Practicum Lesson Plan Liz Kilpatrick 3/7/12 EDD 485 Grade Level: Kindergarten Concept: Force & Motion Objectives: 1. Students will be able to explain that when an object s weight increases, so does the amount of force that it exerts. 2. Students will be able to explain that a heavier object can push another object farther than a light object is able. 3. Students will be able to explain that an object will roll in the same direction as the object that hits it, the same direction as the force is applied to the object. GLCEs: P.FM.00.31 Demonstrate pushes and pulls on objects that can move. P.FM.00.32 Observe that objects initially at rest will move in the direction of the push or pull. P.FM.00.33 Observe how pushes and pulls can change the speed or direction of moving objects. P.FM.00.34 Observe how shape (for example: cone, cylinder, sphere) and mass of an object can affect motion. S.IP.00.13 Plan and conduct simple investigations. S.IP.00.14 Manipulate simple tools (for example: hand lens, pencils, balances, non-standard objects for measurement) that aid observation and data collection. S.IP.00.15 Make accurate measurements with appropriate (non-standard) units for the measurement tool. S.IP.00.16 Construct simple charts from data and observations. Materials: 4 Ramps, 4 toy cars, 4 wooden balls, 4 rubber balls, 4 glass balls, 4 metal balls, variety of colored strings, safety scissors, photo of glass ball, photo of rubber ball, photo of metal ball, plastic cup cut in half, and a photo of pool balls. Safety: Students should be sitting next to the ramp when rolling their balls and observing. If they sit directly in front of the ramp they may be hit by a ball or the toy car. Also, children should only be using scissors to cut the string. If the scissors are used in an unsafe manner, a teacher may hold on to the scissors until it is time for the children to cut. References: Mason, A. (2005). Move it!: Motion, forces, and you. (p. 32). Tonawanda, NY: Kids Can Press Ltd.
[Web log message]. (2011, March 15). Retrieved from http://krazyforkindergarten.blogspot.com/2011/03/energy-force-and-motion.html Engage: I will ask students Have you ever played with a ball before? What kind of ball? What did you do with that ball? We will discuss these questions in a whole class setting. Explorable Question: What effect does the weight of a ball have on how far it pushes a toy car? Explore: 1. I will have the students work at their designated table. Each group will receive one ramp, one rubber ball, one glass ball, one metal ball, a toy car, a chair, green string, blue string, yellow string, and safety scissors. 2. Each group will set their ramp up so that one end is on top of the base of their chair, and the other end touches the floor. They will then set the toy car at the bottom of the ramp, directly in front of the ramp. Next, they will place their green string alongside the car, so that one end is lined up with the bottom of the ramp. 3. When this is all set up, one person will set the glass ball at the top of the ramp and the group will watch it roll down and hit the car. When the car has completely stopped moving, one group member will hold one end of the string in place against the bottom of the ramp, while another group member lines the other end of the string up with the back of the car. This person will then cut the string at that point. The length of the string shows how far the car traveled when hit by the moving ball. 4. Each group will then repeat steps three and four with the rubber ball and the metal ball. Explain: 1. Bring students together into a large group. Ask them to sit in their groups that they did the explore section with. Each group should bring their three pieces of string with them to the large group. 2. I will place a picture of a glass ball, a picture of a rubber ball, and a picture of a metal ball on the board in front of the classroom. The three pictures will be placed at the same height on the board. Each group will come up individually and place each of their strings under the picture that corresponds with the ball they used during that trial. The green strings will go on the picture of the glass ball, the blue strings will go on the picture of the metal ball, and the yellow strings will go on the picture of the rubber ball. 3. Once each group has all three of their strings on the board, I will ask Which ball made the car move the most? and Which car made the car move the least? I will label these under the strings. They should be able to compare the lengths of the strings and see that the longest string means that the car moved the farthest. 4. I will then hold up one of each of the balls and ask What is different about these three balls that made the car move a different amount? 5. I will explain that when the ball weighs more it has a stronger push against the car, and the more strength you use to push something the farther it will move. 6. Next I will touch on the topic of direction of the push. I will ask students to think about what happened when the ball rolled away from the ramp. I will ask As the ball rolled farther away from the ramp, which way did the car move? Did it move farther away from the ramp or closer to the ramp? Why do you think this happened? I want them to
understand that when the push of the ball acts upon the car, that force pushes the car in that same direction. Extend: 1. I will make a connection between this activity and the game of pool. I will show them a picture of pool balls colliding and explain that in pool, you use one ball to hit another into a goal, just as we used one ball to push a car in our activity. 2. I will invite two students to try rolling a rubber ball into another rubber ball in order to get it into the goal. 3. I will then do this with the ping pong balls and the metal balls. 4. I will then discus how when they rolled one ball into another the first ball pushes the other ball, causing it to move in the direction that it was hit by the first ball. Performance Assessment: I will hold up a wooden ball and ask students If I roll another ball into this one, which of the three balls that we used earlier will push the wooden ball the farthest? I will have students make their predictions and explain why they think this. They should say that the metal ball will push it the farthest because it is the heaviest ball.
Practicum Reflection On Thursday April 5, I took over Mrs. Brook s kindergarten class to teach a lesson on force and motion. Elaine Bechard and Lauren Stine were with me as well and provided helpful assistance with the lesson. During the engage, students were very excited to get their ideas out, and I respectfully listened to what they had to say and took it into account when speaking with them. Students seemed engaged in this portion of the lesson, and interested in discovering what they were about to do. During the explore portion of my lesson, students were engaged the entire time in the materials. All groups initially set their ramps on their chairs as I had in my example. Group members shared the materials well and worked together to explore how far they could move the cars. Also, when groups finished they were able to explore the materials using their own means. Students were interested in changing the height of the ramp as well as the force they used to roll the ball. I noticed that while rolling balls down the ramp, they also tried throwing the ball down the ramp and were excited by how far the car rolled. During the explain portion of my lesson, I kept students engaged by assigning different tasks to students. Three students from each group held onto the strings, brought each one up as I asked for it, and taped it to the picture of the ball that the string corresponded to. I let the students who did not get to hold a string know that I had something else for them to do later, so they would not get discouraged. Students then became involved in the conversation. I asked questions and a large amount of students raised their hands to answer. I tried to pick on all of the students who raised their hands. At other times I asked everyone to respond together or point with me, and most of the class participated.
During the extend, I asked the students who did not get to hold a string earlier, to try rolling one ball into another ball of the same type and try to get it into a plastic cup that was cut in half. They tried each of the three types of balls and the rest of the class watched. When they were done, we discussed which one was the easiest to get into the goal. The evaluate involved asking the students for predictions as to which type of ball would push a wooden ball the farthest. Most of the students raised their hand to make a prediction, then the remaining students who had not gotten a chance to help yet came up and tested these predictions while the other students watched. I know these students were paying attention because they reacted as the ball was hit with Look how far it went! It went across the room! and other exclamations about the action of the wooden ball. The students met my first objective Students will be able to explain that when an object s weight increases, so does the amount of force that it exerts. I know they met this objective because of the explanations they gave during the explain portion. When asked which ball pushed the car the farthest, they were able to look at the chart we created and say that it was the metal ball because the string was longest. When asked why the metal ball pushed the ball the farthest they vocalized that it was the heaviest ball. During the lesson students developed an understanding of my second objective Students will be able to explain that a heavier object can push another object farther than a light object is able. I know they met this objective from the evaluate portion of the lesson. They were able to hypothesize that the rubber ball would push the wooden ball just a little, the glass ball would push the wooden ball a little farther, and the metal ball would push the wooden ball all the way across the room.
The third objective I set for the lesson was Students will be able to explain that an object will roll in the same direction as the object that hits it, the same direction as the force is applied to the object. I know that students understood this concept from my extend. During the extend, I asked students to point in the direction the car would roll if the ramp was turned different directions. When I turned the ramp so that the bottom was facing the right, the students pointed to the right, indicating that the ball would roll down the ramp and push the car in the same direction. They were able to identify all four directions given correctly. My lesson plan was a good basis for the lesson, but when it came to implementing the lesson I found that students reacted differently than I had planned in some situations. For example, when implementing the extend, I felt like the students were ready for more of a challenge, so I extended their thinking even more by not just thinking about how the balls collide, but also the reaction. Although not in my lesson plan I set the ramp up and pointed it in various directions and asked students to point in the direction that the ball would push the car after it rolls down the ramp. This challenged students to think about the effect the impact a push has on the direction the object being pushed will go. I thought this was an overall effective lesson for kindergarteners, but if I were to do it again, I would be more prepared. I thought that as the lesson was going on I would be able to cut three pieces of string off of their initial bundles and hand them out to each groups. Really, I underestimated the attention that twenty kindergarten students require. It became a little chaotic trying to cut off the string and keep track of everything else that was going on. Next time, I would cut the string ahead of time and if a piece was not long enough; I could always cut another piece. Another trouble I had was getting students to use the correct colored string for each ball. I had color coded my pictures of each ball, and intended to put them up in front of the class during
the engage as a reminder of what color string should be used to measure what type of ball. In all of the excitement of the engage, this step was missed, and students did not have a reference for the colored string they should use to correspond with each ball. Next time I would be sure to include this step in my engage.