Is That Object Talking?

Touch, Sight and Hearing Rationale: The purpose of this lesson is to give an overview of the five senses. Following the overview, the students will then break into centers for a more discovery based learning of three of the five senses. The purpose of the discovery learning is to give a more hands on approach to learning about the senses. This lesson is important because students need to know about the senses for this unit. I also think it is important that this lesson is discovery based because I think that it helps the students understand the concept much better than just reading about it. This unit is brand new to the West Windsor curriculum this year; therefore, it is important that we try this unit to find out what does not work and what does work. This lesson is the first lesson in the five senses portion of the unit.

Standards: 2.1 The dimensions of wellness are interrelated and impact overall personal well-being. o 2.1.4.A.2: Determine the relationship of personal health practices and behaviors on an individuals body systems. 5.3 All students will understand that life science principles are powerful conceptual tools for making sense of the complexity, diversity, and interconnectedness of life on Earth. Order in natural systems arises in accordance with rules that govern the physical world, and the order of natural systems can be modeled and predicted through the use of mathematics. o 5.3.4.A.3 Describe the interactions of systems involved in carrying out everyday life activities.

Source: The source of this lesson is the West Windsor Science curriculum. My cooperating teacher and I reviewed the unit and overall we felt it was a very interactive and interesting unit. I adapted this lesson by using centers. I have never used centers before in my teaching, and my cooperating teacher and I decided that this would be a really great unit for me to try them. First, because the topic is very center friendly and second because I will have help and practice with my first time facilitating centers. Objectives: Goal: For students to be able to identify the five senses, how they function, why they are important. For students to be able to give specific examples from their observations of the senses studied more in depth. Students will be able to identify the five senses and their function Students will be able to utilize the senses of touch, sight and hearing to better explain the function of these senses through personal experience and observation Students will be able to explain how the loss of one sense heightens another

Materials:

Touch Center: Different grades of sandpaper (5) Large popsicle sticks

Hearing/Sight Center Blindfold Flashlight Noisemakers

Procedure: Anticipatory Set: Third graders, over the past two days, we have introduced the different systems of the body. Does anybody remember what some of those systems are? o Allow student response Excellent. Well, today, we are going to start talking about something you are all familiar with. As a class, lets name the five senses. o Sight o Touch o Smell o Taste o Hearing Excellent. I want you to turn and talk with your partner about an example of one of the five senses. o Walk around and listen in on a couple of different conversations You all came up with some wonderful examples. Now, who can tell me, what would happen if I couldnt feel anything? See anything? Hear anything? o Allow student responses Right. I might not be able to function in ways that I am used too and that could make things very difficult. Now, third graders, there are people that do that right? Why do you think a blind person can still survive with only having four senses? o Allow student responses Good thinking. So, even though sight is a good thing to have, a blind person is able to compensate for not having sight by using his other senses. In fact, when we lose one of our senses, one really cool thing about the human body is that it makes our other senses a lot stronger and you are going to see a little bit about that today. o What does compensate mean? o What strategy did you use to figure that out? So, lets talk about what we are going to do today. I think that one of the best ways to understand how our senses work is to try them out, what do you think? So what we are going to do today is we are going to explore three out of our five senses. The other two we are going to talk about tomorrow. Today, we are going to talk about touch, hearing and sight. We are going to do this through using centers. Have any of you used centers before? Great. So I need everyone to right now use their sense of hearing for directions. When I say go, here is what is going to happen. First of all, everyone is going to get a chance at all of the centers, so if you are not at the center that you want right away, you will get there before the period if over. I should hear no third graders complaining.

Second, there are going to be two centers. One center is going to talk about hearing and sight which is going to be with cooperating teacher (or me) and the other is going to talk about touch with me (or cooperating teacher). You are going to go to the centers by table. Now, we have three tables, which means that there will be one table who is not at a center at all times. If you are not at a center, you can do a couple of things until you get called to go to the centers. You can either: o Work on your KWL Chart from Tuesday o Work on your booklet from yesterday o Color your organs for your body (for all systems) o OR if you are done all of those things you can read one of our library books on body systems Who can tell me what kind of behavior cooperating teacher and I expect to see when you are at your center? If you are at your seat? Good thinking. Third graders, if you are at a center, and you choose to make a bad decision, you will be sent back to your seat and not allowed to participate for the rest of the period. This is your warning. If you are at your seat, we expect to see good self directed learners.

Lesson Development: Touch Center Group A Prior to the lesson: o Cut each grade of sandpaper into 4 sections (1 piece of each grade per pair) o Code the sections with identifying letters Ie. all of the roughest will be coded with the letter C Do not code sections in the order of roughness, since that is what the students will be doing Break students into pairs Read the instructions on the recording sheet to the students Third graders, what you are going to do is take turns feeling the sandpaper with your partner. You are not going to look at the underside of the sandpaper (model for students). As you feel the sandpaper, you are going to record the feeling of the sandpaper from the roughest piece to the smoothest piece. You are going to do this by recording the letters. So I want the first person to take the sandpaper from me, feel the sandpaper and then pass it on to their partner before they take the next piece. Now, what I would do is write down the letter of the first piece of sandpaper that you see just like this (write down letter A) Then when I feel the next piece, I would ask myself, does this piece feel smoother or rougher than piece A. If it feels smoother, I would write it to the right like this (write down letter X to the right). If it feels rougher, I would write it to the left like this (write letter X to the left). Then when I feel the next piece, I would ask myself does this feel smoother or rougher than piece X and keep going. Got it? Allow students to do center work If the students finish before Sight/Hearing Center, send students back to desks and call over next group (Group C) to center.

Hearing/Sight Center

Students will be in one group of 8 (Group B) Third graders, I need one person to start off as our volunteer to be blindfolded and hold a flashlight for us o Blindfold student This student is going to be called the listener. o Give student flashlight to hold Now, I need one student to volunteer to first hold a noise maker for us. Now, before I give this to someone, it is VERY important that we do not use the noise maker before I tell you to or else it will mess up our center. o Give noise maker to student And, now, I need one student to volunteer to be our moderator who will record our results for us. Okay, great. Now, here how this going to work. In a minute, the student with the noise maker is going to make noise. It is the job of our listener to shine the flashlight in the direction that they think they are hearing the noise. So, if they think they are hearing the noise from the left, they will shine the flashlight in what direction? o Left Good. Now, our moderator is going to record the points (written at the top of recording sheet). If our listener shines our light on the right student, they get 2 points. If they are pretty close (I will tell them), they get 1 point. If they are way off, they get no points. We will do this twice with eyes blind folded and twice with one ear closed. Everyone will have a chance to be our listener and use the noise maker. Third graders, once we are finished, you will complete the lab sheets back at your desk

Closure: Did you like that third graders? Lets talk about our results. I want you to turn to your partner and talk only about the sandpaper center results on your lab sheet. o Walk around and listen to conversations Excellent conversations. I am now going to tell you the real order. o Read order Who got them all right? Who only mixed up one? Two? Good job. Now, how could you tell the order without looking at the sandpaper? o Sense of touch Exactly, so when you lost your sense of sight, your sense of touch became stronger. Turn and talk with your partner about the hearing/sight center o Walk around and listen to conversations Great results. So, how many people had 4 points with their eyes closed? 3 points? 2 points? How about with one ear covered? Which was easier? Right. So sometimes when we lose our sense of sight, we get a lot better hearing, but it is a lot easier when we have both of our ears working. Our senses help us compensate, but losing two senses is really hard. Excellent, third graders. I need you to put everything away and get ready for lunch.

Differentiation: This lesson is differentiated through the use of centers and turn and talk

This allows learners of all abilities to work together with their classmates to be successful.

Assessment: Assessment will be done through student participation in the centers and their lab observation sheets. Students will also be assessed through turn and talk and teacher observation. The follow up to this lesson will be a similar structure the next day, which does centers of the senses of smell and taste.