Introducing Simple Machines: A Machine Walk

This is an integrated lesson exploring simple machines. The poetry response part of this lesson serves to spark the students' interest as well as allow the teacher to identify students' prior knowledge of machine concepts and vocabulary. The machine walk gives a baseline assessment of students' understanding. The majority of students originally focus on complex machines; this will be evident by the types of machines they identify on their list.

A lesson plan for grade 4 English Language Arts

By Terri Fannin

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• Learn more about English language arts.

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Learning outcomes

Students will recall knowledge that they already have of machines by responding to poems from the books Click, Rumble, Roar or Machine Poems.

Using what they know about machines, students will make a list of machines that they see as they walk around the school building.

Teacher planning

Time required for lesson

1.25 hours

Materials/resources

Teacher will need:

• Click, Rumble, Roar, ed. by Lee Bennett Hopkins, T.Y. Crowell (Harper & Row), New York, 1989, Machine Poems, ed. by Jill Bennett, Oxford University Press Childrens Books; Oxford, 1993, or other poetry books with machine references
• Chart paper

Students will need:

• Paper
• Pencil
• Clipboards

Technology resources

None

Pre-activities

There are no pre-activities necessary for this lesson. You might want to alert your colleagues to your goals so that no adult inadvertently tries to help and identifies simple machines for the students.

Activities

1. The teacher will choose and read aloud a poem asking the students to write a quick personal response to the poem.
2. Read 2 - 3 poems and have students verbally share responses, writing key terms on the board when appropriate.
3. Discuss any terms that may be new to some students.
4. Explain that the class seems to know a great deal about machines. They will now use this knowledge as they go on a “machine walk.”
5. Divide the class into teams of 3.
6. Give each team these directions:
   
   • Each team has 20 minutes to take a machine walk.
   • The teams should list any machines that they see around the school.
   • The teams should not share information with other teams.
   • They should not interrupt any classes. (If possible, students should observe from the hallways. If this is not the case at your school, you might check with some teachers and ask if one or two groups can quietly come in the room.)
   • If the teams do a great job of moving
     quietly in the halls, they may be allowed to do this activity again later.
7. Send the teams on their mission with a designated time of return.
8. Monitor the halls while the groups are out to keep groups on task.
9. Regroup in the classroom at the designated time.
10. Allow groups to share machines they wrote down while the teacher writes these on chart paper.

Assessment

• Responses to the poetry will be one assessment to see the type of prior knowledge recalled.
• Each small group’s contribution to the machine list is an assessment tool.
• Discussion of similarities and differences noticed between the machines listed is also an assessment of prior knowledge, vocabulary development, and concept development.

Supplemental information

None

Related websites

Simple Machines (The Inventor’s Toolbox)
http://www.mos.org/sln/Leonardo/InventorsToolbox.html

Simple Machines Learning Site
http://www.coe.uh.edu/archive/science/science_lessons/scienceles1/finalhome.htm

Comments

This unit was designed as a requirement for a course at UNC-Chapel Hill on integrating reading and writing in the content areas. Dr. Dixie Speigel made numerous suggestions to help clarify these plans. I completed this unit with a fourth grade inclusion class consisting of 10 identified special needs students and 13 non-identified students. They loved the machine walk and were very motivated to behave appropriately unescorted in the hallways so that they would be able to do the activity again.