Tag Archives: curriculum

Math is Everywhere: making your own “textbook”

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Scott and I are making a book!

We flipped through the newspaper to find all the places math was being used and discovered it was… everywhere!

We decided to write a book. Our first step was to cut, cut, cut like crazy. Scott cut out some of the math we are used to seeing while I cut out more abstract concepts. Here is Phase One of our book:

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Phase Two will be to glue concepts from our textbook to match the real world math. In other words, the theoretical to the practical.

Phase Three will be to write stories to talk about how the math is being used.

Stay tuned!

Human Body Lesson Plan

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This is a lesson to really get kids excited about the human body!1715168_f520

Materials:

  • I pack of plasticine (* divided vertically in three will give you enough for a small skeleton)
  • skeleton (optional) *I found a pack of 4 for $1.50 at the dollar store in the Halloween section!PM_Human_Body
  • anatomy diagrams/ placemat
  • App (optional)

LESSON 1: HANDS-ON EXPLORATORY

  1. Jump right into the deep end by handing students a skeleton or by having them create their own.
  2. Ask students to give the skeleton organs using the guide.
  3. Now add blue and red veins.
  4. Now add pink muscle.
  5. Finally, add skin.

* If it’s possible, take a picture of students as they complete each step (delegate a classroom photographer if you have a student who words quickly)

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LESSON 2: VOCAB

  1. Have students either play the App to test their knowledge and vocabulary or use flashcards.
  2. Students can work in pairs, playing “Memory Stack.” Students stack the flashcards in front of them and turn over one at a time. Whoever calls out the answer correctly gets to keep the card. The player with the most cards at the end of the stack wins.

LESSON 3: SELF CONTEXT

  1. Students will either create a life size body using long paper which they trace themselves on, or use blank white t-shirts (second hand ones are great for this!)body tracetshirt
  2. Have students draw and label the organs on the t-shirt or body trace to demonstrate their understanding of where things go relative to their own bodies.

 STEP 3: REAL LIFE CONNECTIONS    

  1. Not everyone can dissect a baby pig or a rat. Luckily there are lots of Apps out there that do it for us!frog
  • Dissect a frog: very lifelike, and uses medical “tools” to open and pull back layers .
  • DK Human body: vivid images and games.
  • Build a bodyhuman bodyappFOLLOW UP LESSONS:

layers of body

Introducing the School Year Curriculum: a student-centered approach

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Although the teacher’s are on strike, many parents are trying to get their children into the school routine. After helping two young boys today, I realized that the way that I introduced the ideas they would cover in the school year was a really fun new twist on the ol’ KWL chart.

First I looked at the curriculum and created a visual document that had pictures to represent various aspects of grade 4 and 5 curriculum. In social studies 4, for example, I placed a picture of a map of Canada, an image of a man gold panning and so forth for math, science and language arts. Screen shot 2014-09-04 at 8.27.20 PM

Once I had these documents I printed them. I handed out the document to each student and told them to look it over and come up with some ideas about what they thought the pictures represented.

Next I asked one brother to explain to his brother what he thought he would be learning this year. They were so excited. They both got a turn reading a page before the other person was able to chime in and suggest their own ideas about what the pictures meant.

Screen shot 2014-09-04 at 8.27.15 PMWhat was really telling about the whole interaction is that I gave very little prompting and that they were helping each other reach really deep conclusions. For example, instead of saying “that’s a picture of a chart and money,” one boy said, “this is probably about currency and stats and maybe even about making profits in a business.” If I had given them a word document that said Mathematics: data analysis (which is what the picture represented in my adult mind), we would not have come up with such interesting connections!

Another great connection was the picture of Captain Cook. The boys said, “That’s Abraham Lincoln” and the other said, “No, cause he is American and you have a picture of Canada, so it is a Canadian guy…”Screen shot 2014-09-04 at 8.27.24 PM

I learned two things: firstly, a picture tells a thousand words, while words are finite in their meaning. Secondly, when you place the conversation in children’s hands they come up with more than you could have planned for or anticipated.

The boys wrote down their ideas and then we discussed them and they added more detail. In the end they had a self-created syllabus that gave an overview of the school year, as well as accessing information that they already knew. What a confidence booster!

Feel free to check out the document I put together for these student, and to add your own ideas about introducing a unit in a student-centered way:

CURRICULUM document with visuals

PLO’s   with Curriculum targets