What a week. It is the week before Midterms for my sixth and seventh graders and it has been a week of reviewing and making sure all missing assignments are in., They are all nervous, first time for both to have midterms.
I was glad to see the choices of the lessons we were prepare. With my sixth graders, we will be starting to study plate tectonics and earthquakes after midterms. Preparing this lesson for the assignment makes that week after midterms a little easier. :) My hardest part with this lesson is the fact that I have taught this subject for eighth graders before and this is my first year teaching sixth graders and there is a big difference in their understanding of the different subject matter. Their attention span is smaller also. When I wrote this lesson, I wanted to make sure that there were different activities to help keep their attention. I have a great little video from Discovery Education that I plan on showing as an introduction along with them doing the puzzle of the continents. I plan on the students researching the different evidence out there for plate tectonics and then make a PowerPoint presentation. I am concerned that much of the information is over their heads, so I will continue to look for appropriate websites next week. I am also using the lesson as an introduction into the study of earthquakes.
When I taught middle school I also did something with plate tectonics and had my students do a puzzle thing where they had to fit all the continents together and we talked about Pangea. It also gave us a great chance to talk about the "ring of fire". The kids were amazed when the realized the continents all fit together.
ReplyDeleteIt has been one of those weeks where we too have to give district assigned benchmarks and plan for our own benchmark assessment for the coming week. It is time to get to the grind for state standardized tests and the pressure is high in Texas. This year's scores will count for two years because Texas is moving to a new test next year. It has been an exhausting week.
ReplyDeleteAIMS has this really neat little experiment using different types of cookies and frosting to simulate different types of fault lines. It gets the kids attention because, well, it's cookies!
I understand what you mean about doing something with eighth grade and then going to sixth. The content sometimes seems so over their heads but they really can get it, it just takes more planning. I have done a lesson similar to the one you did and also one like Julie's. One more activity you can do is the sea floor spreading with a sheet of paper you make a slit in middle of one sheet of paper and at both ends of the some paper about one inch from the end. The slits should be about five inches wide or so. Then have the students take another sheet of paper and make alternating solid black lines of varying widths and white lines across the paper so that it looks like a zebra. When they are done with that paper have them cut the paper in two equal pieces lengthwise and then put them together with the colored parts facing each other and tape one end together. Stick the untaped end through the middle slit of the other paper, from the bottom side and put one side of the cut paper through the slit at the right end of the paper and the other through the left end. Now when they pull on the ends it should look like the alternating magnetic patterns formed by sea floor spreading. Hope that is understandable?
ReplyDeleteKelly,
ReplyDeleteI LOVE Discovery Education videos for science. It allows the pages of the textbook to come to life.
I also read Mark's response. If you were going to talk to them about the alternating magnetic patterns, I always talk about the Mariana Trench. There is an awesome video from the history channel about these two topics. It explains how they discovered the magnetic patterns on the sea floor and how the trench was formed from the plates being recycled back into the Earth's crust. I couldn't find the whole video online but here was the link to the beginning of the series.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYjyGfRp3F4
Good luck :)
Hello Kelly,
ReplyDeleteI think you will do great with your sixth graders with the lesson plan you have created. I think they will find it very interesting. Goodluck.
Hi Kelly,
ReplyDeleteI too understand your struggle with trying to find grade level appropriate matter, especially when you have taught this lesson in the past with older students. I taught ecosystem with fifth graders and had to teach it then to third graders. Not only was their background knowledge limited but cognitively, they were at a different stage of their learning career. Your lesson sounds great, discovery education are awesome resources! Have you tried Brain Pop?
Good Luck,
Ashley
Thanks for the idea. I have done the activity that Mark talked about. It is a great visual that helps the kids understand it. I will have to look up the videos.
ReplyDelete