Molly's+RL-Connection+page

12/9/10 Every day we have to keep track of which kids eat the free breakfast and how many eat it in total.

Domain: Math - Data collection, math - graphing, science - observation and prediction Curriculum ideas: We could do another graph, this time a bar graph, where each day we colored up to how many people ate breakfast (so the Y axis would be 0-20, and the x-axis would be time in days). We could do this each day until we could start observing patterns and making predictions. Do a lot of kids eat breakfast on Mondays? Do few kids eat breakfast on Thursdays? What can we notice about our breakfast eating habits? We could also do it by child--each time a child eats the breakfast, he/she could color up a square above her/his name on the x-axis. Then after two weeks we could see who ate the most, fewest, same, etc, talk about average, mean, median in simple terms.

12/9/10 I tried a graphing activity with my students and felt there was a lot more to do for them in making graphs make sense to them.

Domain: Math - Graphing Curriculum ideas: I could make graphs for them where the questions & columns for them to place votes/data were labeled with pictures instead of words, since they can't read. We often dismiss kids to wash hands by saying "if you're wearing the color ___, go line up" and so forth; perhaps doing a graph of what colors our shirts are. At the top could be a picture of a shirt with a question mark in the middle of it. Along the bottom could be squares of different colors, and students could put their sticker above the color of their shirt.

12/4/10 I did a unit with my students on fruit, and we had a lot of discussion about the textures of fruits. I would like to follow up on this.

Domain: Science - Natural Science, Observation & Description; Math - Properties Curriculum ideas: Having stations for different textures where the students could take turns feeling things and connecting the word with the sensation. Especially for my EL students, this will be useful for reinforcing the vocabulary with physical experience. There could be a rough table, a fuzzy table, a bumpy table, a prickly table, a smooth table, a squishy table, a sticky table, and so forth. Then we could have mystery objects in feely boxes where students would describe the feel of the object to classmates until they could guess what it was. For example, they might say, "it feels smooth, and round. I feel a stem sticking out the top." and the classmates might guess that it is an apple. Then the students could check together by taking it out of the box.

11/26/10 My students have been very observant about the lowering temperatures, and talk about their warmer coats, hats, and mittens.

Domain: Science - Natural Science, Temperature, Measurement, Graphing Curriculum ideas: We could explore the idea of temperature and measure the actual outside temperature each day. We could chart our measurements and make a graph that had time as the x-axis and temperature as the y-axis, showing that it gets colder as we get further into November, December, and January. We could also do experiments with the temperature--how cold does it have to be for water to freeze, for example?

11/19/10 Today I brought in a hard-boiled egg for my students to do an observational drawing of (at one boy's request). They were very interested in exploring it and drawing the different parts of it.

Domain: Science - Biology, Natural Science, Physical Science Curriculum ideas: I can use observational drawing as a real science learning time, where we can discuss what they are observing and what they notice about it. They can explore how the object can be changed and altered with their actions; they can explore how it moves, how it feels, what it smells like, and more. They liked looking at the hard yolk; if I brought it in again, they could experiment with rolling it, bouncing it--what will happen? What properties does it have when boiled? What if we compare it with a raw egg--what difference did cooking it make? "Why doesn't it spill everywhere when we drop it?" was something a student asked me -- changing properties of food through cooking can be a great conversation.

11/17/10 My students found a worm today on the playground during recess. It had just rained that morning. They were all very fascinated by it and were all eager to explore it. Because there are twenty of them, it was chaotic and I picked up the worm to show to them one at a time to keep them from squishing it and also to prevent them from hurting each other pushing.

Domain: Science - Biology Curriculum ideas: I would like to bring worms into the classroom and let the children observe them. I just taught them to do observational drawings, so that would be a nice launching point for them to begin discussion about how to looks, how it feels, how it moves. They will probably ask a lot of questions about what it eats, where it lives, why it is on the playground (which is made of man-made materials, not anything a worm would live in; it got washed up by the rain as worms do). I could bring in books about worms and have many group discussions about worms. It would be great to have a terrarium to have worms in our class for them to observe in a more naturalistic environment (they aren't allowed to go in the dirt at school :

11/5/10

The kids in my class are very sad when we don't have recess due to the rain. They are unclear about why rain = no recess.

Domain: Science - Physics - Friction Curriculum ideas: Explaining friction to the students would be easy to demonstrate on a rainy day. We can talk about why water means less friction and therefore less safe. We can experiment with other materials such as sand, flour, play-dough, or ice, and use a toy car to demonstrate friction. We can time how long it takes the car to cross a certain distance, and we cover that whole distance with a material. We will see that things that make it take the car take longer are things that are adding friction, and things that make the car go faster are things that are removing or lowering friction. (CC: This is a great idea to talk about friction and rain/water. It is a bit more difficult in terms of concepts but an important one nonetheless. Showing how different materials affect friction is a good approach; could also try to introduce counting time and recording data)

11/2/10

My students are obsessed with Transformers. They love to pretend to be Transformers at recess and talk about them all the time. They also write their journals about Transformers often.

Domain: Science - Natural Sciences - Life cycles Curriculum ideas: We could talk about things in the natural world that transform in some way. Larva transform into butterflies. Tadpoles transform into frogs. This could be a great way to interest them in learning about life cycles because it's like nature's Transformers :) (CC: It is a good idea to spring off their interests; you can talk about different types of transformations: biological transformations such as the ones you described (metamorphosis) as well as mechanical transformation such as robotics or things that have moving parts. Would be wonderful if you can have tadpoles in the classroom and observe their growth over time.)

10/24/10

Each day the children in my classroom discuss the weather, and record that day's weather on a chart. We have not had any snow days on our chart yet, and the children do not seem to understand why the distribution of weather traits (sunny, rainy, windy, snowy, cloudy) is not equal.

Domain: Science - Earth Sciences - Weather; Math - Statistics - what is "average"? Curriculum ideas: I think we should discuss the seasons and what weather is typical for each season. Discuss that summer has the most sun, spring and fall have the most rain, winter has the most snow. Fall is often cloudy and windy. Etc. (CC: Besides talking about statistics and averages, this would be a good departure point for talking about "most likely." Have students look at the most typical weather for the week or month, and make a guess/prediction on "tomorrow it will most likely be..." based on the data collected so far.)

10/14/10

I love the fall scenery and I also love to use natural items in the classroom. Connecting the physical world with the classroom is something I believe in. I think that using acorns, leaves, and pine cones in the classroom would be a great way for students to connect the season with their learning.

Domain: Science - Natural Sciences ; Math - Counting, Sorting Curriculum ideas: The students could sort acorns, pinecones, seeds, leaves, etc. They could count how many we had of each item. They could also collect the items themselves during recess and bring them back to the classroom. We could read stories about fall to make a more cohesive classroom theme of exploring the season. Instead of setting out counting bears or math chains, we could set out acorns (etc) to be used as a math manipulative for any structured activity that involved counting. We could also count acorn caps vs. acorn nuts. (CC: it is certainly really important to connect nature to their daily activities. The more you can do this, the more they will be intrigued by nature and want to know more. Besides using fallen acorns, leaves, and pine cones, it would also be good to discuss and show children where they come from and what they look like before they are fallen objects to be collected.)