For this activity, my class will be studying biomes of the world (Science) and also practicing note taking, summarizing and retelling (Language Arts). There are no science textbooks in my school and finding reading material at the proper grade level for an entire class can be challenging. While there are many commercial products widely available, these cannot be copied due to copyright, and they cannot be purchased due to funding constraints. This puts the teacher in the position of writing the materials themselves or purchasing low cost products that can be copied.
Biomes Learning Outcomes (Students will):
- Identify the factors that describe and differentiate between biomes
- Identify adaptations of animals in different biomes
- Identify key words in a paragraph
- Synthesize and retell the main idea of a paragraph using only key words and the student’s own words.
I searched the website ck12.org which is focused on K-12 teaching. I found the following resources which could be used for this activity:
This is a simple video which is hosted on YouTube. It deals mainly with the topic of climate. I could use this to have a class discussion about the difference between climate and weather.
This is an open textbook with links for word definitions. It is at the upper range of reading level for my students, but can be used for this activity. In order to save paper, I can use this textbook with our class set of iPads. Students will practice taking notes and summarizing on paper.
https://www.ck12.org/book/ck-12-fifth-grade-science/section/2.7/
This is also an open textbook, and the reading level is at the higher end for my students. There are some engaging pictures and graphics. In all, this would be a good resource for this activity and I could again use this resource on our iPads.
In summary, I did find acceptable resources that I can use for my planned activity. The resources are of a high enough standard that they will not need modification to be used. I did find it frustrating and time consuming to find materials at the correct grade level. Even with a specific search and filters to the correct grade level, nearly all of the material the search generated was for upper level grades. The site does have grade level textbooks, but these textbooks do not correspond to the topics taught at those grade levels here in British Columbia.
Jordana Engel
January 27, 2022 — 7:53 pm
Hi Geoff! A first-time commenter here. I love that you can see the value in cross-curricular activities, accessing student learning on multiple levels at any given time is something that I try to ensure I do as well. For: “Synthesize and retell the main idea of a paragraph using only key words and the student’s own words.” I love to utilize a CABO summary for my students.
C-Capture the main idea
A-Accurate
B-Brief (with word limit)
O-Own words
Thanks!
Jordana Engel