I. Curricular Framework

Concept:

Systems

Essential Question:

What role do the 5 senses play in our ability to perceive new things?

Bridge:

My Best Hunch

Content:

Outcomes:

II. Standards Aligned

III. Instruction and Assessment

1. Connect: Connecting to the Concept Experientially

Objective: The students will use their body to help them predict the unknown.

Activity: Students sit in a circle on the floor around a “mystery box”. (Prior to class time, an electric popcorn popper is placed under the box-ready to pop corn.) The popper is turned on and the students discuss what they think is in the box.

2. Attend: Attending to the Connection

Objective: The students will verbalize and list group observations of what is in the “mystery box”.

Activity: The students will reflect on the experience of the “mystery box” sharing clues that helped them make their guess about the contents. Together the class will create a list on the board, of what is known and unknown about the contents of the “mystery box.”

Assessment: The teacher will observe student engagement and acceptance of each other’s ideas as they discuss and create a list together about the contents.

Assessment, Phase One, Level of Engagement, Fascination:

3. Image: Creating a Mental Picture

Objective: Students will be able to identify the “mystery contents” based on their senses.

Activity: Remove the mystery box. Have the children touch, smell, and taste the popcorn, both as it was before and after it was popped.

Assessment: Teacher will observe students reflecting and seeing relationships between what they thought was in the box and what was actually in the box.

Assessment, Phase Two, Seeing the Big Picture:

4. Inform: Receiving Facts & Knowledge

Objective: Students will acquire knowledge about the 5 senses and be able to identify the 5 senses, their corresponding sensory organs and functions.

Activity: Show a video on the 5 senses. Discuss the senses and introduce the vocabulary: sight, hearing, taste, touch smell. Relate the vocabulary to the corresponding sensory organs, highlighting each one’s function. Talk about the importance of the senses in our world.

Assessment: Teacher will observe student’s ability to break presented information into parts, according to each of the senses and the clarity of the knowledge presented through group discussion and the correlation of the sense organs and their functions.

Assessment, Phase Three, Success with Acquiring Knowledge:

5. Practice: Developing Skills

Objective: Students will be able to match the senses to their sensory organs and their functions.

Activity: Students will complete worksheets matching the 5 senses to the sensory organs and their functions, in addition to labeling diagrams of sensory organ parts using models.

Assessment: Teacher will observe accuracy and thoroughness as the students complete the various worksheets and labeling activities.

Assessment, Phase Four, Success with Acquiring Skills:

6. Extend: Extending Learning to the Outside World

Objective: Students will be able to identify objects, surroundings, and unknowns using a particular sense.

Activity: Use centers or whole group gatherings to extend learning of the senses.
Touch: Read “Steven and the Mystery Monster” during the story pass a bag around the circle with contents for students to reach inside and feel and pass on.
Hearing: Take a walk outdoors to listen to those outdoor sounds. Write a poem using sound words.
Taste: Discuss 4 basic flavors, salty, sweet, sour and bitter. Have the students taste 8 different foods and record, which foods fit into each of the four groups. Form a bar graph of the students’ favorite tastes.
Smell: Pass around 4 mystery boxes with different fruits inside. Students draw a picture of what is in each box. (Another option: draw a picture of something that smells like a flower. Outline the object in glue and sprinkle with different spices.)
Sight: Walk around the classroom with a tray of 10 objects. Remove one without the class seeing and have them guess the missing item.

Assessment: During the center activities, the teacher will observe extensions of concepts, new insights and originality the students are expressing through activities tied to the theme of senses.

7. Refine: Refining the Extension

Objective: Students will plan a class party incorporating each of the senses, charting ideas by sense and voting on one idea per sense.

Activity: The students will brainstorm ideas for a class party that would use all of the 5 senses. Make a chart of the ideas for each sense and vote on one idea per sense. Example: hearing - music, taste - food treat, smell - scented candles, touch - pillows, sight - decorations.

8. Perform: Creative Manifestation of Material Learned

Objective: Students will share a party planned around the 5 senses.

Activity: Celebrate the senses with a party planned form the voted ideas. Invite parents or another class to share in the success.

Assessment, Phase Five,Performance, Creative Use of Material Learned: