Archive for the 'Teaching Resources' Category

Aug

The Scientific Method

I’ve increased the number of class periods C1 studies science from two a week to three a week. Right now, I’m focusing on what real scientists do. For second and third graders this can be a puzzling thing. In order to introduce the scientific method, I demonstrated the diet coke/mentos fountain last Friday.

On Monday, I introduced students to the idea of the scientific method. I gave them a handout with a nice diagram of the scientific method and pertinent vocabulary terms on the reverse (links go to two pdf files). After we went over them, I quizzed the students orally.

Next week, I’ll let the students get in their groups and they will start talking about what variables they want to manipulate to try to figure out the important ingredient or conditions for the fountain. They will also have to determine the measure they will use as their dependent variable. The students will have to write a hypothesis and procedure to test their hypothesis. Once that is complete, the students will actually test their hypothesis by gathering data (woo hoo, playing outside). Finally, they will create a poster outlining their experiment.

I’ll keep you updated as we go through the procedure.

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Jun

Animal Covering Mobile

The November Speaking class continues their trek through the animal kingdom. Their latest project involved making a mobile to demonstrate the different kinds of coverings animals have. They named animals having fur, feathers, skin and scales. I then found pictures on the internet of these animals and helped the students make a mobile. To do this activity, you need the following files (all in .pdf format).

Here are the students with their finished mobiles.

posted by Kathryn in Activites,Pictures,Science,Students,Teaching Resources and have No Comments

Jun

Baking Soda Volcanoes

C1 made the classic baking soda volcano today. They have been (and will for the next week or so) studying earth science. This is one of those classic science project projects. It’s simply. It’s safe. It uses common household materials to do it. Make a volcano cone out of modeling clay. I simply put clay around an inverted paper cup and cut out the bottom of the cup. Put the clay volcano over a small plastic container containing baking soda and flour. Combine vinegar, warm water and a few drops of red food coloring in a small bottle. Pour the liquid slowly into the container with the solids. Then stand back and watch your volcano erupt!

posted by Kathryn in Activites,Fun things,Pictures,Science,Students,Teaching,Teaching Resources,Uncategorized and have Comments (2)

May

Needs of Living Things Mobile

My November Speaking and Writing class has been doing science for the last few weeks. We’ve been talking about living things and what they need. This is a lead in to the experiment they’re currently doing. As a sort of fun activity, we made a mobile showing what living things need (food, shelter, water, sunlight, air).

To make the mobiles, you’ll need a wire hanger for each student, and one copy of the two pdf files. The first is the five needs that hang down. The second is the header that you attach the needs to.

Have the students cut all all of the pieces. On each need you write the sentence “Living things need ______.” where the blank is the particular need. With a single hole paper punch, punch a hole in the top of each of the five needs. You also need to punch five holes at the bottom of and two holes at the top of the header. Using string or ribbon, tie the needs onto the bottom of the header. Tie the header onto the shoulder of the hanger. I laminated all of the pieces to make the whole thing a bit more sturdy. Anyone who’s ever tried to tie ribbon through holes in paper knows that the paper will rip.

And here the the class with their mobiles. I think they had a really good time doing them.

posted by Kathryn in Activites,Fun things,Pictures,Science,Students,Teaching,Teaching Resources and have No Comments

Mar

C1 Human Body Activities

C1 (my old B1 class) has been studying science with me for a number of months. The last chapter in their book was on the human body. There were a couple of interesting but quick projects. One involved measuring heart rate at rest and after exercise. The kids really enjoyed that one because they got to go outside and run around for 5 minutes as part of it. Basically you have them measure their heart rate just sitting in the classroom. Then you get them up and running around (works particularly well if you have access to a playground) for a couple minutes. Then you have them remeasure their heart rate. You discuss how their heart rate changed as a function of their activity level.

The other activity they did was to make a model of human lungs using two balloons, two straws and some tape. You need the bendy straws. Tape the straws together. Fan out the bendy ends (this makes the two bronchial tubes). Then tape a smallish sized balloon to the bendy end of each straw. If you make them air tight, when you breath into the balloons, they’ll inflate just like real lungs do. Here are a few pictures.

Making Lungs

I’ll try to remember to take a picture of mine and add it to this post.

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Jan

Post Cards

I’m now teaching Language to a group of upper level students. Our schedules were re-arranged at the beginning of January (yeah yeah yeah, I’m behind on my blog). D3 is made up of students who were in C1, C2 and C3 previously. The only reason I’m teaching Language rather than Science is because I lost the coin toss with Tom. Oh well. It’s not so bad. I just sort of suck at teaching grammar.

The class is using the second grade Language book from Harcourt. The activity for today was to write a short post card to a friend. In it, the students will describe a visit to a place using the verbs “go”, “do” and “see” in the correct tense. That’s sort of boring, so I put my own spin on it. I wrote my friend’s address on the board and gave my kids a piece of paper with a post card on it. They addressed the post card to her and wrote a little bit about what they could do and see in Ulsan. I’ll put all of the postcards into an envelope and mail them off to Melanie to enjoy.

Click to see the full size version or right click to download the original image (.png format). If you use it without resizing it, you’ll need to print it out “landscape” (longways).

posted by Kathryn in Activites,Fun things,Language,Teaching,Teaching Resources and have No Comments

Jan

Yellow Submarine

One of my pop song for the next two months is “Yellow Submarine” by the Beatles. I’m using this with my lower level students because the words are pretty simple and it’s quite repetitive. I’m finding that the word “submarine” starts to sound extremely odd after going through the lyrics with the kids and then singing the song twice. But then again, maybe I’m just odd.