Completed Lesson Plans

SO- I made a mistake and didn't do the lesson plan research based and had to start over. Starting over I went for the subject that I really wanted to teach - science! I want to be in elementary school and I have been working at the deaf school with fifth grade. In the fifth grade curriculum there are some really tough topics to cover. 


The lesson I chose to cover is under the fifth grade standard two, interdependence. Here are the standards that are listed on the Tennessee State Curriculum. 

Conceptual Strand 2

All life is interdependent and interacts with the environment.

Guiding Question 2

How do living things interact with one another and with the non-living elements of their environment?

Grade Level Expectations:

GLE 0507.2.2 Explain how organisms interact through symbiotic, commensal, and parasitic relationships.

Check for Understanding:

␣0507.2.2 Classify interspecific relationships within an ecosystem as mutualism, commensalism, or parasitism.

␣0507.2.3 Create a simple model illustrating the interspecific relationships within an ecosystem.

State Preformance Indicators:

SPI 0507.2.2 Distinguish among symbiotic, commensal, and parasitic relationships.

With this I talked about mutualism, commensalism, and parasitism. Mutualism is a symbiotic relationship between two organisms where they both benefit. Commensalism is a symbiotic relationship where one organism benefits and the other is unaffected. Parasitism is a symbiotic relationship where one (the parasite) benefits and one organism (the host) is harmed.

In my new activity I have the students go to Fact Monster- Science. They have to find the page I want them to read, but I give them directions on how to find it. This way they get used to using the search aspect on a website. They will then follow the worksheet and fill in the different information they have learned. Next the go to the National Geographic website and look at pictures. They should find one example of each of the three topics. Then as a class they will put them on the correct poster and explain what the picture is and then why it belongs in that category.

This was a hard activity for me because I guess I didn't understand that it had to be more research based then just an online activity. I don't know if that was because I wasn't listening or because the information got thrown off because of the change of teacher? Not sure :)

I am also used to doing lesson plans a different way so this was hard to break my old habit and change to this one. In the end I think this one is not as hard as the other one that I am used to, so it worked out in the end.

I wish there was a way with Google Docs to connect all the pages together...like if there was a "staple" button that you could click and it would "staple" all the pages you want together. I feel that would make me stress out less about someone not seeing all of the pages that I have going together and count me off or miss something.

I think that I like wiki better because you can keep things all in one place. I really do like how multiple people can edit on one document at one time and wish that could be done on wiki. There are good and bad on both.. if we could combine them it would be perfect!

Overall this wasn't one of my favorite activities that we have done but it wasn't too bad and helped me realize how to do research based lesson plans for my classroom.