This lesson took a lot of planning for myself because I'm still learning how to plan for a lesson. Measuring is a process skill that third grade students need to know and this lesson involved several materials. For this lesson, I came in 25 minutes before the students got into the classroom and since there are 5 table groups in my classroom, I put all the materials each group would need into piles. Each group would need a ruler to measure the length and wide of a piece of paper as well as the height of their snap cube, a scale to weigh their snap cube in grams, a measuring tape to measure the distance around a ball, a thermometer to get the temperature of water, and a graduated cyclinder to measure the volume. It required a lot of preparation from me and made me realize how organized teachers need to be if they want a lesson to run smoothly. To begin, I discussed with my class why it is important for scientist to measure. We came to an agreement that it is important to measure because scientists need specific quantitative data. I passed out the worksheet and had students put their name on it. Once students had their worksheet, I modeled how to use the tools and explained how to cooperatively rotate the tools throughout our table mates. We discussed how to nicely ask someone if they were done and how to rotate tools appropriately. I then asked all students to put their heads down while I passed out the tools and wait patiently. During the students time to work, all but a few students were working cooperatively with their classmates and I thought the lesson had gone really well. As I was walking around, I noticed some students were writing the length and width of the paper in inches and others in centimeters. Same went for the distance around the ball and the height of the snap cube. It was my fault because while I was modeling, I was using the inches side, when the students paper said they were measuring in centimeters. I had caught my mistake as I went around and told my CT, but she said we would just grade their papers accordingly. |