Early Planning

Early planning Blog

So far I think Kara and I are off to a great start. We have been communicating through email and have narrowed down our unit idea. We decided to go with a Science subject and then further narrowed it down to Life Cycles. The reason we decided to choose topic this is because in the Spring I will be teaching this content to my first graders and would love to be able to implement some of our ideas into action within my classroom. I think we may need to narrow down “Life cycles” even further and work on the life cycle of the butterfly. After looking over grade level content expectations, this unit should fit in nicely with my curriculum and I am hoping to find valuable resources for the unit.

Essential Questions:

Kara came up with a great idea of dividing our essential questions into three categories: Unit Plan questions, School Librarian questions, and the teacher questions. With the questions being divided it helps us consider the roles and responsibilities of both the teacher and the school librarian. So far we have the following essential questions

Unit Plan Questions

1. Why is it important to stop, look, and observe clues in my world?

2. What are the life cycles of living things?

3. How do species change through time?

4. How many stages are there in the life cycle of a butterfly?

5. What is metamorphosis?

6. What is a chrysalis?

7. Compare a chrysalis to a cocoon?

Driving Questions for the SLMS

1. How do I teach students to locate information on a topic?

2. How do I use student time in the media center to further learning about life cycles

3. How can I integrate technology resources?

4. Where do I find the best possible digital and print resources to assist teacher planning?

Driving Questions for the Teacher?

1. How can I get first grade students to understand the life cycle and metamorphosis?

2. How can I integrate Science and Literacy?

3. How can I assess student learning?

Tasks

So far we have both looked over the rubric and the outcomes for the unit and have decided to complete the following roles:

1. Write an intro to the unit on our wiki home page (Kara)

2. Write up of our roles and responsibilities (Martina)

3. Add our driving questions (Both of us)

4. Standards (can be addressed in lessons and on summary page after lessons are written) (Both add after our lessons are written and Kara will add the summary to the wiki)

5. Assessment/measurement of learning (also written into the lessons and on wiki as a summary) (Martina will write up summary and post to the wiki)

6. Diverse population information write up on wiki (Kara)

7. Demographics (Martina write up on wiki)

8. Lessons (at least 2 each)

9. Resources being used (both Kara and I will add resources)

By keeping in close contact with one another I feel we are off to developing a great unit. I am looking forward to seeing where the unit will take us and implementing the unit this Spring!