Microworlds
Lesson 1
Pre-Unit Assessment: Observing a Penny
Students will think about what they know about magnifiers and questions that they have about magnifiers. They will practice their observation skills by observing a penny.
3. Lesson Set-up and Management
4-5 INQA Scientific investigations involve asking and answering questions and comparing the answers with evidence from the real world.
- Students will share their current knowledge of magnifiers and questions that they have.
- Students will set up a science notebook.
- Students will use hand lenses to observe a penny.
3. Lesson Set-Up and Management
Materials:
- You will need to collect enough pennies for each student in your class to have one. Clean new looking pennies work best.
- Make photocopies of the storyline (for the inside front cover of the notebook), glossary (for the back of the notebook), and a rubric (to glue on the back cover of the notebook). Trim half an inch off of all pages that you will be gluing in the notebooks. This will make it so pages don’t stick out.
- Create a materials poster that is laminated. You will post this at the front of your distribution center. You can write all materials that need to be picked up for each lesson on that.
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Encourage students to use their hand lens, while doing the final drawings on Activity Sheet 1. |
Student Management:
- Have students record independently in their notebooks What They Think They Know About Magnifiers. Encourage them to list five things. Then, have them draw a line of learning vertically under their last statement. They should then share with their table group (about 3 other students). They should write down any ideas other group members have under the line of learning. Once groups have done this, have each group select their best idea to share with the class. Students will draw another line of learning on their page. They will record other group’s ideas under that line.
- Students will follow the same process for What They Want to Know.
- For the second part of this lesson, students will be recording what they remember and then observe about a penny. I have them place their penny under their notebooks for step 2 of the activity sheet.
- If you have a document camera, create a model notebook to help visual learners. This will also help catch up students that are absent.
- This lesson can be divided into two parts. Part one: set up science notebooks and do What We Know and Want to Know. Part two: observing a penny.
Writing Support:
- After observing the penny, have students use the observation organizer (found on the website sciencenotebooks.org) to write and make connections to the penny.
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This is a student example of using the observation organizer writing frame to describe the penny. |
Last updated 02/20/2010