My students need batteries, miniature lamps, copper wire, a wire stripper, and other supplies to create individual electric matching quiz games as a hands-on project to learn about electric circuits.
Let us light those bulbs! Reading about electric circuits in a textbook just isn't as engaging as creating your own. Combining a study of California wildlife with physical science, we will make electric quiz games that challenge players to match animals and plants to their photos.
My classroom is filled with students of all abilities and backgrounds.
Our school is located in the middle of beautiful almond orchards, just outside the city limits of a small town. The student population at our K-8 school is about 450. My students are the children of firemen, policemen, migrant workers, teachers, farmers, dairymen,and a judge. Some are raised by grandparents, aunts and uncles. The families of our students are very supportive people who want the best education for their children. Our staff is dynamic, and dedicated, and we work hard to provide the best even with all the cutbacks. Our students are enthusiastic learners; they trust us and know the teachers' priority is student learning.
My Project
These resources will provide my children with the opportunity to learn through doing. An engaged child is a child who is learning, and students are always excited and engaged when they working on a project.
This is rather an involved project for fourth graders, and they love it! In constructing an electric quiz game, they learn the fundamentals of an electric circuit. When they press those paper clips to those aluminum foil dots, connecting the name of a California reptile, for example, with the corresponding photo, that bulb will light up! And they will know why! We integrate online research and study of California wildlife into this project. In the computer lab the students will find, pull up, and print photos of our native mammals, plants, reptiles, insects, or marine life. The game will be designed on tag board and then mounted in a small square pizza box. These are the types of projects that children remember for years to come. To do is to learn!
With so much emphasis on the drill-and-kill preparation for multiple choice standards testing these days, any opportunity for hands-on learning is so important.
When you have a willing teacher and eager children, you really have to go for it. I have had parents of former students tell me a few years later their students still pull this little project/game off the shelf and love to play it. It obviously made a big impact on them and continues to do so.
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