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Teaching Science and Literacy Science is everywhere and everything Science and Literacy are inextricably linked. Literacy skills allow children to engage in Science. Scientific and social concepts give meaning to a range of fiction and non-fiction texts. The partnership between Science and Literacy is two way: students can not engage with the world around them unless they understand it. The question is: how can we as teachers stimulate links between Science and Literacy in order to support successful learning in our CLIL classes? In order for students to cope with learning scientific concepts, first we must help them deal with its particular lexis. Students need to have first-hand experience of scientific words, such us ‘habitat’, ‘change’ or ‘physical’. Try supporting your students by using everyday and scientific terms in tandem (e.g. ‘wet’ and ‘humid’), until pupils are confident in their use of the scientific term. In this way pupils will learn to understand that familiar, everyday words have a specific meaning within a scientific context.
➜ Mobiles
This activity is ideal for a cross-curricular approach in combination with Arts and Crafts. Help pupils to create hanging word banks (mobiles) displaying words under a specific heading. A ‘simple machines’ mobile would include a hanging word bank consisting of lever, pulley, inclined plane, screw, wheel and axle and wedge. Alongside their mobile students can create their own ‘pictionary’ (see below). If you need more ideas on how to make fun mobiles for children consult this web page: www.enchantedlearning.com/crafts/mobiles/
simple machines
Remember! Science offers a natural context for the practice and development of literacy skills. Literacy offers students access to the exciting and challenging world of science.
WHEEL and
AXLE
screw
➜ Word banks
Create a bank of scientific terms related to each topic. Make these words available to children as a wall display, on a tabletop, in boxes or on special word bank sheets. This will give learners more confidence when learning a new topic and serve as proof that science is (indeed) everywhere!
wedge
inclined plane
pulley lever
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It's wiggly and it's thin. I think it's a rope!
➜ Feely Box
Classroom management tips
This game is excellent for teaching or revising adjectives. Take a simple cardboard box and cut out a hole. Put a variety of items in a feely box. Play music while students pass the box around the circle. When the music stops, the student with the box feels one of the item and describes it. Other students try to guess what it is. Here is a list of some simple objects you can put in a Feely Box:
◗ If you are in a hurry and don't have time to
• An orange: round, rough, big/large. • A tennis ball: round, soft. • A piece of wood: hard. • A piece of cotton wool: soft, light. • Sand paper: rough, light. • A pencil: sharp, long. • A rope: hard, wiggly. • A sheet of paper: light, thin. • A hard-boiled egg: oval-shaped, smooth. 56
make a box, you can do the same activity with a simple bag (Feely Bag). ◗ Having students walking around can provoke a bit of mess in the classroom. If you prefer a more silent way, call one student to the front to guess the hidden object. ◗ If you don't have a box or a bag, simply blindfold the student. However, bear in mind that this can make some children feel uncomfortable.
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Teaching Science and Literacy
➜ Pictionary
Pictionary is a simple and fun way to use drawings to elicit vocabulary from students. Ask one student to draw a picture on the board. The same student then asks a question to the rest of the class to elicit a response based on the drawing. The questions should be asked while drawing, not only when the drawing is finished. The picture should be drawn really s-l-o-w-l-y. To add more spice, define a time limit and the number of guesses the students can make. ➜ Labels and Captions
Labels and captions are different: a label offers one or two words telling you what something is and a caption can be a phrase or a sentence that explains a concept or adds information. Explain that labels and captions are a way of communicating information. Teach your learners how to create labels and captions to add to their own models, diagrams and displays. It’s important that they always draft, redraft and discuss their labels or captions before sticking them on. Try these ways of adding labels or captions to content examples:
Suggested activity The human skeleton with Funny Bones: an example of an activity which combines Science, Arts and Crafts and Literacy. As a warm-up activity read Funny Bones (Janet and Allan Ahlberg) with your class. During the story discuss the different types of skeletons (e.g. human, dog, parrot, elephant and snake). Elicit what they already know about skeletons. Use their own experience to talk about the skeleton: make them feel their own bones or recall a visit to hospital with a broken bone. Use the book to access science-based ideas: • A skeleton is made up of different bones. • Different animals have different skeletons. • Different parts of the skeleton protect soft parts of the body (e.g. the brain, the heart, the lungs). • Muscles are needed to make the skeleton move. • What happens if we break a bone? • The human skeletal system is comprised of 206 bones. • Lligaments attach these bones to each other via tendons and joints.
Stick-ons Introduce labels by using Velcro stick-on labels that children can put on and pull off class wall displays or table-top activities, e.g. plants or human body outlines. This makes for a very effective revision activity. Preparation Provide pre-cut cards of different sizes with which children can choose to make labels or captions. This saves time and ensures that work is neat and of a standard size. Design
Follow-up activity 1. The class labels the skeleton. 2. In small groups learners either paint or create a model skeleton using plasticine. 3. Learners make labels in the form of flags made with cocktail sticks or straws they stick on the plasticine model. 4. Remind pupils of the need for accuracy when labelling and the use of correct scientific words and spelling.
Make a variety of caption/label designs. These could be hand-written, word-processed, printed, stencilled or multicoloured.
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