One group's KW(L) chart for the moon. |
Afterward, it seemed like slow going. Instruction seemed to be disjointed as a result of snow days, scrimmages, student sickness, and assemblies. We read texts on the moon and on the sun. Students listened for answers to their questions and recorded what they learned. Students read and discussed texts with partners. Overall, I think they learned the science content. We will soon see...
The reading content was more difficult for me. I tried to embed this instruction with my science instruction as students listened to read-alouds and read texts with partners. We practiced reading nonfiction texts and finding the main idea and supporting details. We used different colored highlighters to show the main idea and details. I had a brilliant idea the other day. I took information about the moon that and created paragraphs about different topics. I created cards (one sentence on each) and mixed them up on a page. Students were to work with partners to cut out the different sentences, group them by which ideas went together, and then decide which sentence was the main idea and which ones were the details. The students would then glue the cards in the correct place on their pages. It was brilliant...a veritable "marriage" of science and reading that would be incredibly effective.
Oh, the carnage... |
It was definitely one of those "live and learn" days. I learned to make the content a little easier for the main ideas and details so students can easily sort out the topics. I learned that maybe having 4 different topics was too much at first. Most of all, I learned never to hand out the glue sticks until students have laid their strips out and had their answers checked by me.
This looks like a really good activity. I understand what you mean when you discuss what we plan and what actually happens being two different things.
ReplyDeleteI think if you improved it by the ways you suggested (limiting the topics or checking before students get glue sticks) it would help. I love the humor of Kardashians.