Blog Anniversary and Prosthetic Unit Freebie

     My blog is officially one year old! Actually, it was a few weeks ago. To celebrate, I decided to publish my prosthetics mini-thematic unit that I made last year. I first mentioned it here and here. I originally made this unit as a project for one of my classes and taught it during one day to the fifth grade class I was in. Well here it is! Click on the picture to check it out. Please leave me a comment telling me what you think about it.

 

     When I taught this to my fifth grade class last year, our day was very chaotic due to some last minute practice testing. We still had fun, and the lessons went well. My favorite part was showing them some of the nonfiction books about animals with prosthetics. See the children's literature list in my unit for more information. Using those books, the students found answers to questions on the following pages:

 

     Part of this unit includes a project where students build a prototype of a prosthetic, choosing the animal (or human), body part, and purpose of the prosthetic. Unfortunately, since my practicum ended I did not get to see their final projects, but they had some very creative ideas such as a prosthetic ear for a dog that is necessary to help bring scents to their nose.

 

     If you want to hear more about this project, please email me or leave a comment below, and I would be happy to share more about it. I look forward to another year of blogging!

 

Food Groups



     During science/health, we are learning about being healthy. In two weeks, we are taking a field trip to a place where we will learn more about being healthy. I spent two days teaching about the different food groups. On the first day, we looked at the food groups on a food pyramid handout that my teacher copied for us to use. Then, I had put a paper piece of food on their desks. They had to color it and decide which group it belonged in. Next, we met on the carpet and put our foods on the food plate, where we discussed how we should have something from each of these groups at most of our meals. Here is the food plate anchor chart we made:

 

I am still working on my anchor chart making skills. I ran out of room for the s on food groups and wrote the other words too small, but I am improving! At least it didn't smear too much, which is usually my problem, being left-handed. My words are also consistent in size, which is something else I have been working on while I am writing large enough for my students to read. On another note, I love these giant post-it note charts.

     On the second day, we started by reviewing the food groups using a worksheet that had the groups with some foods that did not belong. We crossed out the foods that did not belong in that food group. Then, we started our food plate projects. Together, we divided our plates into five sections with dairy in the middle. Then, I passed out ads from our local grocery store. They searched through the ad, cutting out one food to put in each section.







     Having the worksheet from earlier really helped some who struggled, plus they could look at the chart from the day before. Overall, I think my class did a great job! Some did not finish that day, but I gave them time another day to draw in a food from the groups that they were missing.

 

     This week, we will continue covering things we can do to be healthy such as exercising and keeping our bones strong. What do you do to teach health in your classroom? Please leave me comments. I love each and every one.

Butterfly!

       My butterfly is officially a butterfly! I came back from school on Thursday to find that it was out of its chrysalis. Below are some pictures of it. The blue mesh sponge contains sugar water, its food. When its wings are folded up, it would camouflage with bushes very well, but the other of its wings are actually orange!

 

      My roommate and I let the butterfly go the next morning since its cage was so small. It was fun to watch this small larva grow, turn into a chrysalis, and then become a butterfly. I would definitely love to do this in my class someday. It can teach some many different things, and it would be fun to do a whole unit about butterflies and their life cycles.

    Speaking of units, I am currently still in the process of working on my thematic unit about prosthetics. I'm teaching it to my fifth graders all day on Tuesday, which I am really nervous about. It will be the first day I have taught everything where I wrote all of the lessons. Below is a bulletin board I put up to encourage curiosity. We will be adding more to it this week, but I thought putting the title and some pictures up would get them to start talking and thinking about it. After I teach about it, they will have a project that they have to complete, where they design a model of a prosthetic. I'm still figuring out how to make this manageable for them. In the meantime, have a good week! I will let you know how Tuesday goes as soon as I can, but I have to take the Praxis next Saturday and have a large presentation the next week, so it might be a little while before I can blog about it.

Chrysalis

My larva is now officially a chrysalis (has been for several days actually). Today, my roommate and I moved it from the plastic container she came in to a small cage I got.

Left: The larva on its last crawl to the top. She was so big that even when it was curved, it did not fit across the top of the container! Right: The chrysalis hanging in its container.

     On Tuesday I get to teach a science lesson about arm muscles. The students are going to build a model of an arm, showing the biceps. It's straight from the FOSS curriculum, but I'm very excited to teach it. Unfortunately, I have not seen much science taught because the days that I come always have an extra thing (library and DARE), so science gets left out (it's not on the ISTEP in fifth grade). Have a good week!

Growing Larva

    The larva (butterfly necklace) I got at the NSTA conference last Friday from Carolina Biological Supply has been growing like weeds! It is three to four times the size it started as. It spends most of its time eating and molting.

         March 30                                          April 2                                                  April 4

     Today, I woke up to discover that my larva is being to form its chrysalis! At first, her webbing was only on the sides, and I started to worry that she would try to hang from the sides. A few hours later, I looked at her again, and the larva was getting closer to hanging from the paper at the top (like the sheet I recieved said she should).

     I'm so excited to see her turn into a butterfly. Hopefully, her chrysalis will be hardened enough for me to be able to safely bring her back to college with me. Also, I still haven't officially picked a name for it, so if you have suggestions, please let me know!

If you have any ideas for my thematic unit about prosthetics or any advice about thematic units in general, I would love to hear them. Have a good weekend! Happy Easter!

First Thematic Unit (Prosthetics) - Please Help

     I'm currently in the process of creating my first thematic unit (well, part of it at least). While my theme that would take several weeks would be the human body, focusing on bones, joints, and muscles, I only have to actually plan at least 5 lessons that I will teach the fifth grade class I am working with. For these lessons, my theme is prosthetics. This set of lessons comes at the end of my class studying the bones, joints, and muscles.

      The theme of prosthetics is based off of the Indiana Academic Standards under Science, Engineering, and Technology. The Core Standard is "Design a prototype that replaces a function of a human body part." Underneath the Core Standard is three other standards:

5.4.1 Investigate technologies that mimic human or animal musculoskeletal systems in order to meet a need.
5.4.2 Investigate the purpose of prototypes and models when designing a solution to a problem and how limitations in cost and design features might affect their construction.
5.4.3 Design solutions to problems in the context of musculoskeletal body systems. Using suitable tools, techniques and materials, draw or build a prototype or model of a proposed design.

    So far, I have brainstormed some ideas but am not sure how well they would work. Ideally, we would do a group project where they actually have to design a prosthetic based off of a problem (perhaps just draw, but actually building would be more fun). First, we would do some research and learn more about prosthetics through books. Then, they would have to determine factors to consider like cost, what function it should have,and how heavy it is. We would also study the history of prosthetics, making a timeline, to help them determine what technology has been used in the past that they might consider. Finally, they would draw designs of their prosthetic (and make, if I can find a way to do that).

    I have also found some books to supplement all of our learning about science. Some are just books about the human body, skeletal system, muscular system, and joints. Others were actual about prosthetics, whether on humans or animals. Some of my favorites were:

Artificial Limbs by Susan Gray

This book gives good information about the history behind artificial limbs/prosthetics. It tells how they had been made and what has spurred on new inventions. Prosthetics had only been designed by doctors in the past, but now a whole team of people designs them . It also discusses how artificial limbs have to be specifically made for the person who is going to use it, and they can be made for specific purposes. Several leading innovators are also featured. Overall, I felt that this picture book gave good information and was an enjoyable read. I would not expect most of my students to want to read the whole thing, but they would definitely be interested in parts, and it is a valuable resource for me.

Gretchen the Bicycle Dog by Anita Heyman

This book tells the story of Gretchen, who was an ordinary dog until one day when she jumped out of a bed. She landed awkwardly and hurt her spine, paralyzing her hind legs. She learned to scoot around using just her front legs. Then, her family got Gretchen her own cart, which gave her wheels for hind legs. On her new bicycle legs, Gretchen learned to get around and play like she always did before. Personally, I really enjoyed this book and think my students would love it, especially since it is about a dog. I'm looking into finding other books about animals with prosthetics such as Winter's Tale and Molly the Pony.

    If you have any ideas to help me with this unit, I would love to hear them! I would also be interested in any advice you have about writing thematic units in general. Let me know what you think.

NSTA Conference

     Yesterday, I went to the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) conference. I attended several good sessions, which I will write more about later. In the Elementary Extravaganza and the exhibition hall, there were many very interesting lessons, books, and more.

This idea was teaching camouflage by using M&Ms and two different kinds of fabric. It's simple, cheap, and easy to understand as it would be much easier to grab the M&Ms from the fabric on the right. There was another idea which used newspaper to show how butterflies use camouflage. One the newspaper, they glued paper butterflies. Some were pink or yellow, but others blended in because they were cut from other newspaper. The ones cut from newspaper were hard to find, and I didn't even notice them at first.

I also saw these clay insects, which students built and then labeled the parts. This past fall, we studied insects, and they would have loved building it rather than just drawing pictures.








     Another cool idea was teaching the water cycle. We made bracelets with the beads in order to show how it is a cycle. It starts with a yellow bead for the sun. Then there is a clear bead for evaporation. Next, comes a white bead for condensation. Precipitation is represented by a clear blue bead, and the last bead is blue, representing collection.

    I also got a butterfly necklace, which is housing a little larva that I am anxiously waiting to turn into a butterfly. Hopefully, I can bring it with me to school one day so that my fifth grades can also see it. Finally at the NSTA conference, SeaWorld brought in two penguins!