Context and Beliefs
I felt it would be a missed opportunity to not use Todd, 103’s classroom turtle, as the focus of our science lesson. Todd is a very active Slider turtle. He’s often seen standing tall on the rock in his tank, craning his neck up towards the heating lamp. You can also hear him clunking around in the tank as he makes his way from one side to another.
The students had an opportunity to look at Todd at the beginning of the year, when we first welcomed him into the classroom. Since then, the students have observed Todd from the outside of the tank—but haven’t talked about him together as a class. I really wanted my students to have time with him and a learning objective based on him.
When I considered ways to make a turtle lesson relevant, and to be sure that it fit within the required kindergarten standards, I thought that tying in the human five senses was a good idea. Our students already had a lesson on the five senses—so I knew that they understood the basics and would be able to apply their knowledge. I also believed that focusing on the five sense would afford the most interaction with Todd.
This last thought—about interaction with Todd the turtle—ties into my vision for science. My hope is for science to feel like exploration for my students. I want them to have the experience of investigating their surrounding. I want them to be vocal about their observations and to be vocal about their questions. I want them to have the experience of an ongoing investigation—something that is built over time and reflected on again and again. I envision this five senses science lesson as the beginning of a larger unit on turtles or animals. I want my students to have the sense that they are involved in something large and important.
Initial Lesson Plan with Comments
Final Lesson Plan
Final Lesson Plan
Observor Notes
Lesson Analysis
I had the good fortune of being able to carry most of the lesson materials into a quiet corner of the library a few minutes before teaching the lesson. When it was time to take the kids into the library, I reached into Todd’s turtle tank, put him in a plastic bin, and carried him into the library with the kids following behind.
After reviewing previous knowledge about the five senses, the students went straight into making observations about Todd, almost always with a focus on the five senses. We talked about his shell. Color and pattern came up. We used magnifying glasses to get a closer look. We all took turns feeling the top of Todd’s shell and tried to find the words to describe what we felt. I lifted him up--withstanding scratches from sharp turtle nails and fast-moving feet--and let the kids talk about the underside of the shell. We measured the diameter of his shell and then they asked if we could measure the circumference of his shell, which we attempted. In the end, we went around the circle and students talked about which sense they used the most frequently and then they each offered a question they had come up with as a result of the lesson.
One strength of the lesson was that it was hands-on and real. We weren’t just reading about turtles and talking about the five senses—we were really doing it. Because of the seriousness of the task, I felt that the students were motivated and well behaved.
Another strength of the lesson was having the students contribute their observations with the rest of the group. Getting all of them to talk was really important to me; I want them all to feel confident in their own ideas and abilities. I also saw that when they shared, they were teaching each other things. John talked about patterns on Todd’s shell and explained to others, when I asked him to, that a pattern is ‘a bunch of things that repeat each other.’ Iris inferred that Todd ‘hides his head when he’s scared.’ Students said that Todd’s shell was ‘smooth,’ ‘hard,’ and ‘cold’ to their fingertips. I suggested that they also feel his shell with the edge of their nail to see that the shell has very thin ‘ridges’ on it. I saw how difficult it is for kindergartners to come up with describing words and I wanted to give them another word to add to their toolbox.
One difficulty that I experienced in the lesson was finding time to use the diagram that I’d prepared and figuring out how much to prioritize it within the lesson or not. One of the comments that I received in my initial lesson plan suggested that it would be difficult to both monitor the live animal interactive activity as well as fill out the diagram. So I went into the lesson knowing that I wouldn’t really be able to do both and I decided that the student interactions with Todd and the talking about him were more important to me than the final product of the diagram. So I ended up showing the diagram to the kids at the beginning of the lesson and then just setting it aside. I scrawled all of the kids’ comments onto post-its that I stuck onto the bookcase beside us and told them that I was saving their comments to add to the diagram later—which ended up being a fine decision. But the students really wanted to color in the turtle picture and I hadn’t left very much time to do this. In the end, I gave them only about four minutes to color and I felt badly about it. I managed to fit it in I just wished it hadn’t felt so rushed.
My Penn mentor, who observed the lesson, shared with me that she really appreciated the measurement task in the lesson since it was an integration of math and science. I hadn’t initially planned it as an ‘integration.’ But her observation of this served as a helpful reminder that I should be integrating skills like this as often as possible. Actually, we hadn’t covered measurement in our classroom yet but I figured if the students could recognize the numbers and count in sequence—which they can—that the measuring task might be accessible to them and empowering. When one of my students asked how big Todd is, I was happy to offer the kids the opportunity to answer their question using a special tool.
In the debriefing of the lesson, my Penn mentor also mentioned that it might be a good idea to begin to consider how to develop a system for recording results of assessments. This was interesting to me because in teaching all of the Term III lessons, I’ve begun to realize that assessment is one of the more challenging parts of the lesson for me. While the student sharing of comments and questions at the end of the lesson was, in essence, an assessment, I’ll need to come up with other methods that will draw out concrete information. I find it difficult to quickly ascertain, in the flustered moment of a lesson, what a child has really learned. And I’m finding that it’s especially hard if it’s a more reflective activity.
In spite of this, at the end of the lesson, the kids’ comments suggested to me that they had understood the focus of the lesson—the five senses--and that they were engaged and really thinking, as well. I was very conscientious about repeatedly asking them which sense they were using to make their observations. Toward the end of the lesson, I believe that I overheard one of the students asking if Todd is able to smell—which I should have responded to but somehow didn’t. Animal senses versus human senses would have made for an interesting closing remark to the lesson.
Also, at the end of the lesson, I asked the students to come up with questions that they wondered about as a result of spending time with Todd and using their senses. Lila asked why he has red patches behind his eyes and if his shell can come off. Iris asked why Todd has sharp nails and offered a hypothesis—‘his nails might be for scratching in case people try to take him.’ John said that he wonders why some turtles have hexagons on their shells and others do not. He explained to his classmates that a hexagon is a shape. Kahmir wondered what Todd likes to eat and would he enjoy squid. I thought they were authentic, inspired questions. It told me that the students had connected with the lesson.
SCIENCE
Moving Forward
The student engagement in this lesson was visible. I was intimidated to work with a live animal and concerned that I wouldn’t be able to maintain a calm learning environment. But the lesson taught me to be brave about this—and to continue to envision hands-on, messy, ambitious lessons for my students. Because the engagement that came with this kind of a lesson was rewarding.
I learned that preparation for this kind of a lesson is incredibly important. Beforehand, I forced myself to envision what arrangements I needed to make to ensure that the experience with the turtle would go well. What height the kids should be at and what height the turtle should be at; when to put the turtle out of reach and when to keep him close. These were so many important points to consider.
If I were to teach this lesson again, I might give the students their own turtle picture diagram to color and label after the lesson, or to color and label during the next lesson. It occurred to me that one way to keep the groups small and to give students enough individual hands-on time with Todd would be to rotate groups through sessions with Todd and then send them off to work independently on coloring and completing their diagrams.
Next time, I would have highlighted a few important science words for the kids. Perhaps I would have posted on the board ‘observations’ and ‘investigation’ and ‘gather details.’ These are all words that I was using during the lesson but did not write down for them. I would have wanted to add these words to their science vocabulary.
With regard to teaching style, my Penn Mentor talked to me about slowing down my pace. I’m sure that between my adrenaline and the pressure of fitting the lesson into the allotted time, I was rushing through my thoughts and words. But I imagine that a slowed down pace would benefit many students. I will certainly keep this suggestion in mind for the future and try to make a conscientious effort to slow down.
If I were to follow this session with a next lesson, I would focus it on the questions that the students had asked at the end of this lesson. In a group discussion I would ask them to think about some possible plans for how we could find out the answers to their questions. Perhaps we’d eventually end up reading some turtle books and watching turtle videos to find out our answers, but I would also hope that some answers to our questions could be found out through original investigations in the classroom. In the lesson, we’d list the students’ original questions on chart paper and put their proposed investigations on the right-hand side. At a later date, I would hope to narrow the questions down and group the kids into small investigation groups so that—down the line—they would actually set out to answer their questions. I would also plan to take a trip to the aquarium, with a special focus on turtles, and hope that a turtle expert or docent there would be able to answer some of our turtle questions. Basically, it would be an ongoing, drawn out project, and I hope that at the end of the project, the students would have made, with my support, a poster or a book or a short film of their findings to share with their classmates, their parents, and other classrooms.
The lesson I taught has told me that the students are excited to be involved in something active and challenging and hands-on. This is why I believe that students working with Todd some more, planning out original investigations, and sharing original work should be part of the future plan. And I would want to show my students the value of their questions and ideas by putting them, front and center, into their learning.
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