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Lesson Plan - Start of Astronomy Unit







We just got back after a week long fall break and it was a short week for me. I attended and presented at the South Carolina Science Council Convention in Myrtle Beach Thursday and Friday (notebooking and blogging) so there was sub work for the students.

This is what we did in the notebooks this week.

Monday - Put together the astronomy title page and reviewed the standards for the unit. I also went over the vocabulary for the unit with a Promethean slide show and, as I was reviewing the vocabulary, students were filling out their bingo boards for the unit.

Tuesday - We started with information about the sun and its importance to Earth. We did a fun activity that I had done at space camp last summer (with a sheet, a bowling ball, tennis ball, and ping pong ball) showing how the mass and gravity of the sun cause planets to rotate around it. We read our left hand sheet about the sun and watched a Brain Pop on the subject. On the right hand side of the notebook students had to list four ways that the sun is important to us and illustrate/color it.

Wednesday - I designated this our science fair review day (the requirements for our upcoming science fair went home with students on this day). I went over the scientific method and what makes a good science fair project as well as the board layout. We watched a Brain Pop on the subject of science fairs and I also showed an episode of Food Detectives pausing the show to ask what part of the scientific method were they engaged in, identify the variables, etc. I referred back to the notebooks and the three mini science fair boards we had done earlier in the year.

Thursday - Put together a sub astronomy packet (using the catalog feature in Publisher), that will be graded and glued into the notebooks, using the text book to review vocabulary and information about the sun and preliminary information about the planets, which we start next week.

Friday - Continued and finished the sub astronomy packets. Classes that were done watched a Magic School Bus on Gravity.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Do you have any more information about the demonstration re. mass and gravity and the rotation of planets around the sun? I would really like to do this to intro a study on orbits with my students but I cannot find any additional info on the Internet.

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