Whole Group > Setting the Context //
Groupe entier > Mise en contexte
Post the Big Idea and Guiding Questions and explain to the class that this unit is focused on learning about trees and the relationship between humans and trees. Introduce the Tree of Knowledge (l'Arbre des connaissances) posted to a bulletin board, as a special place to document their shared learning journey.
Introduce the collection of books as one place to find answers to the guiding questions. Explain that you are also going to guide them through a number of dance and drama activities that will invite them to actively use their imaginations. Additionally, emphasize that they will use their inquiring minds to ask questions, investigate and observe closely.
Présentez la collection de livres comme un endroit où trouver les réponses aux questions directrices. Expliquez-leur que vous allez également les guider à travers un certain nombre d'activités de danse et de théâtre qui les inviteront à faire activement appel à leur imagination. De plus, insistez sur le fait qu'ils utiliseront leur esprit curieux pour poser des questions, enquêter et observer attentivement.
Whole Group > Brainstorming //
Groupe entier > Remue-méninges
Write the word "seed" on the board. Invite students to brainstorm all the words that come to mind, e.g., small, round, fragile, important, tiny, unknown, just beginning. Write these words on the board. As a class, consider what elements are required in order for this seed to grow, e.g., water, proper temperature, space, sun, soil and air. Next, discuss briefly with the class factors that would cause a seed to travel, e.g., wind, animals, water such as rivers or rain. You may also brainstorm regarding what can come from a seed, and where these plants are found.
Écrivez le mot "graine" au tableau. Invitez les élèves à réfléchir à tous les mots qui leur viennent à l'esprit, par exemple, petit, rond, fragile, important, minuscule, inconnu, débutant. Écrivez ces mots au tableau. Avec la classe, réfléchissez aux éléments nécessaires à la croissance de cette graine : eau, température adéquate, espace, soleil, terre et air, par exemple. Ensuite, discutez brièvement avec la classe des facteurs qui permettraient à une graine de se déplacer, par exemple le vent, les animaux, l'eau comme les rivières ou la pluie. Vous pouvez également faire un remue-méninges sur ce qui peut provenir d'une graine et sur les endroits où l'on trouve ces plantes.
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Tips:
Information gathered during the Minds On phase can be collected in "Tree Journals", comprised of illustrations, notes, and found artifacts. Invite the students to document their learning in their Tree Journals throughout the unit.
You may want to have the class physically plant seeds. Writing outdoors near trees would also be effective.
Partner with the teacher librarian to assemble a collection of picture books (fiction and non-fiction) and poetry books for the classroom library, to stimulate interest and support the learning.
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Whole Group, Individual > Guided Imagery and Movement //
Groupe entier, individuel > Imagerie et mouvement guidés
Direct the students to spread out throughout the room. Ask them to listen closely, and use their imagination to guide them as they move safely through the space and respond to the narration:
Demandez aux élèves de s’écarter dans la salle. Demandez-leur d'écouter attentivement et d'utiliser leur imagination pour se déplacer en toute sécurité dans l'espace et répondre à la narration :
Narration #1:
You are a tiny seed curled up in a tight ball under the ground. It is dark, cool and wet. Very slowly, you begin to be blown around by the wind. You are moving slowly and low through the forest. You are being blown and blown all around. Now the wind stops, and you find a place that is a safe and comfortable home where you will grow. You close your eyes, and are in a ball as a tiny seed. You have completely stopped moving and are still. You have found a home with enough sun, enough water, and enough room to grow. Your roots start growing first. You are stretching slowly on the ground, reaching out with your legs as far as you can. You are slowly coming to life, slowly waking up. You have arrived in your home where you will grow tall and strong into a beautiful tree.
Narration no. 1 :
Tu es une minuscule graine recroquevillée en boule sous la terre. Il fait sombre, frais et humide. Très lentement, tu commences à être poussé par le vent. Tu te déplaces lentement et doucement dans la forêt. Tu es soufflé de tous les côtés. Maintenant, le vent s'arrête et tu trouves un endroit sûr et confortable où tu vas grandir. Tu fermes les yeux et tu te retrouves en boule comme une minuscule graine. Tu as complètement cessé de bouger et tu es immobile. Tu as trouvé une maison avec assez de soleil, assez d'eau et assez d'espace pour grandir. Tes racines commencent à pousser en premier. Tu t'étires lentement sur le sol, en tendant les jambes le plus loin possible. Tu reviens lentement à la vie, tu te réveilles lentement. Tu es arrivé dans ta maison où tu deviendras grand et fort pour devenir un bel arbre.
Narration #2:
It's a beautiful day. You are comfortable. It rained yesterday, so the soil that touches you is moist. Your roots have been stretching far in all directions. You have several friendly trees nearby that provide some shade for you.
Ask the students to sustain their focus and concentration, and to respond to your questions in role as the trees. Circulate amongst the trees and invite some students to speak to you in role. Prompts: How do you feel beautiful tree? What do you need?
Narration No. 2 :
C'est une belle journée. Tu es à l'aise. Il a plu hier, donc la terre qui te touche est humide. Tes racines s'étendent dans toutes les directions. Tu as plusieurs arbres sympathiques à proximité qui te procurent un peu d'ombre.
Demandez aux élèves de rester concentrés et de répondre à vos questions en jouant le rôle des arbres. Circulez parmi les arbres et invitez quelques élèves à vous parler en jouant leur rôle. Questions incitatives : Comment te sens-tu, bel arbre ? De quoi as-tu besoin ?
Narration #3:
It is another very hot day. You wake up hoping that it will be cooler, but it's not. It hasn't rained in weeks, and the soil around you is so dry. Your roots have reached as far as they can to get moisture, but nothing. You feel tired and thirsty.
Circulate and use the above prompts once again.
Narration No. 3 :
C'est encore une journée très chaude. Tu te réveilles en espérant qu'il fera plus frais, mais ce n'est pas le cas. Il n'a pas plu depuis des semaines et le sol autour de toi est très sec. Tes racines cherchent l'humidité le plus loin possible, mais rien n'y fait. Tu te sens fatigué et assoiffé.
Circulez et utilisez à nouveau les messages ci-dessus.
Whole Class > Discussion > T-chart //
Classe entière > Discussion > Tableau en T
Facilitate a discussion about what seeds need to grow and what children need to grow (ce dont les enfants ont besoin pour grandir). Use a T-chart or Venn-diagram to record the list on the black/white board.
Whole class > Demonstration Board: Tree of Learning //
Classe entière > Tableau de démonstration : L'arbre de l'apprentissage
Display a large cut out of a tree: roots, trunk, branches, buds/leaves. Using sticky notes, after each activity, have students record their learning on the classroom tree. This tree can be used throughout the unit as needed. Explain to the students:
Prompts:
- On the roots, record something you learned, or a new connection you made.
- On the trunk record activities you did
- On the branches record something that you can now teach others
- On the buds/leaves record something they wish to improve upon or learn more about.
From time to time, you may wish to review the postings on the tree as a class to observe common ideas and themes that are emerging.
Invitations :
- Sur les racines, notez quelque chose que vous avez appris ou un nouveau lien que vous avez établi.
- Sur le tronc, inscrivez les activités que vous avez faites
- Sur les branches, notez quelque chose que vous pouvez maintenant enseigner aux autres.
- Sur les bourgeons/feuilles, notez quelque chose que vous souhaitez améliorer ou sur lequel vous souhaitez en savoir plus.
De temps en temps, vous pouvez relire les inscriptions sur l'arbre en tant que classe afin d'observer les idées et les thèmes communs qui émergent.
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Assessment for Learning (AfL)
Listen to the students' use of vocabulary introduced in the lesson, (e.g. soil, sun, water, roots, truck, branches, leaves, needles, buds and fruit). Provide clarifications and feedback as needed.
Share PDF#1: Writing In Role Rubric prior to the reflective writing task to guide their experience, and encourage students to use appropriate scientific vocabulary.
Use the T-chart or Venn Diagram to encourage students to draw connections between trees and humans.
Assessment as Learning (AaL)
Use the Tree of Learning to facilitate self-reflection on learning, fostering the ongoing growth of new ideas, questions, and connections.
In their individual message to a seed, students will connect personally to the issues being explored.
Differentiation (DI)
Some students can be carefully paired for support.
Notes
Guided Imagery Considerations:
Provide open, safe space for the guided movement activity. Use cues as stimuli, e.g., lights off= no sunlight, rain stick= rain, sandpaper= sandstorm. Consider having some props (sun, raindrops, shady area, green space) that could be in the room but not placed with students knowing the reason for them. Watch to see if they make connections to them when they move in the area and decide where they, the seed, will land.
Science/Observation Activities:
Option 1. Give each student a seed and a pot. The seeds should be of various species and recommended to be edible plants that don't take too long to grow, e.g., herbs, beans, lettuce, etc. In their Tree Journals, students draw their seed. Students then plant their seed, water it, and put it in a sunny place.
Option 2. One seed is planted for the entire class. The class takes turns caring for the class seed.
Option 3. The students observe the growth of a plant outside of their classroom, perhaps in the school yard.
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Whole Class > Reflection //
Classe entière > Réflexion
Review the experience with the class using the following questions to prompt reflection.
Key Questions for Discussion
- How did it feel to be blown around?
- Was there a time when you felt like a seed in your own life, a little blown around without a lot of control?
- (CL) How did the place where you landed affect the seed's life? Does this happen to people too?
- (CL) Does the place where a child is born affect their quality of life?
- How are we like seeds?
Questions clés pour la discussion
- Quel effet cela fait-il d'être emporté par le vent ?
- Y a-t-il eu un moment où tu t’es senti.e comme une graine dans ta propre vie, un peu ballottée sans beaucoup de contrôle ?
- (LC) Comment l'endroit où tu as atterri a-t-il affecté la vie de la graine ? Cela arrive-t-il aussi aux gens ?
- (LC) Le lieu de naissance d'un enfant affecte-t-il sa qualité de vie ?
- En quoi sommes-nous comme des graines
Whole Group > Think Aloud //
Groupe entier > Réflexion à voix haute
Use the think aloud strategy to model composing a short message to a seed that has just been planted.
Example:
Dear Seed,
I will water you and take care of you. When you grow big, and your roots become entangled, I will plant you outside where you have more room to grow. Prompt: What else could I say, class?
Chère graine,
Je vais t'arroser et prendre soin de toi. Quand tu seras grande et que tes racines s'enchevêtreront, je te planterai à l'extérieur, où tu auras plus de place pour grandir. Invitation : Que pourrais-je dire d'autre, mes ami.es ?
Individual > Reflective Writing //
Individuel > Écriture de réflexion
Direct students, individually, to write a message to the seed that they have just planted, or if planting did not occur, to the seed that they pretended to be earlier in this lesson. Encourage students to use vocabulary related to trees and growth which you have posted in the room after your earlier discussion.
Demandez aux élèves d'écrire individuellement un message à la graine qu'ils viennent de planter ou, s'il n'y a pas eu de plantation, à la graine qu'ils ont fait semblant d'être plus tôt dans cette leçon. Encouragez les élèves à utiliser le vocabulaire relatif aux arbres et à la croissance que vous avez affiché dans la salle après la discussion précédente.
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Tips:
Students might require some scaffolding with the question "Does the place where a child is born affect their quality of their life?"
You may need to discuss that, like a seed, where you are born is complete chance. You may be born in a place with clean drinking water, with enough food; a place that is safe, and where you can go to school. You may also be born in a poor country, with no access to education. Not everyone everywhere is so lucky. Like the seed, it is by complete chance that we "land" where we do.
Differentiation (DI)
Some students may require scribing or may benefit from writing with a buddy. Scaffold the writing task by providing some students with sentence stems to complete: I promise to... I hope.... I will.... |
