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Grade Level: 3rd |
Unit: States of Matter |
Lesson: Characteristics of Solids! |
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Date: 11/07/11 |
Time: 1:00pm |
Prior Knowledge: the students can define matter, name solid, liquid, and gas, and describe their molecules |
Objective: SWBAT list 3 characteristics/properties of solids and 2 specific examples of a solid. (pre/post question 3)
(Monitoring/Assessment:)(Time)
Set: “As I pass out journals, be thinking about things at your home, in your classroom, and in your world that you know are solids. How are these things similar? What makes them solid?”
(5 min)
Talk about what a “property” or “characteristic” is. Tie this in to “juicy details” that they are learning in writing to help them understand that a characteristic is a descriptive term about something.
(whole group, voices off)
(15 min)
Each student will partner up with their elbow partner. I will introduce 1 brown paper bag to each pair with some form of “solid” inside the bag. I will discuss with the student’s about describing their solid, and each student has a paper in which to list their item, and how it feels, smells, tastes, sounds, etc. We will discuss “taking data” as we do this. Each pair has 2 minutes with their item to observe it and record their observations on their paper. I will ding the class bell and they are to pass their item to the partners on their left.
(partners working together but each have a paper to record on, management: noise-o-meter on a level 2, study buddy voices. I will circulate the room and talk with the students about what they are observing, help with descriptive words, etc.)
(5 min)
Class chart – what is true for all of our items, students note taking in journals. What can we conclude is similar about all of our items? What do you think “makes a solid”?
Class definition of solids.
(whole group, students will raise hands and be called on to contribute)
(15 min)
Introduce Solid Poster activity – Students will be partnered up and will make a poster to teach their classmates what a solid is. The requirements are posted on the board as well as an example/model that I made. Students can use paper and art supplies in the classroom, magazines, drawings, etc.
Requirements on poster:
*define solid
*at least 5 examples of items that are solid
*at least 5 non-examples of things that are not solid
*3-5 characteristics of solids (hint – look at our characteristic chart and worksheet)
Students will get started on their posters and have time to finish at a later time.
(students are partnered up and working around the room. Management- noise-o-meter at a 2 ½ between study-buddy and inside voices. I will circulate the room and compliment and encourage the students. )
Closure:
Journal Reflecting (make any notes you want to remember about your poster to be able to include when we continue tomorrow)
2 stars and a wish – about solids
(Formative assessment – what did we learn about solids? What questions do you have?)
Materials:
*journals
*brown bags with various solid materials
*class definition chart
*characteristic worksheets for the students
*paper, scissors, pictures, markers/crayons, etc, magazines for posters
*2 stars, 1 wish booklets
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Self-assessment/How do I know if they met: The students, in partners were able to successfully write down their observations of solid characteristics and all had lists of characteristics for their posters. All of them were able to come up with examples and non-examples for their posters also. Next steps: The students can easily name what solids are and give examples and some characteristics. They have some trouble with the concept of “holding its own shape” so we will discuss that tomorrow during the lesson. We need more time for the solid posters as the students are very engaged and excited to make their posters creative. If the posters appear too easy I will add criteria to require them to think deeper into solids. Also, I think they would enjoy showing their poster off to their peers so I will add a gallery walk to tomorrow’s lesson. |
Did I meet my objective? Yes or No |
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What worked? The students work really well in partners and enjoyed getting their hands on “solids”. They were very engaged during the activities and were able to get up and move during the poster activity. This lesson included a lot of kinesthetic activity along with visual and all of the senses. During the poster activity, even though I gave them freedom about how to work on the poster and where in the room they were very engaged and the noise level naturally stayed very quiet. The students exceeded my expectations in creativity with their lessons. |
What would I change? I noticed immediately that we were not going to have enough time for the poster activity and I may need to allot more time than I had originally planned to do that. The students had some trouble thinking of the words to describe solids. They appear to understand characteristics but beyond “hard” were not as creative with descriptors. If I did this again I may pull the whole group together at the end of it to compare our descriptors for each item.
I needed another example to visually show them what “keeping its own shape” means to help them understand beyond just telling them. |
Adaptations/Modifications
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ESOL I paired my ESOL student with another student who is pulled out at the same time as her for the poster activity. They can work on this together during the time they are in class. Since she missed the solid characteristic activity I made sure to make big charts to represent our work and gave her and her partner the bags to think about the characteristics. |
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TAG N/A for this lesson. |
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Special Needs N/A – The 3 low students are in the LRC during my lesson each day. |
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Literacy Journal reflecting. Writing/describing solids on worksheet. |
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Other I incorporated art in this activity because the students were understanding the concept and I wanted to give them the chance to do some creating. |
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