Force & Motion Comes Alive!

Submitted by: Jan Locher
Collaborators: Karen Hues
School: Maybeury Elementary

Summary

The students worked collabratively to discover more about force & motion and then shared their ideas in pictures and stories. By building on their basic knowledge, through their own experiences and collaberation, the students discovered new ideas about force & motion. First, the students shared what they knew about this topic and listed for future reference (KWL chart form). Next, the students worked at five different stations investigating various ideas about force & motion. The stations included a computer driven Discovery Education interactive game with moving locomotives and another with Sid the Science Kid investigating movement and friction, another included non-fiction books for fact collection, another had a heavy and light ball rolling ball activity and lastly, a lego car that must use the force of wind to move. After these activities, the students shared ideas and added new words to the KWL chart about force & motion. These groups of students then moved to the playground to show force & motion using their own bodies on the equipment. They used the I-pads to take pictures of one another and then put their picutres to stories using their own recorded words to tell about force & motion. These stories are uploaded onto the teacher blog so that all famlies can share in their child’s learning about force & motion. Comments were turned on so students and their parents could make comments and ask questions about what we did in the classroom.

TIPC Ratings

This lesson is in the Ideal/Target range for Research and Information Fluency. Students constructed their own questions through the use of a class KWL Chart. The teacher provided activities that required students to explore force and motion ideas and synthesize information. The teacher supported students as they conducted research. The students used Story Kit on the iPads and the class blog to display information gained during research.

This lesson is in the Developing range for Communication and Collaboration. Students collaborated in small groups to complete the class assignment. The teacher directly instructed on the use of Story Kit on the iPads. The Story Kit projects were posted on the class blog and opened for comments/questions.

This lesson is Approaching for Critical Thinking and Problem Solving. The students had to do a great deal of problem solving with their teams to be able to complete the virtual and hands on labs. Students created their own questions as they were working and responded to them through trial and error in the labs. Students took pictures on the playground and then justified their decision making by creating a story with voice overs on Story Kit.

This lesson is Approaching for Creativity and Innovation. Students synthesized their research to be able to take appropriate pictures on the playground and communicated using Story Kit to address this authentic task. They made predictions from their research stations to assist with their new solution; different types of motion they observed on the playground. Each group made their own original story using Story Kit.