The Power of the Worm

Today was Group 4's final lesson which they called: The Power of the Worm. They started off their lesson by briefly introducing what the students will be doing today, but James began to review the classroom rules with the 4th graders. He called on one student to read off a rule and then once that student read it out loud, the entire class repeated after him/her. He also briefly mentioned that the students will be playing the teacher vs. class game again and this time there was an even better prize up at hands for them to get at the end of the lesson! Before going into the inquiry lesson, the teachers introduced a "What do you remember?" slide. Each teacher read off a question and had the students answer it and see if they remember anything from their previous lesson. Majority of the students really remembered the facts/definitions that they learned from the previous week, which made them confident to move onto the experiment! Before going into the science experiment, the students had to review the Scientific Method. The entire class felt very confident in this method since they have been introduced to it many times before. The teachers emphasized that this method will be incredibly important for their lesson today because the students will be researching data, making a hypothesis, and formulating a conclusion.

Tara began by telling the students about Gary the Goblin. This story was printed out for the students to read in their individual folders which I thought was a great idea. She read the story out loud with great confidence and explained that the job for the students were to prove that worms are incredibly important and beneficial to gardens. This is when the inquiry experiment of using a webquest was introduced! There were 4 different stations: Food Scraps, Soil, Create Your Own Worm Bin & Worm Meet and Greet. At every station, the students were to bring their packet full of questions and space to record their research. The student's used iPads to visit websites within the webquest in order to support their hypotheses. At the worm bin station, the teachers provided a real life worm bin for the students to look at and research. At the worm meet and greet, the students got the opportunity to touch and play with real life worms! This part of the lesson was incredibly important and kept the students engaged because they were so intrigued about the worms. There were over 200 worms and they were to be placed into the sensory garden that is being constructed! After each student visited all four stations, they were told to return back to their original seats and use the research that they found to conduct a conclusion about why worms are so important to a garden. Since the teachers were running out of time, the class didn't get to share as much as I wish they could have. The stations were a great idea and it seemed like the students really enjoyed this process! After completing all four stations, the students were prompted to write a letter to Gary the Goblin convincing him why worms are so important, while including different facts that they learned and key terms from the direct instruction lesson. Overall, this lesson was extremely creative and it seemed as though all of the students were very intrigued to learn about the worms, since they will be placed in their sensory garden. The teachers were very confident in the material and walked around the room to make sure that each student was participating in the webquest and staying engaged at all times!