Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Solar System and Insects- STEM

 " Immersion in experience is the most fundamental learning mode throughout life."
Guy Claxton


We have been busy little bees this past month!  We had so much fun studying the Solar System.  We planned on spending two weeks on the unit, but ended up spending almost four weeks studying our amazing solar system!   We wrapped up our unit with a trip to the planetarium at JSU.   

The class created a digital story.  Please click on the link to view it!  


littlebirdtales.com cover image 






    We made telescopes and looked at constellations. 

    Layna loved looking at all of the different constellations.

    The students went bananas with this new augmented reality app.  The planets came to life!




    We used a flashlight to demonstrate how the moon reflects the light of the sun.  We studied the phases of the moon.



    We watched the video of Neil Armstrong landing on the moon! They loved it!
     We will spend the remaining weeks of our school year studying insects.   For the past two weeks, we have been studying the characteristics of insects.   We learned a song to help us remember all of the parts of an insect.   The students are enjoying fourteen new QR codes in our technology center.   The QR codes are linked to kid friendly science videos.   We also have a few QR codes that will read the students books that go along with the insect that we are studying.   They are especially fond of "The Hungry Caterpillar" by Eric Carle.

    This week we used one of our favorite apps called ScreenChomp.   This app reminds me of Educreations, but is a much simpler version.    I think it is a great app for the early childhood classroom.  This app is also free, which is a lovely bonus.   I also give it 5 stars because of its user friendliness and the simplicity of sharing the screenchomp with others.   With the click of a button, I am able to email the link to myself or the student's family.

    Below you will see the links to a few of our ScreenChomps.   The assignment was to select a photo that showed the life cycle of the butterfly.   I helped them browse through the Google images.   After they selected a photo, they pressed record.   Each student recorded a snippet about the life cycle.   It was a great way for me to assess and see what they had learned.   










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    1 comment:

    1. Great stuff! I think these have been two of Gavin's favorite lessons!

      ReplyDelete