1st grade students
are individuals who are enthusiastic experts at observing the world. Their
observations are often keen but because of the limited experience with scientific
language, limited experience in naming what they see, the ability to discuss
what they observe can be restricted.
Insightful events in this project:
Venn diagram of living and non-living things included an image of the sun
(dragonfly, rock, tree, vegetable, bird, deer). The students placed all
images in the appropriate circle except the sun. Based on our brainstorming
of living and non-living things (see below), they could not decide where
to put the sun. Comments included - "The sun moves by itself across the sky,"
AND "Well, of course the sun is alive! I put eyes and a smile on it whenever
I draw it!" The final decision was to put the sun in the overlap of the venn
diagram.
Characteristics
Brain-Storm, 03.06
living things
non-living things
move on their own
fly, run, crawl, dig,
hop, walk
get born
grow
get old
change
die
drink
eat
they go after food
they play
they get sad
can't die
stay put
don't need food
can't have babies
get used by people
The decision to let students
choose their own animal to research resulted in a great deal of work to locate
and modify web sites that students could read independently. The original
intent was for students to write several sentences in their own words about
what they had learned. This became impractical due to limited computer and
mentor time. The goal was revised to have students cut and paste information
needed to a word-processing document, collect images of their research animal
(1) as a baby; (2) with another animal (same or different); and (3) in action.
Students were responsible for centering images, spell-check and demonstrating
that the required information had been located and copied.
Student work was printed in book form, a copy for the classroom library
and a copy for the student to take home. The student-created books were met
with great enthusiasm by the students. They were impressed by their own and
others' work. They enjoyed the idea of adding their books to the classroom
library for next year's class. Slide shows were also created using
AppleWorks and presented to parents, classmates and classroom visitors.
The animal models were useful in dramatic play. The students decided who
could visit who because of habitat needs. They invented modifications that
one animal might need to visit another. The animals were also used for perspective
drawings, geometric models and other drawings.