I'm taking a course right now on using technology for learners with special needs. Some of the interesting things we have learned about are Lesson Enhancement Strategies and Student Learning Strategies. In this lesson I'm using a Concept Anchoring Routine and a student acronym strategy.
Title: First Grade Habitat Lesson
Standard
Colorado Model Content Science: 3. Life Science: Students know and understand the characteristics and structure of living things, the processes of life, and how living things interact with each other and their environment.
Outcome
Students will be able to explain what a habitat is and describe the things in a habitat that animals need to survive.
Materials and Resources
Anchoring Table created in Notebook software for Smart Boards. Smart Board, projector, book entitled The Little Polar Bear, United Streaming video clip on habitats.
Procedures
Anticipatory Set: Read The Little Polar Bear by Hans de Beer. This is a story of a polar bear that floats away from the arctic on an ice floe and ends up in the tropics. We will use this story as a segue to the discussion of what a habitat is. We will discuss how each animal has a place where it lives and gets all the things it needs to survive. Then we will use questions to draw analogies between human habitats and animal habitats.
Discovery questions:
What do you call a place that you find food?
Where do you get water from?
What do you call the place that keeps you safe at night?
What do you call all these things together?
Where do animals get these things from?
What do you call the place where animals live and get all these things to survive?
Additional questions:
How is the habitat/environment in the tropics different than in the arctic?
What are some things that might make it difficult for the polar bear to survive in the tropics?
In what ways would it be difficult if the hippopotamus were to try to live in the arctic?
Pre-teach vocabulary: Organism, Shelter, Survive. Read the first four questions to the students and elicit responses to fill out the first column of the Concept Anchoring Table. Read the fifth and sixth questions, elicit responses and explain that we are going to be learning about habitats. Finish with the additional questions for higher order thinking.
Show the introductory clip from the Discovery Education video on habitats. Pause the video and annotate and screen capture to the Smart Board the images associated with basic needs. We will gather screen caps of water, food, and shelter. Then we will watch the clips from the forest habitat and the pond habitat. We will screen capture examples of the basic needs for animals found in these habitats.
We will use the learning strategy of the acronym WAFLS (Water, Air, Food, Living space, Shelter) to remember the basic needs of organisms. We will pause to fill out the right-hand column of the anchoring table. We will form groups of three students with mixed abilities to take turns coming to the Smart Board to fill in a Venn Diagram of animal needs and human needs and dragging and dropping both picture and word examples in Spanish and English.
Assessment
The students will work in groups of three at the classroom computers and the Smart Board station to build a complete habitat by dragging images and words from the side of the screen to a circle in the center of a blank Smart Board Screen. Students will then type their names and print their screen shot.
Standard
Colorado Model Content Science: 3. Life Science: Students know and understand the characteristics and structure of living things, the processes of life, and how living things interact with each other and their environment.
Outcome
Students will be able to explain what a habitat is and describe the things in a habitat that animals need to survive.
Materials and Resources
Anchoring Table created in Notebook software for Smart Boards. Smart Board, projector, book entitled The Little Polar Bear, United Streaming video clip on habitats.
Procedures
Anticipatory Set: Read The Little Polar Bear by Hans de Beer. This is a story of a polar bear that floats away from the arctic on an ice floe and ends up in the tropics. We will use this story as a segue to the discussion of what a habitat is. We will discuss how each animal has a place where it lives and gets all the things it needs to survive. Then we will use questions to draw analogies between human habitats and animal habitats.
Discovery questions:
What do you call a place that you find food?
Where do you get water from?
What do you call the place that keeps you safe at night?
What do you call all these things together?
Where do animals get these things from?
What do you call the place where animals live and get all these things to survive?
Additional questions:
How is the habitat/environment in the tropics different than in the arctic?
What are some things that might make it difficult for the polar bear to survive in the tropics?
In what ways would it be difficult if the hippopotamus were to try to live in the arctic?
Pre-teach vocabulary: Organism, Shelter, Survive. Read the first four questions to the students and elicit responses to fill out the first column of the Concept Anchoring Table. Read the fifth and sixth questions, elicit responses and explain that we are going to be learning about habitats. Finish with the additional questions for higher order thinking.
Show the introductory clip from the Discovery Education video on habitats. Pause the video and annotate and screen capture to the Smart Board the images associated with basic needs. We will gather screen caps of water, food, and shelter. Then we will watch the clips from the forest habitat and the pond habitat. We will screen capture examples of the basic needs for animals found in these habitats.
We will use the learning strategy of the acronym WAFLS (Water, Air, Food, Living space, Shelter) to remember the basic needs of organisms. We will pause to fill out the right-hand column of the anchoring table. We will form groups of three students with mixed abilities to take turns coming to the Smart Board to fill in a Venn Diagram of animal needs and human needs and dragging and dropping both picture and word examples in Spanish and English.
Assessment
The students will work in groups of three at the classroom computers and the Smart Board station to build a complete habitat by dragging images and words from the side of the screen to a circle in the center of a blank Smart Board Screen. Students will then type their names and print their screen shot.
Reference: Habitats: Homes for Living Things. 100% Educational Videos (2000). [Motion picture] Retrieved April 4, 2009, from Discovery Education: http://streaming.discoveryeducation.com/
