Lesson Plan : Jigsaw Plant Parts!
Teacher Name: | Ms. hobart |
Grade: | Grade 1 |
Subject: | Science |
Topic: | Learning plant parts and their functions |
Content: | Roots, Leaves, Stems, Flowers, Nutrients, Soil, Water, Sunlight, Plant, Function |
Goals: | 1. Students will discuss the different parts of a plant's anatomy and their functions. 2. In the mastery groups, students will discuss what they learned, waht their plant part can/does look like, and its function. 3. Students will relay the answers to these questions and what they learned back to their small groups. 4. The students will correlate vocabulary words with the correct drawing. Students will demonstrate that they recognize the vocabulary words and know which plant part it goes with through their plant diagrams. 5. Students will engage in social and academic interaction when they discuss their plant parts in their expert groups, and then when they relay the information back to their small groups. 6. Students will use their receptive and communicative skills in order to learn from their group members and also express their own ideas. |
Objectives: | 1. Students will read the picture books and discuss what they learned, what their part looks like, and what its basic function is. 2. Students will respect others when they are talking and be expected to participate in their expert groups and small groups. 3. Students will assume the responsibility of either being a task master, recorder, reporter, or materials manager. They will be held accountable for their job, as well as hold their group members accountable to accomplish their jobs. |
Materials: | Four picture books (about a sentence on each page) by Melanie Mitchell: Flowers, Stems, Roots, and Leaves. chart paper, markers, scissors, construction paper, and yarn |
Introduction: | The class will make a KWL by discussing what they know about plants already and what they want to learn. |
Development: | I will explain the jigsaw group process with the master groups and the small groups. Then I will have a group of students demonstrate how it should look for the class. I will also have a chart on the board with the title of "Expert Groups" with the three questions of: "What did I learn? What does my plant part look like? What is the basic function of my plant part?". I will remind the students that when they are in their expert groups they need to refer back to this poster and make sure they have answered these questions. |
Practice: | I will have the students meet in their small groups and the students will pick which plant part they are going to become an expert in. I will let them know that if there is any arguing then I will just have to pick, but that each part is important to the plant, so there should be no arguing over parts. Then I will go to a corner in the room and call the members of the group who are going to expert in leaves to the corner with Melanie Mitchell's Leaves books. So on for the other corners of the room. I will monitor the groups during the expert groups and small groups to make sure they are discussing their plant parts and staying on task. I will also be able to ask probing quesitons if a student is having a hard time explaining their part to the group. |
Accommodations: | Students could play a velcroe matching game, where they velcroe the different vocabulary words to corresponding plant parts on a big plant diagram. The students could act out different plant parts and their functions. |
Checking For Understanding: | The reporter will present their small groups diagram to the class and discuss the labeled vocabulary with the corresponding illustration on their creation. The reporter will also have to report on the functions of each of their group member's plant parts, so everyone must make sure they discussed that in their groups. |
Closure: | We will discuss what we learned and fill it in on the Learned portion of our KWL. We will keep the KWL in the front of the classroom, so that we may add to it during our plant unit. |
Evaluation: | It was a little hard at first to demonstrate the jigsaw cooperative learning structure. However, once the students got in their small groups and the students who did understand could help out the students who didn't, it worked very well. I really like this cooperative learning structure because the students were so excited to be "experts" in their fields. My favorite part was watching the confidence of some of the "lower ability" students raise, because they got to be "experts" in a field for their small group. If it is always whole class learning, sometimes these students never get a chance to teach the "higher ability" students, instead they are always the ones being taught. This allows all students to teach each other, and they all know they are important to the success of their group. I am in a gifted first grade class and it is the very end of the year, I am not sure how well this would work at the beginning of the year or in a normal first grade class. However, our students did a fabulous job! |
Teacher Reflections: | My teacher loved the lesson. She especially liked how it was teaching the students how to research, without them knowing it, and without it being too intimidating. |
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