Math and Science Lesson Plan
Goals:
The integrated math and science activity developed here is based on incorporating several different aspects of math and science into a project that will include outside exploration, sorting, graphing, and translation of a concrete graph into a bar graph.
The students must be able to distinguish natural objects from man made ones as the collecting of items will only include natural ones, and will discuss properties of earth materials during the collection and sorting of these collected objects. They will explore systems, order, and organization through the sorting of these items while discussing the properties of these objects.
The children will count with understanding and recognize “how many” in sets of objects during the sorting and concrete graphing of these collected objects and will use a variety of methods to compute including objects, crayon and paper during the translation of the graph, and counting out loud. They will be sorting and classifying objects based on their properties and will discuss the attributes of these objects as the do so. The students will be comparing these objects according to the attributes of length, weight, size, color, and other attributes of their choosing. They will represent the data they have collected through concrete and bar graphs and will use the two graphs to analyze the data.
Rationale:
Pre school aged children are very active, and enjoy when they get to touch and be involved with different objects while learning. They also are concerned that they play an active role. Children are naturally drawn to the flora and fauna of nature, literally stopping to smell the roses every chance they get, and wanting to experiment with bugs, leaves, sticks and grass. Children of this age living in New York City usually have some encounters with these items, but probably not as much as they would like. They may not have as much knowledge of nature as other children who live in more rural areas.
This activity will give children the chance to play a very active role in the collection of data, moving around the classroom to sort out and graph the items, and working in groups to decide the classification of the data. Through the students identifying and analyzing their results, the teacher will have the chance to assess the students’ knowledge of natural items, attributes, counting, and one to one correspondence. The teacher will also get the chance to observe how the children work together in groups and assess their progress. (Chittenden and Jones) A concrete graph allows children to be involved, to learn different strategies for problem solving, and to ask questions and be able to answer them. (Graphing in the Classroom).
Prior Knowledge/Skills:
In order to have a meaningful experience through this activity, children will need to be able to identify natural from man made objects, notice different attributes of collected items, participate in small group discussions, count, and understand a more or less than relationship.
This activity will build on their prior knowledge of counting, one to one correspondence, and comparing more and less, by asking them to see numbers in a new way, both horizontally and vertically. It will also ask them to use representational thought by asking them to see a group of items they collected represented as a line of a specific height.
For this activity, I believe very little would have to be changed in order to make it successful for children with special needs. The children that I usually work with have autism; they are very visual learners, and the visual aspects of the graph would be appealing to them. Getting out into the environment is good for almost every child, and the discussion of classification could promote social interactions. Teacher involvement would need to increase, and would more likely to be heavily driving the inquiry.
Materials:
In the course of the activity, most of the materials we will be utilizing are ones the children will be collecting. I would use several large pieces of paper on the floor that the children could place the items on in groups. The children could then also write or make marks on the paper next to the items. The final part of the activity will use graph paper and crayons.
Procedure:
The first part of the activity involves going outside to collect items for our project. There are two rules for this collection; first, that the found items must be natural and not made by people, second, that no two items are exactly alike. If this were to be done in a classroom, I would take the children to an outside area or perhaps do this first step as part of a field trip, allowing the children as much time as possible in order to collect as many items as they wanted. This would give them the freedom to collect and compare while moving around outdoors without the pressure of having a time limit put on them.
After collecting the items, we will bring them back inside and begin sorting them out, according to categories that the children decide on. Discussions will be encouraged when deciding where items should be classified.
Once the items have been sorted out, we will make our concrete graph, using the categories that have been decided on. This will be done on the floor, so the children will have a chance to get down and place the items where they see fit, and also so that they will be able to walk around it to look at it from different angles. In a classroom setting, the sorting and concrete graphing would be done in small groups, each with their own set of collected materials.
Finally, we will translate the concrete graph into a bar graph that we will work on together. In a classroom, this could take place as a lesson involving the whole class before they break up into their groups to translate their own concrete graphs.
This activity could then be extended by comparing the children’s graphs, discussing similarities and differences, perhaps questioning how some children came to classify items in different categories than other children had. We could also compare the concrete graphs to the bar graphs, speaking about numbers, length, size, color, and different attributes of both the materials and the graphs.
Adaptation:
For a birth to three year old group, I would do the first two parts of the activity only. Children of this age are constantly collecting items outdoors, and as they get towards the older side of this age group, are able to sort items out. I would not have the two rules in the first part for this age group, focusing more on being outdoors, the collection of the items, and sorting them out according to the children’s logic.
For a five to eight year old age group, I would feel much more confident going ahead with the bar graph aspect of the activity. Children in this age group will more easily understand that these lines can represent the actual items. For seven or eight year olds, I would extend the activity to include probability, asking them to figure out what the chances were of pulling out an item in a particular category.
Goals:
The integrated math and science activity developed here is based on incorporating several different aspects of math and science into a project that will include outside exploration, sorting, graphing, and translation of a concrete graph into a bar graph.
The students must be able to distinguish natural objects from man made ones as the collecting of items will only include natural ones, and will discuss properties of earth materials during the collection and sorting of these collected objects. They will explore systems, order, and organization through the sorting of these items while discussing the properties of these objects.
The children will count with understanding and recognize “how many” in sets of objects during the sorting and concrete graphing of these collected objects and will use a variety of methods to compute including objects, crayon and paper during the translation of the graph, and counting out loud. They will be sorting and classifying objects based on their properties and will discuss the attributes of these objects as the do so. The students will be comparing these objects according to the attributes of length, weight, size, color, and other attributes of their choosing. They will represent the data they have collected through concrete and bar graphs and will use the two graphs to analyze the data.
Rationale:
Pre school aged children are very active, and enjoy when they get to touch and be involved with different objects while learning. They also are concerned that they play an active role. Children are naturally drawn to the flora and fauna of nature, literally stopping to smell the roses every chance they get, and wanting to experiment with bugs, leaves, sticks and grass. Children of this age living in New York City usually have some encounters with these items, but probably not as much as they would like. They may not have as much knowledge of nature as other children who live in more rural areas.
This activity will give children the chance to play a very active role in the collection of data, moving around the classroom to sort out and graph the items, and working in groups to decide the classification of the data. Through the students identifying and analyzing their results, the teacher will have the chance to assess the students’ knowledge of natural items, attributes, counting, and one to one correspondence. The teacher will also get the chance to observe how the children work together in groups and assess their progress. (Chittenden and Jones) A concrete graph allows children to be involved, to learn different strategies for problem solving, and to ask questions and be able to answer them. (Graphing in the Classroom).
Prior Knowledge/Skills:
In order to have a meaningful experience through this activity, children will need to be able to identify natural from man made objects, notice different attributes of collected items, participate in small group discussions, count, and understand a more or less than relationship.
This activity will build on their prior knowledge of counting, one to one correspondence, and comparing more and less, by asking them to see numbers in a new way, both horizontally and vertically. It will also ask them to use representational thought by asking them to see a group of items they collected represented as a line of a specific height.
For this activity, I believe very little would have to be changed in order to make it successful for children with special needs. The children that I usually work with have autism; they are very visual learners, and the visual aspects of the graph would be appealing to them. Getting out into the environment is good for almost every child, and the discussion of classification could promote social interactions. Teacher involvement would need to increase, and would more likely to be heavily driving the inquiry.
Materials:
In the course of the activity, most of the materials we will be utilizing are ones the children will be collecting. I would use several large pieces of paper on the floor that the children could place the items on in groups. The children could then also write or make marks on the paper next to the items. The final part of the activity will use graph paper and crayons.
Procedure:
The first part of the activity involves going outside to collect items for our project. There are two rules for this collection; first, that the found items must be natural and not made by people, second, that no two items are exactly alike. If this were to be done in a classroom, I would take the children to an outside area or perhaps do this first step as part of a field trip, allowing the children as much time as possible in order to collect as many items as they wanted. This would give them the freedom to collect and compare while moving around outdoors without the pressure of having a time limit put on them.
After collecting the items, we will bring them back inside and begin sorting them out, according to categories that the children decide on. Discussions will be encouraged when deciding where items should be classified.
Once the items have been sorted out, we will make our concrete graph, using the categories that have been decided on. This will be done on the floor, so the children will have a chance to get down and place the items where they see fit, and also so that they will be able to walk around it to look at it from different angles. In a classroom setting, the sorting and concrete graphing would be done in small groups, each with their own set of collected materials.
Finally, we will translate the concrete graph into a bar graph that we will work on together. In a classroom, this could take place as a lesson involving the whole class before they break up into their groups to translate their own concrete graphs.
This activity could then be extended by comparing the children’s graphs, discussing similarities and differences, perhaps questioning how some children came to classify items in different categories than other children had. We could also compare the concrete graphs to the bar graphs, speaking about numbers, length, size, color, and different attributes of both the materials and the graphs.
Adaptation:
For a birth to three year old group, I would do the first two parts of the activity only. Children of this age are constantly collecting items outdoors, and as they get towards the older side of this age group, are able to sort items out. I would not have the two rules in the first part for this age group, focusing more on being outdoors, the collection of the items, and sorting them out according to the children’s logic.
For a five to eight year old age group, I would feel much more confident going ahead with the bar graph aspect of the activity. Children in this age group will more easily understand that these lines can represent the actual items. For seven or eight year olds, I would extend the activity to include probability, asking them to figure out what the chances were of pulling out an item in a particular category.