First, I started planning my lesson with the end in mind? I wanted my students to be able to work in small groups and create a food web mobile. To build up to that project, I first began with a yarn activity which we passed around the room from producer to primary consumer to secondary consumer, etc. I learned that my latter classes needed smaller groups for this activity. They would get silly and drop the yarn and mess everyone up. My first two classes of the day did well with the activity...maybe because they were still waking up.
The next day I gave students a timed task. They had 15 minutes to place pictures on a sheet of bulletin board paper. Then they had to place the pictures in a food chain or food web and use markers to draw arrows showing the flow of energy. This activity went off without any difficulty.
I divided students into small groups of four to five students and monitored students as they created food chain mobiles. I was thrilled with the end result. This was a project that was easy to differentiate among various learners and learning levels. Their were a few small mistakes such as the oceanic food chain with a turtle that had feet instead of flippers; but overall, it was a real success.
Your lessons sound like a lot of fun- I've had the same sort of giggly/silly situations with my students on occasion. When they do that I warn them that we can always go back to the textbook. They usually straighten up pretty quickly after that.
ReplyDeleteDo you think you'll use the Backwards Design again when it comes to writing lesson plans?