video—From Wheat to Bread
If there is grain mill near by it would be a good field trip. We made bread for our activity today.
I found materials and specific books for studying plants so I’m including them here.
Parts of Plants and Water Transport
I used this work sheet and we examined a plant we pulled out of the ground by it’s roots.
We ran the celery experiment here to talk about water transport. This could fit in other parts of this plan perhaps better than this lesson but I used it on this day.
Seeds
We read the book A Seed is Sleepy to introduce this lesson.
We performed and discussed this experiment or here is another.
Seed Dispersal
I read Eric Carle’s book The Tiny Seed
Note: this covers only a seed flowing through the wind—so it can be used as an introduction here or as an introduction to talking about how a plant needs certain conditions to thrive. We tied this to the biblical parable about the farmer’s seeds.
You can run a little experiment to emphasize the points by placing seeds in various hospitable and inhospitable conditions.
I also used the book to introduce seed dispersal and followed up with this video clip which shows various ways seeds are dispersed. It’s really interesting! Note that a rhino does poo at the end--dispersing seeds of course!
Go exploring to find seeds and talk about how those seeds might disperse.
Plant Growth
Frog and Toad Together has a fun story—The Garden--which works nicely to introduce this lesson. Toad tries to get his seeds to grow in Lobel’s typical silly Toad fashion. I used this as an introduction.
Then we used The Magic Schoolbus Gets Planted for the meat of this lesson. Either the book or the video will enjoyably explain conditions seeds need to grow and photosynthesis.
Plant some seeds—talking about conditions to grow, how they will grow, etc.
Flowers
I integrated some core knowledge art and music objectives into this unit by using flowers.
I used the wonderful book The Gardener to introduce this lesson on flowers.
I played Tschaikovsky's "Waltz of the Flowers” using this clip as we moved to the music.
We talked about Vincent van Gogh and his love for sunflowers. We also talked about sunflowers and measured how large the biggest blossom on record, 32 inches, would look—reviewing ruler use. Then we looked at this panting and talked about what we liked and didn’t like about it. We talked about using thick paint techniques.
We ended by painting our own flowers talking about textures as we applied more or less paint.
Farming/Plants as Food
We talked about the parts of plants we eat (with real examples—here are pictures though) and here is a quick video on the topic.
I then used the Little Red Hen (this one by Jerry Pinkey is really nice) to introduce the next part of today’s lesson.
Farming Process video—From Wheat to Bread
If there is grain mill near by it would be a good field trip. We made bread for our activity today.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Arctic and Antarctic Region Ideas
Not long ago we took a detour because one mine is very interested in penguins. I gathered some materials to go with Mr. Popper’s Penguins as our read aloud. Some of this dovetails with Core Knowledge objectives on habitats (my lesson plan here) so I thought I'd share since I have it. We had a really fun time with this unit.
I'm sorry for the lack of organization. It seems that if I wait to have something altogether the way I would like I don't get it posted at all so I'm just going to post "as is" for this.
Fun song on video highlighting Arctic/Antarctic differences
Antarctica scenery video
Really neat blue whale interactive
Animals and more Animals videos (here is another that may have some overlap)
Note: of course preview first--some great information but both have some things like birth, mention of death, etc. that some kids could be too sensitive for possibly. The second video linked covers the penguin life cycle well and talks about the protective oil on penguin feathers.
Arctic and Antarctic Animals videos (penguins and leopard seals particularly mentioned)
Penguins video
I've got a few other videos in the plans as I go on.
When Scholastic has their dollar days deals they typically put their Penguins Make and Learn Projects on sale for a dollar. I would not pay full price for this but it's more than worth $1 I think.
When I found that I stopped a lot of my own planning and used much of what I found in the download. But here are some links I found and saved in my planning to that point:
Penguin mask. We covered purpose of the penguin beak with this and characteristics of penguins compared to other birds as well.
oil protection (sidebar)
Experiment type demonstrations here and here
Species of penguins in this link. Pictures of species in a component of this lapbook to paste on a map perhaps. Page 12 of this link has a map of the Southern Hemisphere and the whole site (including species information) is really good. Note that 11 has a neat alternative to cover species.
Life cycle and food chain lapbook type components here.
Nice printable here as well. And this site has some food chain information and activities.
This site talks about penguin movement and this video was very good for showing that movement. This video has longer tobogganing and here is another. I am using the fun movement lesson plan ideas from a combination of these two sites to cover the topic in an active way.
Habitat resources:
Arctic and Antarctic animals in this video. Note: there are predator/prey relationships and a polar bear dies for lack of food and penguin death is mentioned as well.
Neat habitat introduction activity here.
This is a great video series (I think 5 part). Some will portions repeat from videos above but we watched it all and the boys seemed to like seeing it again even with some repeat.
This link includes an activity to cover polar bear blubber.
Inuit people:
I’m Using Children Just Like Me as it highlights a couple of children (one Inuit, one from Northern/remote Alaska).
This site was used for much of my lesson basis and our ending activities (scrimshaw and inuksuk).
Videos:
Intuit Music (and some art) and more throat singing
This link has some game ideas and historical information.
These are clips (need previewed possibly—I didn’t watch all--some animal death is shown) from an intuit documentary. I like that it focused on a modern Inuit family whose father is teaching his son traditional activities. I wanted my boys to get that history but also see that the modern life has similarities to their own.
Eskimo Hunting 1949 (not modern...and involves animal hunting/death obviously) This is US Eskimo so I think the term use is ok.
We did a scrimshaw and inuksuk to finish this particular lesson as indicated in the links above.
I'm sorry for the lack of organization. It seems that if I wait to have something altogether the way I would like I don't get it posted at all so I'm just going to post "as is" for this.
Fun song on video highlighting Arctic/Antarctic differences
Antarctica scenery video
Really neat blue whale interactive
Animals and more Animals videos (here is another that may have some overlap)
Note: of course preview first--some great information but both have some things like birth, mention of death, etc. that some kids could be too sensitive for possibly. The second video linked covers the penguin life cycle well and talks about the protective oil on penguin feathers.
Arctic and Antarctic Animals videos (penguins and leopard seals particularly mentioned)
Penguins video
I've got a few other videos in the plans as I go on.
When Scholastic has their dollar days deals they typically put their Penguins Make and Learn Projects on sale for a dollar. I would not pay full price for this but it's more than worth $1 I think.
When I found that I stopped a lot of my own planning and used much of what I found in the download. But here are some links I found and saved in my planning to that point:
Penguin mask. We covered purpose of the penguin beak with this and characteristics of penguins compared to other birds as well.
oil protection (sidebar)
Experiment type demonstrations here and here
Species of penguins in this link. Pictures of species in a component of this lapbook to paste on a map perhaps. Page 12 of this link has a map of the Southern Hemisphere and the whole site (including species information) is really good. Note that 11 has a neat alternative to cover species.
Life cycle and food chain lapbook type components here.
Nice printable here as well. And this site has some food chain information and activities.
This site talks about penguin movement and this video was very good for showing that movement. This video has longer tobogganing and here is another. I am using the fun movement lesson plan ideas from a combination of these two sites to cover the topic in an active way.
Habitat resources:
Arctic and Antarctic animals in this video. Note: there are predator/prey relationships and a polar bear dies for lack of food and penguin death is mentioned as well.
Neat habitat introduction activity here.
This is a great video series (I think 5 part). Some will portions repeat from videos above but we watched it all and the boys seemed to like seeing it again even with some repeat.
This link includes an activity to cover polar bear blubber.
Inuit people:
I’m Using Children Just Like Me as it highlights a couple of children (one Inuit, one from Northern/remote Alaska).
This site was used for much of my lesson basis and our ending activities (scrimshaw and inuksuk).
Videos:
Intuit Music (and some art) and more throat singing
This link has some game ideas and historical information.
These are clips (need previewed possibly—I didn’t watch all--some animal death is shown) from an intuit documentary. I like that it focused on a modern Inuit family whose father is teaching his son traditional activities. I wanted my boys to get that history but also see that the modern life has similarities to their own.
Eskimo Hunting 1949 (not modern...and involves animal hunting/death obviously) This is US Eskimo so I think the term use is ok.
We did a scrimshaw and inuksuk to finish this particular lesson as indicated in the links above.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Seasons and Warm/Cool Colors Resources
For the seasons introduction I found a video on teachertube showing the various seasons to start our discussion. We divided a paper into four sections and made our own pictures for what we thought of for each season. We then rolled and taped it into a cylinder to show the circular nature of the seasons.
The study of Seasons fit well with warm and cool colors. I did the art study for the works mentioned here in the Kindergarten September Art. The art study landscapes are set in spring and winter. It was easy to find these paintings full page online.
For the warm and cool colors we were also studying the bible story of Abraham and Isaac this week so I had them stamp stars—one page in cool colored stars and one in warm colors. The link above has them using paints in warm or cool to make a handprint wreath. My kids would have loved that but, well, I wasn’t up for the mess of hands in paint this week! I found this video tutorial with warm and cool colors explained that I showed. Preview first to make sure you’re ok with it though because there is one picture that might not be ok for some.
I'll try to be more detailed in future posts if I can.
We watched this youtube video showing the “why” of seasons. We used our globe and flashlight to mimic what the video showed.
We talked specifically about summer and the sun and made summer artwork pictures. For each season I decided to use Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and there are so many youtube videos for those I feel silly linking any of them. I do link one in this past week’s plans though.
The study of Seasons fit well with warm and cool colors. I did the art study for the works mentioned here in the Kindergarten September Art. The art study landscapes are set in spring and winter. It was easy to find these paintings full page online.
For the warm and cool colors we were also studying the bible story of Abraham and Isaac this week so I had them stamp stars—one page in cool colored stars and one in warm colors. The link above has them using paints in warm or cool to make a handprint wreath. My kids would have loved that but, well, I wasn’t up for the mess of hands in paint this week! I found this video tutorial with warm and cool colors explained that I showed. Preview first to make sure you’re ok with it though because there is one picture that might not be ok for some.
I'll try to be more detailed in future posts if I can.
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