Teaching...Day 2!

     Do you enjoy solving mysteries? Well, today our second grade students became detectives and helped us solve the missing cases of Annie Acorn and Eddy Egg. Building off of last week’s focus on observation skills, this week the students were introduced to an important tool in any mystery case, the hand lens. Using the hand lens, students carefully recorded their observations of acorns and water beads (used to represent frog eggs). In addition to the hand lens, another key objective of this week’s lesson was to teach students about the life cycle of the oak tree and frog. Because the missing cases of Annie Acorn and Eddy Egg were based on their life cycles, we did not introduce the concept of the life cycle in the opening of the lesson. Instead, we chose to engage the students in their work as detectives revealing four consecutive clues culminating in the complete life cycles.

     This lesson required the use of many materials. At different points throughout the lesson students used hand lenses to observe acorns, ‘eggs’, and a series of clues revealing both life cycles. Students also completed observation worksheets to practice their detective skills as well as two booklets to record their observations of the oak tree life cycle and the frog life cycle. Once again, co-teaching this lesson proved to be very helpful regarding materials management. While Katie led a class discussion or told the students the directions for an activity, I passed out the necessary materials and vice versa. It was also helpful to have a small corner table in the classroom where we could set out the plates of acorns and bowls of ‘eggs,’ which were readily available to collect and distribute amongst the students. Because there were two of us to handle distributing and collecting materials, I do not believe any instructional time was lost. However, if only one teacher taught this lesson I feel that a different system regarding materials management may be needed. Perhaps materials would be spread out on the corner table and specific students from each group would be designated to collect and return materials.

     This lesson combined a second grade life science biology framework about the life cycles of plants and animals as well as the inquiry skill of using a hand lens to collect data. Although our lesson opening focused more on the use of the hand lens because we did not want to give away the concept of the life cycle, the life cycle of both the oak tree and the frog was imbedded into the two activities the students completed as they helped us solve our missing cases. These two activities both concluded with a complete description of the life cycles. Using their great detective skills, the students helped us solve the mysteries of Annie Acorn and Eddy Egg who were not missing at all! Students revealed that Annie Acorn and Eddy Egg had actually experienced the changes of their life cycles and had become an oak tree and a frog!

     Overall, I really enjoyed teaching this lesson with Katie! Although it took us a lot of time to work out the details, I feel that the final version of this lesson kept students engaged and provided them with many opportunities to use the hand lens and experience the life cycles of the tree and frog. Next week we will continue our adventures in science as we ask our students to help us observe the life cycle of a mystery insect!