How Your Eye Sees an Object?

The 5th grade students have continued working through their senses unit. Recently, a classroom teacher and I, planned a lesson to allow the students to work towards learning how their eye actually sees an object. The CT Science Framework asks the students to "create a diagrams that show the straight path of light rays from a source, to a reflecting object to the eye, allowing the object to be seen." We decided to pull in a variety of texts, both in print and digital, for the students to use. This allowed the students to continue working on synthesizing information from a variety of non-fiction texts.

The students were put into groups prior to beginning this lesson. Once they were in their groups they were given a graphic organizer, which can be found below, and given a certain amount of time to read the short text and find the information they needed. We used the Online Stopwatch, a favorite of mine, to allow the students to keep track of the time they had left in each station.

How Does Your Eye See an Object?

We reminded the students during each station that their evidence should be focused on helping them answer the focus question we provided. This was a big help to the students and kept them aware of the task at hand. Students then had to make a claim based on the evidence they collected. 

Once the students were done with the stations, we allowed some time for the group to form a plan to create their diagram. Each group had an iPad and we had them use Doodlecast Pro. We chose this app primarily because down the road we are going to use it in much more detail. We did not tell the students all the features of the app, but just wanted them to be able to create their diagram and record their voice. There are a ton of apps out there that we could have used, but like I said this is something we plan on using in the future in much more detail. 

Each video was created, saved to the Camera Roll on the iPads, and then combined into one video using YouTube Capture.

Vocabulary and Senses - Day 2

The next day I returned with the students work that they had completed the day before. The task today has them taking their learning and creating a page or two to be used in our iBook. The students will be creating some pages using the Book Creator app and allowed to import their video from 30 Hands if they so desire.

We split the class in half this day, so I could work with half the class in the creation of their pages. To introduce Book Creator I showed the students some of the features, but for the most part allowed them to create however they wanted. Some groups chose to use the video they created in 30 Hands and others chose to start from scratch.

Each group had access to the graphic organizer they created to help guide them along the way. They had to include some sort of visual and include the definition of their word. These were really the only parameters we had set for the students. After they created their pages in Book Creator, the students sent their files to be stored in our class Dropbox account. Dropbox and Book Creator play together quite nicely. Storing your pages in Dropbox allows you to open the pages/books right in Book Creator and then combine the pages all into one book. Learned this feature by participating with another class in a global iBook project created by Mrs. Wideen's students.

Check out the links below to PDF versions of the books.

Mrs. Green's Morning Session

Mrs. Green's Afternoon Session

Clink the links below on your Apple device, if you have iBooks installed. This will open up to an interactive version of our iBooks.

Mrs. Green's Morning Session - iBook

Mrs. Green's Afternoon Session - iBook

Vocabulary and Senses - Day 1

5th grade students recently began their unit dealing with the senses. As an introduction to the unit we decided to have the students each make a few pages to be put into an interactive iBook that would be able to be used throughout the unit. We took the vocabulary words from the CT Science Framework as well as using vocabulary the teacher had added throughout the unit as she taught.

Before it was time to teach the lesson we put together some items the students would be able to use in developing their definitions for the words their group had been assigned. We pulled in some books from the library as well as some links for the students to use. As well as found a graphic organizer that would help the students along the way. Our goal throughout the lesson was to have the students be able to pull information from various non-fiction text, synthesize that information, and develop a definition that they would be able to understand.

The students were put into groups before we began the lesson. Each station the students went to had a QR code as well as a book that had information to help them with their definition.

Senses QR Codes

To scan the QR code the students used the Scan app that was already on their iPad. This is my favorite QR code scanner, and the one I find to be the most reliable. They were to read through the text they were provided and complete the Vocabulary graphic organizer. I found this graphic organizer on the Teaching in 220 blog and it fit the exact needs I was looking for. 

After the students completed the graphic organizer we made sure they showed either myself or their classroom teacher. This way we were able to check for accuracy and clear up any misconceptions the students may still have. Once their graphic organizer was complete the students used 30 Hands to create a few slides that showed what their words meant and allowed them to show their learning how they saw fit. This was another great way for us to measure the groups understanding of their words. In the next steps you will see they have the opportunity to use the video they created for their pages in the iBook.