| $ Store Activity
Name: |
Little multicolored party favor
bracelets
|
| Concepts / Skills
addressed: |
observation
|
| Approximate Grade
Range: |
2nd - 6th
|
| Materials: |
bracelets (or any other sort of
ring of a reasonable size)
|
| The General Idea:
|
The bracelets can be used simply
to restrict and focus the student's attention. For example, wait
for a reasonably nice day, then give each student a notebook or
clipboard, a bracelet and a magnifying glass. Take them outside
and tell them to sit down in some grass and really look closely at
what' going on inside the circle formed by the bracelet. the
bracelet serves to bracket and focus their attention. Get them
back together and ask them to brainstorm what they saw. There
will be commonalties and unique observations. Ask them what they
saw, what they now know, what they wonder about and what they want
to do next. This might lead to a discussion on
environmental issues, insects, plants, soils, etc.
|
Extensions:
|
I used the bracelets with a
group of middle schoolers. We wondered about whether and how the
text (font, word length, sentence complexity, etc.) was different in
lower elementary, middle and high school books. So I copied pages
from representative books, including some that I knew would appeal to
them and some that I knew they would have heard about (or that I wanted
them to check out) and let them choose several for analysis.
Analysis involved taking the copied pages, using the bracelets to draw
a circle on the page and then , looking only at the contents of the
circle, counting the number of words (or partial words), the length of
each whole word, etc. We then pooled our data and tried to use
math (e.g., averages) to figure out whether there was a real difference
between the text at the various grade levels. This raised more
questions in which students used math to address their own
curiosities.
|
| Links: |
|
Author:
|
Mark Roddy
|
