Yesterday
Purpose for the lesson: Watch video of ants, Critique whether this method ( video) of communicating facts is successful.
Particular aspect of the lesson (of my practice) that I want to focus on: Questions. Making connections with kids idea
LESSON PLAN:
Ants: Super Soldiers
This clip provides lots of facts about ants in a narrative form that is filled with “combat” vocabulary. Take the time to watch and note vocab before you show to students.
Vocabulary
Embark- begin (a course of action).
Chemical warfare
Infiltrated - enter or gain access to (an organization, place, etc.) surreptitiously and gradually, especially in order to acquire secret information.
Ruthless
military precision - very organized, professional
underground bunkers
Intelligence gathering
Reconnaissance missions- to obtain information by visual observation or other detection methods, about the activities and resources of an enemy or potential enemy, or about the meteorologic, hydrographic, or geographic characteristics of a particular area.
Invasion
1. Watch through. Students note facts at the end of the viewing. Count facts and put a number in a circle. Allow some time for discussion.
Who has a fact?
Who else got that one?
2. Students can critique whether this method of communicating facts is successful.
What do you think about how the presenter gave us facts?
Was this helpful or not? WHY?
WALT- Evaluate ( Judge something)
I agree with that because…
A better solution would be….
3. Go deeper with Notice Think Wonder as a framework. Watch again.
What happens when they hear a fact they have already noted?
Do they add more facts to their knowledge bang re: ants? Do they make connections to other facts?
After viewing the clips have a discussion about the different approaches used by the makers of the clips. They might like to use some of the techniques when making their own presentations.
Filmed with an army approach- links to super soldiers.
So what?
Susan helped the students make connections with the behavior of ants and soldiers. Explaining that humans may have learned from them. She encouraged the students to go outside and find ants. Reflecting on this. Was it easy? How could we make it easier? What could we use to draw the ants to one place? The focus made connections to a range of key competencies as well as looking at critical literacy. Were the filmmaker's choices effective? or helpful? What technology did they use to assist them? We discuss small cameras and connected this with hospitals and operations were they use small cameras. My takeaways from the observation were; that I need to see more widely- and make connections across the curriculum and that my students had some great observations and wonderings- I need to draw on that and extend them.
HI Becs, sounds like you had a very successful lesson. Just wondering, seeing that your children has gained the knowledge, would you have a writing activity around this, or do you keep science seperate from literacy?
ReplyDeleteI am keeping it seperate from writing at the moment :)
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