I hope my unit;
The Human Skeletal System: Inside and Out
will be used by elementary teachers interested in a hands on artistic approach to the teaching of science, especially human biology. It is targeted for grades four and five but can be adapted or modified for younger or older students.
I am presently a Special Education teacher working in both the fourth and fifth grades at Davis Street Interdistrict Magnet School. Our curriculum is thematic unit based. We integrated social studies and science into literacy, math and writing. This unit will allow teachers the opportunity to integrate these lessons or to teach them in the core subject. In my unit, I hope to integrate all aspects: literacy, math, science, and some social studies for both the fourth and fifth grade students to enjoy.
Being a Special Education teacher co teaching with a General Education teacher has shown me that differentiated instruction is vital not only to the special education students but all students. This unit will incorporate all modalities, visual, auditory and tactile. Children learn by seeing, hearing and doing. The students participating in this unit will read about the skeletal system, hear about the function of the human body and the support of bones, through multimedia. They will make a poster, a three dimensional bone, an abstract skeleton, and two supplemental projects. One of the projects will be a creative writing lesson using x-rays or MRI. The last project will incorporate Davis Street Interdistrict Magnet theme of Multiculturalism, by discussing "Day of the Dead" celebrated in Mexico.
Davis Street Interdistrict Magnet School is also "A School of the 21st Century, Celebrating Literacy through the Arts, Technology, and Multiculturalism." This unit will address all three areas. The hands on art projects will be linked to both research and will also tie into a multicultural lesson. Teachers may want to utilize only certain parts of this unit. My unit will address all avenues to accommodate the Davis Street Interdistrict Magnet theme and curriculum.
Elementary students have a difficult time with the unknown, and special education students have even more difficulties. This unit will allow all students with hands on experience that will enhance their learning and hopefully encourage a love of the scientific inquiry for the unknown. Many students see themselves as a whole unit and are not cognizant of the complex systems that make up the human body. This unit will allow students to really "see" inside themselves.
This unit will have several components. One, an introduction of basic knowledge teacher and students will need on the skeletal system to complete the art projects. Two, teachers and students will utilize internet and resources to gain knowledge of the skeletal system. Third, this unit will include hands on art activities for teachers and students to create. I will also include a short unit to incorporate multiculturalism, and writing. Teachers may include field trips to the Human Anatomy Laboratory at Yale, or any Art Museum to enhance learning and a list of these will be provided.
In each unit the teacher will have the opportunity to display vocabulary words on a word wall or for the 5th graders a vocabulary notebook. This technique also the students to utilize the correct vocabulary words when writing in "Poster Child" labels and "An Unfortunate Accident.
When doing some preliminary research, I discovered that in Mexico "The Day of the Dead" is celebrated during the first week of November. Therefore, this unit can be taught during the last few weeks of October, into the first weeks of November. The unit will take several weeks, if teaching all the components. As stated before all or part of this unit can be utilized and the students will certainly benefit from any part. I will teach this unit during this time period. Davis Street Interdistrict Magnet school also celebrates Halloween with an Awesome Author's celebration in lieu of the typical scary costumes. This is where I will introduce the multicultural aspect of my unit.
Teacher and students who are not artistic should not defer from this unit. Artistic talent and or lack of, is not part of the assessment. A rubric scoring system will be used only to monitor the students understanding of the skeletal system. Art after all "is in the eye of the beholder." Students will be encouraged to use their talents, creativeness and individual perceptive when completing their projects.
Unit Activities:
Part 1: GREEK GEEK: Introduction to the skeletal system will include facts from resource materials for both teacher and students. Factual statements and discussion
questions will stimulate the student's natural scientific inquiry. One factual statement the teacher might write on the board would be, "The Greek meaning of the word skeleton is
dried up
." Or the teacher could start the lesson with a question such as, "What would we look like if we had
NO
bones?" These introductory strategies will begin the student's excitement to learn about the skeletal system.
Part 2: TECH-KNOW: Internet resources, interactive CD's and video suggestions will allow the visual learner an opportunity to explore the skeletal system by seeing it in action. Since Davis Street Interdistrict Magnet School is a technology school, I will use the laptop and classroom computers to allow students exploration time. A variety of websites and CD-Rom discs will be available for students to continue their enthusiasm for fascinating information about the skeletal system. These will assist them with their hands on projects.
Part 3: LET'S MAKE A BONE: This will be the first of the hands on projects. The factual statement to facilitate inquiry about bones might be," Where in your body is the smallest bone?" (stirrup in your ear) or" The largest bone in your body is the femur. Where is it located?" After some discussion, the students will make their own model of a bone using newspaper, paper towel roll, strips of white paper and a water glue solution. The research and factual information along with pictures from the previous two lessons will allow students to visualize the skeletal structure. Human anatomy coloring books would also benefit the visual learning child.
Part 4: IT'S HIP TO BE SQUARE: Students will use geometric shapes to assemble a skeletal system. A stimulating sentence to activate learning might be, "Bones are grouped together. One group is called long bones like your femur. Another group is called short bones like in your wrist. One group is flat like your ribs and the last group is called irregular like the bone in your vertebrate." Also for young children the song, "Your knee bone is connected to your shin bone" would also be a way to introduce the project. For this project students will receive pre cut geometrical shapes such as squares, rectangle, and hexagons etc. in black construction paper. The students will explore their mathematic skills and their visual spacing to create a skeleton. After the shapes are assembled, the students will embellish the skeleton they created with gold and silver markers. This abstract art activity will allow students to experiment with geometric shapes in a fun way.
Part 5: POSTER CHILD: The introduction sentence for this activity might be: "There are 206 bones in your body and each one has its own name!" I enjoy utilizing posters in the classroom to illustrate a certain concept. During this activity students will create their own poster of the skeletal system. Using the material from the internet or materials
supplied by the teacher, students will assemble a poster to hang in the classroom. The poster will include factual information, pictures, names of bones, and types of joints. A rubric/scoring assessment will be used for grading purposes. Various store bought posters may be utilized for students to score, assessing if the poster depicts a good visual representation of the topic.
Part 6: THE UNFORTUNATE ACCIDENT: This supplemental activity will be used to show the creative writing that many students enjoy. The piece will be narrative writing but could be adapted to expository. The students will be given x-rays that a teacher would obtain from a doctor's office, or even a veterinarian. The student will write a story to explain how, where, when the accident occurred adding and exciting beginning to draw suspense and end with a "zinger". A rubric will be used to assess the story elements.
Part 7: DAY OF THE DEAD: Davis Street Interdistrict Magnet School celebrates the concluding activity for International Day each year in May even though the curriculum is on going from September. In Mexico, The Day of the Dead is celebrated in November. Students will research and celebrate this Mexican Holiday but making skeleton puppets.
