Do NOT tell Brad but, more often than not, teaching summer school is fun. Planning my lessons prior to start-up, I sighed as I looked at my appropriately differentiated and lexiled level readers based on oil spills. Oil spills...really? But my 3rd graders proved that the quality of education is directly proportional to the level of enthusiasm. We dug around a bit on a prior knowledge exhibition. We stabilized our sensibilities before being exposed to the heart-wrenching one-legged, blind kitten reaching through crusty cage bars video on oil spills. "Oil...good," we chanted, giving one another a hearty thumbs up. "Oil spills...bad," we boo-ed with our thumbs down. We brainstormed a list of alternative energy sources and then faced those leveled readers with as unbiased an approach as possible.
To keep (my) excitement level and interest high, we did a series of mini-science investigations. I poured water into a clear glass cake pan and then dramatically added 1/4 cup of vegetable oil. Reactions rocketed through the roof. I stared at my small gang of scientists, stunned. I immediately began planning my next lesson of having them watch paint dry.Anyway, we spent thirty minutes in meaningful dialogue about this complicated little NON-mixture. We tried some rigged up variations of text-based clean-up efforts on our in-class oil spill, trying to sop it up with sponges and attempting to corral it with pipe-cleaner "booms." Later, immersed in their books, a couple of my 3rd graders who weren't just pretending to read hurried over to share related clean-up attempts.
The next day was even better. Using colorful craft feathers, we did a series of scientific trials. I learned quickly that I can immediately capture an 8-year-old's attention if I use the word "naked" in a sentence. First, we set up a three-columned scientific note-taking page. For the first heading, we wrote "naked" feather with an accompanying, school-appropriate diagram. The second heading used the scientific term for water, H2O, which inexplicably thrilled us, also with an accompanying, school-appropriate diagram (a feather with water droplets) and the final column was oil feather with the feather scribbled in. I tried to tease my students by saying that we would be dropping each feather from their seats but they were so deliriously happy and excited that I was almost afraid to tell them we'd be dropping the feathers from a second-story window for fear they'd explode. Turns out that the thought of even going UPSTAIRS had them jumping up and down. We talked about gravity and made predictions before setting out on our elevated journey of scientific discovery.
So yeah...part of my job description is tossing feathers out a second-story window and laughing in surprise when they're swept up onto the roof (We're also doing a friendly letter lesson by writing letters of apology to our custodial staff). Naked feathers...gone. H2O feathers...gone. Oil feathers...WHOA! Plummeted to the ground! The one-legged, blind, homeless kitten made a quick re-appearance as we connected the feathers to birds effected by oil spills but we closed with our "Oil...good" (thumbs up) and "Oil spills...bad" (thumbs down) strategy before writing descriptive paragraphs detailing our observations and the results of our experiment. Then, with excitement, we returned to our differentiated, lexiled books. Summer school is fun. Remember...don't tell Brad.
No comments:
Post a Comment