Spring - Lesson plan1 - BUGS

Spring is definitely my favorite season and this time I decided to teach a little bit of science to my preschoolers. Bugs, plants, flowers… 

They are all around and it's interesting for the kids to take a closer look at them, in English too.

I started with the famous, but not environmentally conscious, bumble bee song and then we played that phonic game Bees and Flowers I told you about several posts ago. This time I drew daisies, tulips and sunflowers to make sure my students would learn flowers' names. 

At the beginning the kids were using the more general word flower they already knew and I had to explain them that flowers are like children: each one has a different name.

They seemed kind of enlightened by the concept. It was so cute!

After buzzing around for a while I introduced vocabulary about bugs like, spiders, ladybugs, snails, bees, dragonflies, caterpillars and butterflies, using flashcard games.

To help them remember a couple of the names in the list above you can use these two songs: One about ladybugs and the other about the spider and… prepositions of place!

This second one is not only catchy but also really useful.

To make the most of it and also review numbers from 1 to 20 we played a card game you'll find here on page 13 and 14. Instead of the trowel card my students were hiding and looking for… a spider!

In addition, I used some pages  from these two books: 

- Color and garden. Flowers 

- Daily Learning Drills. Grade K 

Finally we read The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Actually, we read it again because I had never realized before that it also shows the butterfly life cycle. 

An ESL teacher isn't expected to teach such scientific facts, so I usually use that same book to teach food, days of the week, numbers. It has been surprising to discover a new use of the story after owing it for 6 years.

Here you can download a cute picture of a butterfly life cycle to cut and use as a puzzle.

Next post… flowers and plants!

Meanwhile enjoy the springtime!

        


---> Quiero leer esta entrada en español


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THE EVOLUTION of CALPURNIA TATE by Jacqueline Kelly

Summer 1899. Calpurnia is 11 years old, the middle girl born between 6 brothers.

We are in Texas, a few decades after the Civil War. 

Calpurnia's father owns a big important cotton gin and behind her house there are the old slave quarters, out past her Grandad's laboratory, a place where the old man spends his time trying to distill pecans. 

A couple of black women work in the house to help Calpurnia's mother to keep it.

Calpurnia likes nature and she is a smart girl who writes interesting questions down in her red covered notebook. 

One day she decides to borrow 'The Origin of Species', the brand-new book written by Charles Darwin, from the public library. Unfortunately times were still green for a scientific theory of evolution and she only gets a disappointed reproach from the librarian.

To fully explain the historical period, we can say that the 'wind machine', a ventilator, was a revolutionary new invention. Later on, we'll find the 'Bell Telephone Company'  installing the first telephone office in town, the fizzy  Coca Cola appealing to children at the Fentress fair together with the just-released first auto-mobile!!!

So, surrounded by this period of great changes, Calpurnia  gets home and, there, she is lent a copy of the Darwin's book by her own grandaddy: it's  the starting point of an exciting scientific collaboration and friendship. 

Their summer suddenly becomes much more interesting: she follows her teacher along the river banks to collect specimens and observe bacteria through a microscope. She develops her own scientific researches and keeps writing interesting questions in her notebook.

In other words she discovers what Science is.

But her mother has a different plan for her only daughter, so Calpurnia has also to learn a different kind of science, less amusing to her: housewifery. 

She must take classes of piano, cooking and tatting to prepare herself for her coming out in society to find, one day, a husband to build her own family and keep her own house.

The book tells of months of intense personal inner growth and struggle for our young heroine. 

Otherwise 1900 finally arrives. It's the beginning of a new century loaded with unexpected events, and promises for a future that definitively breaks from ancient lways.

It's a hopeful future for Calpurnia too. 

I loved this book, first of all, because it evoked my long summers off from school when I used to spend my time scampering around outside my house observing nature and its wonders. Curiosity has always  linked children all over the world and observation is the secret 'to see things you've never noticed before'.

It's fascinating how Calpurnia gets every day more conscious about the contrast between what she would like to be and, on the other hand, what society wants her to be. 

A second reason to love this book is the detailed portrait of the American culture during the late 19th Century which is slowly stepping into modern times.

It clearly shows the divergent points of view among religious people and those who were embracing science.

Finally I've been captivated because it gives an historical perspective to what we just study as 'science' at school. It makes visible that theories, like the evolution,  presented in our books aren't there just because someone one day decided that they were true and globally accepted. 

Quite the opposite! Science had to struggle with old ways of thinking. Actually every renewal, personal or social, requires time, enthusiasm and faith, as Calpurnia's experience suggests.

To work with your class:

Discussion Questions 


 

More great books:
The wonderful Wizard of Oz
James and the Giant Peach

HERBARIUM

Introduce your pupils to the magical world of plants!

As we already well know they will enjoy doing some crafts, more than a boring explanation, so why don't make them start by exploring their gardens and taking notes on what they can see?

The first activity could be making a book, called an Herbarium, used in Botany to classify plants. They can pick flowers, dry them and stick them in this book made of sheets of heavy cardstock.

I personally prefer to leave plants where they are and take pictures of them, and so will some of your students, while others will enjoy a direct contact with the plants best.  

Here there is an example of my Herbarium made of pictures and drawings that your students can also do. 

It's a good exercise to improve their ability to pay attention!!!  

If they have a good level of English, they could find interesting a little research on the plant and write a summary of its most important characteristics. 

Here http://www.education.com/activity/article/Herbarium_Sheets/

is a page where you can find out how to make a traditional one.