Brief Science Lesson Plans:

Day 1: Vertebrates and Invertebrates – I will be introducing the students to these two groups and this will lead into the lessons on each animal group.

Day 2: Animal groups: This will entail a lesson on the six animal kingdoms: Reptiles, fish, amphibians, birds, insects and mammals.

Day 3: Animal Classifications: This will be a follow up from last day where I introduced them to the five groups, on this day instead I will give them different characteristics that characterize each group.

Day 4: Life Cycles: This will deal with the different cycles each animal group has to go through.

Day 5: Metamorphosis: Another lead in from the Life cycles lesson.

Day 6: Offspring: I will be discussing with the students the animals and their babies.

Day 7: Caring for their young: Here is where we will have a lesson on how the animals take care of their young.

Day 8: Identifying the Needs of the animals: Like humans, animals have certain needs too and I will delve into these needs.

Day 9: How they meet their needs: Another follow up from the previous lesson, I will do a part two lesson where I will teach a lesson on how the animals meet these needs.

Day 10: Habitats: This is where we’ll discuss the homes of the animals.

Day 11: How the animals move: This deals with how they use their bodies to run from their prey.

Day 12: Adapting to the Environment: How these animals survive in their environments and where they live.

Day 13: Food Chain: where their groups belong on the food chain.

Teacher: Marianne Lettieri Grade: 2; Animal Groups

Specific Expectation(s): In this first lesson, by the end, the students should be able to identify and describe the six major animal kingdoms

Strand: Growth and Changes in Animals

Materials and Resources: chart paper, magazines, markers, tape, scissors, glue, and books about animals

Important terminology: mammals, amphibians, reptiles, birds, fish, feathers, fur, and teeth, skin, scales, crawls, land, water

Background Knowledge: By the end of grade one the students should have a greater knowledge of animals and plants and their role in the environment. They should be able to classify characteristics of animals and plants by using the senses (eg. texture, colour, size, sound, etc.). They should also known how to describe the different ways in which animals move to meet their needs and they should be able to compare the common characteristics between animals and humans (egs. in hair and eye colour).

Motivator (Exploratory Activity): I will introduce this lesson by reading them a story called Benny’s Animals and how he Put them in Order by Selsam, Millicent Ellis. This should introduce them to a lesson on how to start classifying things, specifically animals. Here there will be a greater emphasis placed on the vertebrates and invertebrates, which lead to looking at the five different animal kingdoms. Before I get into the animal groups, I will ask the students to stand up – as part of my exploratory activity – and I will tell them to get into groups based on different characteristics they possess and different pieces of clothing they have on that day. (Ie. those with blue sweaters will group as one, those with brown hair will be a group, etc.) This will start teaching them about the art of classification and will lead into the main lesson of grouping the animals.

Lesson Overview: I will have chart paper up on the board. On the chart paper I will have written the five main animal kingdoms with a picture of each animal beside it to help the students visualize which animals belong to each group. Before starting the lesson, I will ask the students to cut out from magazines – which I will provide for them – pictures of animals. I will ask each student to show me their pictures and ask them to tape it on the chart paper under whatever group their animal belongs to. Throughout this procedure I will be asking the students if they see any common characteristics between the animals in the different groups, this will lead into our next lesson on animal classification so it will be a good review. I will also be answering any questions that the students may have that deal with the six major animal kingdoms.

Key Questions: The questions that I could ask myself during this lesson in order to make it run smoothly could be: How can I show my students the difference between the six groups and why are animals classified in different groups and not just put in one big grouping.
Evaluation: I will give my students a handout with pictures of different animals and a blank space next to each one. It will be up to the students to fill out each space with the proper animal name (ie. mammal, fish, amphibian, etc). My evaluation will be based on the students being able to properly classify the animals on the handout and placing them in their proper groups.

Enrichment: In my classroom I will have a classroom library set up with books about different animals. For those enrichment students that finish before the rest of the class, I will ask them to get a book and read it and start acquainting themselves with the different animals. This will be useful not only for their knowledge but will help them in their culminating task at the end of the unit where they will have to research an animal.

Remediation: During the exploratory and normal lessons, if some students need some extra assistance classifying the animals in the different groups, I will first call upon volunteers to help them classify the weaker students’ animals on the chart paper. If those students are having difficulty as well, I will then be present to help the students. During the seatwork if I notice that the weaker students are still having difficulties, I will pair them off with a stronger student and they can work on the handout together.

Implications for Future Lessons: Before going onto the next lesson that deals with classifying the different groups with different characteristics, the students have to know what each group is and what animal belongs to each group. If they do not know this, they cannot move on to the classification lesson and so I will have to make sure that they know their six groups beforehand.

Teacher: Marianne Lettieri Grade: 2; Life Cycles

Specific Expectations: After this lesson, the students should be able to describe the changes in the appearance and the activity of an animal as it goes through the complete life cycle. They should also be able to identify constant traits (eg. the number of legs) and the changing traits (the weight) in the animals as they grow.

Strand: Growth and Changes in Animals.

Materials and Resources: The book I Love you Forever by Robert Munsch, six pieces of chart paper, markers, pictures of each animal from the different kingdoms, construction paper.

Important Terminology: mammals, fish, birds, amphibians, reptiles, insects, changing traits, constant traits, cycle, baby, toddler, teenager, adult.

Background Knowledge: They will by now already know the six groups and be able to classify them based on the different characteristics of each animal. Now it will be time to teach them how each animal grows and what it turns into when it is finished growing.

Motivator: Before getting into the main lesson of the day I will start off by reading to the class the book I Love you Forever by Robert Munsch. This is a good book to read because it talks about the life cycle of a human and it is by an author that is popular amongst children of this age group.

Lesson Overview: I will have up on the board six sheets of chart paper. On each chart paper I will have the titles: Animal, traits that stay the same as it grows and traits that change as it grows. I will have pictures of different types of animals and each chart paper will represent a different animal kingdom. Under the title Animal, the students have to name the picture of the animal and underneath it, I will ask the students to describe to me in their words the changes in the animal as it grows. Under the other two columns, I will ask them to tell me which traits of this particular animal stay the same (eg. number of legs) and which traits change (eg. weight). I will follow the same procedures for the other five animal kingdoms on the other five pieces of chart paper.

Evaluation: I will give the students an art activity to do as their assessment piece. This lesson will be a life cycle poster where they will each be given a sheet of construction paper and they will have to fold it in half. It will be up to them to pick an animal and then draw the life cycle of the animal based on the traits that we discussed in our lesson. I will evaluate them based on if they use the appropriate vocabulary we talked about in class and whether they can put together an accurate life cycle.

Enrichment: For those students that finish early and that understand the assignment more than the other students, I will ask them to do a human cycle. They will have to bring in pictures of themselves and put them in chronological order from when they were born to the present. This will evaluate whether the students have been able to fully grasp the steps in a life cycle and whether they have understood the lesson.

Remediation: For the weaker students, I do want to do the same activity as I had prepared for the stronger students, however, for them I will be giving them more guided assistance and asking them to put it together with their parents while the stronger students are expected to work on it on their own. If they still do not understand the lesson and the activities, then I will be there to help them and guide them as well as they can be paired off with stronger students to work on their posters and put together the cycle in a chronological order.

Implication for Future Lessons: The students will have to understand this lesson in order for them to further understand the next lessons. Life cycles is an important lesson because it teaches how the living things evolve and the processes they go through that entail them to get bigger, have children, etc. Without understanding this lesson it will be difficult for them to understand the lesson on the offspring, or even how they move and adapt to their environment.

Teacher: Marianne Lettieri Grade: 2: Identifying the Needs of the Animals

Specific Expectations: In this lesson the grade two students are expected to meet certain expectations from the Ontario Curriculum. This lesson will test whether they are able to compare ways in which animals eat their food (eg. tear flesh, crack shells), move, and use their environment to meet their needs (eg. gather grass and twigs to build nests). They will have to describe ways in which animals respond and adapt to their environment (eg. weasels change colour for camouflage in summer and winter; mammals living in colder climates have longer fur, etc.) They should be able to ask questions about and identify some needs of different animals with which they are familiar, and explore possible answers to these questions and ways of meeting these needs. (eg. examine different kinds of teeth and explain how their shape enables an animal to bite, tear or grind its food).

Strand: Growth and Change in Animals

Materials and Resources: Chart paper, markers, construction paper, and books on animals.

Important Terminology: air, water, food, shelter,

Background Knowledge: The students will have a lot more information now on the different animals and their separate kingdoms. By this lesson they should know about the mating period, how animals care for their young, the different life cycles of living things as well as the metamorphosis of certain animal species.

Motivator: Before the actual lesson, I will have a discussion with the students where we will talk about the basic needs of human beings. This should help them get into the lesson because I will first ask them to list what their basic needs are as human beings before we start talking about the animals’ needs. I will list these needs on chart paper.

Lesson Overview: During this lesson I will discuss with the students the needs of animals and how they can survive and adapt to the environment. The students will give me a list of these needs orally and I will record them on chart paper. I will then put the two charts – the basic human needs and the animal needs – side by side and we will compare and contrast which needs are the same and which are different by putting circles around the similar ones and squares around the different ones. They will then go back to their seats and record these similarities and differences in their notebooks.

Key Questions: Will they know the many animal needs? Will they understand the difference between animal and human needs?

Evaluation: I will ask the students to select an animal of their choice. They will have to draw a diagram of this animal and draw as many pictures as possible on the page that show the basic needs of these animals and what they need to survive. This will show me if they know what the term basic needs means and if they understand the concept.

Enrichment: For those students that finish early, I will ask them to record these needs on a piece of paper on one side of the page and on the other side of the page they will have to list the ways in which animals meet these needs.

Remediation: For those students that don’t understand the lesson I will do the lesson with them orally and hope that they understand better once we’ve gone over the needs together as a group. They will also be able to draw their pictures and the basic needs while we do our discussion as a group. I will also be available to provide them with individual help if they still do not understand.

Implication for Future Lessons: They will have to understand this lesson on basic needs before we can go on to the next lesson which will go further in depth on how these animals meet their needs. This lesson touches on the basic needs of these animals, but in order to move on to discussing how these animals meet their needs, the students will have to know more about the basic needs of all living things.

Teacher: Marianne Lettieri Grade: 2; Habitats

Specific Expectations: By the end of this lesson, I will expect the students to learn about the different types of habitats in which living things call home. They should be able to describe and see the difference between the many habitats and communities that exist all over the world. The students should also be able to tell me what exactly is a habitat and what its function is in the community.

Strand: Growth and Changes in Animals

Materials and Resources: Chart paper, markers, construction paper, pictures of different habitats and animals.

Important Terminology: environment, community, forest, ocean, desert, field, mountains, pond, farm, city

Background Knowledge: By this time the students have already learned about the basic animal needs, how they meet these needs, the different life and metamorphosis cycles of the animals, how they care for their young, etc.

Motivator: We will be having an oral discussion about the community in which the students live in. We will discuss what makes this city different than other cities, what is good about this city and what is bad about it. I will record the students’ answers on chart paper. This will start the lesson talking about habitats and by talking about the students’ city it will help them better relate to the word and what it means exactly.

Lesson Overview: Before I start talking about habitats, I will review the last days’ lessons where we discussed the basic animal needs and what requirements the animals need to meet their basic needs. This is important to review because it will help me follow through with habitat because the animals usually have to meet these basic needs within their environment and habitat. I will then have posted on one side of the blackboard pictures of different animals and on the other side pictures of the different habitats. It will be up to the students to match the animals with the habitats in which they live. I will record these answers on chart paper and ask the students to copy them down in their notebooks.

Key Questions: Will they understand the word habitat? Will they see the comparisons between the city in which they live and the different animal habitats that exist all over the world?

Evaluation: I will take this oral discussion further and provide the students with questions that have to do with each of the different habitats. They will have to answer questions based on the discussion we had as a class. The questions consist of: Why would this animal select this habitat to live in? What needs can be met living in this habitat? In what other habitats could this animal live? Which habitats would not be good for the animal? By answering these questions, it will help me assess whether the students understand the day’s lesson or whether they will need an extra day reviewing it. It will also tell me if they were able to incorporate the past lessons into this one.

Enrichment: I will have an assignment ready for both the stronger and weaker students. I will ask them to work in groups making large murals or banners that depict different habitats and the different animals that live there. This assignment will help also be good for those weaker students because it gives them a chance to learn more about the habitats but if they don’t understand much they can have the help of those stronger students that understand the lesson.

Implication for Future Lesson: This lesson on habitats will help them with their future lessons, especially when we start talking about adapting to the environment and what the animals do to run from their prey. The students will have to understand that all this is done within their habitats and communities so they will have to understand the importance of this word.

Works Cited

Lawson, Jennifer; Bowman, Joni; Chambers Kevin, Cielen Randy, Josephson, Nancy, Kamal, Anita; Pattenden, Carol; Platt, Rita: Growth and Changes in Animals: Hands-on Science. Portage and Main Press (Peguis Publishers) Winnipeg, Manitoba. 2001

The Ontario Curriculum: Grades 1-8: Science and Technology

Final Culminating Piece: At the end of the whole unit, I will be assigning the students a culminating assignment where they will be entitled to do research on the different areas that we have studied together as a class. I will be asking them to pick an animal of their choice and they will have to put together a research project that will incorporate all the areas that were previously studied, ie. talking about the different kingdoms, the life cycles of these animals, how they care for the young, the basic needs each animal requires, how they meet these needs, the habitats in which they live, how the animals move, how they adapt to their environment and their place on the food chain. This will be an assignment in which I will give them class time as well as home time to work on it, and by the end I would like them to present it in front of the class so I will be asking them to incorporate as many pictures and diagrams as possible.

Rubric

Level 1: The students have done little work and put in little effort in this assignment. They show very few signs of understanding the unit on animals.

Level 2: The students have done some work and put in a little more effort in their research project. They seem to have some knowledge of the unit on animals.

Level 3: The students have put together a great research project. They understand the unit on animals and are ready to move on to the next unit of study.

Level 4: The students have gone above and beyond on their research project. They’ve paid great attention to detail. They have exceeded the classroom expectations and are definitely ready to move on to the next unit.