Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Materials Series


I've decided if you muddle long enough, the mud settles guiding the confusion to settle for a bit and clarity to float to the surface.  After muddling this year with the Common Core and our new state curriculum for science and social studies, I decided I needed to purchase some books as I thought about content learning for next year.  This is day two for sharing some resources that are helping bring clarity to my muddling.

In Ohio, kinders have the topic of Properties of Everyday Objects and Materials under the topic of Physical Science with the focus on the production of sound and on observing, exploring, describing ,and comparing the properties of objects and materials with which the student is familiar.  Exact bullets state - Objects and materials can be sorted and described by their properties and some objects and materials can be made to vibrate and produce sound.

Materials is another series from Heinemann includes these titles; glass, metal, plastic, soil, rock, rubber, water, and wood.  Each book follows a similiar format and reminds me of Weather Watchers I shared yesterday.  I love the photographs illustrating this series.  They are crisp, clean, and focused on the text for each page.  I think before students can describe properties they need to be able to define the property by asking the question found at the beginning of each book.  For example in the Materials Plastic text, "What is plastic?"  The text guides the reader to learn, "Plastic is made from oil.  Plastic is made by people.  Plastic can be strong.  Plastic can be light.  Plastic can be stiff.  Plastic can bend."  This book and the others in the series will promote student thinking with their provoking photographs.  For example, a hard hat is used to show plastic is strong and plastic shopping bags help the reader think about plastic being light.  I also think with the examples shared via photographs the students will be able to think more about their own discoveries and examples of plastic objects.  Other areas discussed in each book include What happens when plastic is heated?, Recycling plastic, How do we use plastic? and How do we use plastic?  Not only is this series  helping me plan and think about new science curriculum it will also help my students stretch and think in new ways.

2 comments:

  1. This looks like a great series!

    ReplyDelete
  2. i am sharing all these posts with our Kindergarten team-looks like an amazing resource for your class.
    Thanks for sharing!!

    ReplyDelete