© 2012 Alston Publishing House Pte LtdScienceSMART Teacher’s Guide Grade 1 Chapter 2 Lesson Plans
Lesson Plans
Chapter 2: All About Senses!
Total number of periods: 10 periods
Overview of Lesson Plans
How Do We Learn About the World Around Us? (2 periods)
Lesson / Specific Instructional Objectives / Cambridge Primary Scientific Enquiry Skills / Process Skills / 21st Century Skills / Number of Periods2.1 / Pupils should:
-be able to locate and name the five senses
-be able to relate the sense organ to the sense it is associated with / (Topic not covered in Cambridge Primary syllabus.) / Observing / Use systems thinking / 2
What Are Our Senses? (6 periods)
Lesson / Specific Instructional Objectives / Cambridge Primary Scientific Enquiry Skills / Process Skills / 21st Century Skills / Number of Periods2.2 / Pupils should:
-explore how senses enable humans to be aware of the world around them / Try to answer questions by collecting evidence through observation. (1Ep1)
Make predictions. (1Ep3) / Observing
Comparing
Communicating
Inferring / Reason effectively
Communicate clearly / 6
Why Are Our Senses Important to Us? / How Can We Protect Our Senses? (2 periods)
Lesson / Specific Instructional Objectives / Cambridge Primary Scientific Enquiry Skills / Process Skills / 21st Century Skills / Number of Periods2.3 / Pupils should:
-appreciate the importance of senses / (Topic not covered in Cambridge Primary syllabus.) / Observing / Communicate clearly
Health literacy / 2
© 2012 Alston Publishing House Pte LtdScienceSMART Teacher’s Guide Grade 1 Chapter 2 Lesson Plans
Main Lesson Plans
Lesson 2.1
BSCS 5E / Lesson Notes / ResourcesEngage:
Pupils act out or read out the comic strip to relate real life to the topic
Explore:
Pupils are asked questions to further their observations on the topic
Explain:
Pupils learn to draw conclusions from what was learnt previously
Explore:
Pupils further their understanding by doing an activity
Evaluate:
Pupils reinforce the key ideas and concepts learnt by using their own observations to draw conclusions / Chapter opener
Activity:Get pupils to read or act out the opening comic strip. Generate a discussion on how Ari was able to collect information from things around him to tell him more about them.
Ask pupils:
- Which part of Ari’s body is helping him collect information in each of the pictures?
-What tells him something looks good?(Answer: His eyes/sense of sight)
-What tells him something tastes too sweet, too sour, or just nice?(Answer: His tongue/sense of taste)
-What tells him the chair is too hard, too soft or just right?(Answer: His skin/sense of touch)
-What tells the lady somebody is snoring? (Answer: Her ears/sense of hearing)
-What tells Ari that he is sensing pain?(Answer: His skin/sense of touch)
Process Skill: Observing
What Will I Learn?
Emphasise to pupils what their learning journey will be like for this chapter.
- We have five senses.
- Each sense organ is related to a sense.
- Senses enable humans to be aware of their surroundings.
- Senses are important to us.
Background:We have five main sense organs. They are the eyes, nose, ears, tongue, and skin. Without us even knowing, our sense organs are taking in information and sending it to the brain for processing all the time.
Our sense organs start to work when something stimulates special nerve cells called receptors in a sense organ. Once stimulated, the receptors send messages (nerve impulses) along sensory nerves to the brain. Our brain then helps us understand what is happening.
The senses collect information for the body and help the body respond to its surroundings.
Teaching Tips:
- Ask pupils to look at the pictures of the children in the Textbook.
- Which part of the child’s body is used to collect information? (Answer (from left to right): eyes, ears, nose, tongue, skin)
- What kind of information can the child collect? (Answer: The child carrying a magnifying glass may be looking at something small in greater detail; the child cupping his hands around his ears may be listening to a soft sound; the child holding a rose is smelling the fragrance of the flower; the girl licking the lollipop is tasting the sweetness of the lollipop; the girl stroking the guinea pig is feeling the softness of its fur.)
- What happens to this information that is collected? (Answer: The collected information is sent to our brain so that our brain can help us understand it. Our brain will then decide how our body will act according to that information.)
- Draw this diagram on the board:
Get pupils to trace the path of the messages, from our surroundings to the senses, then to the brain.
Activity:Take pupils for a ‘sensory walk’ around the school where pupils use all their five senses to find out more about their surroundings. You may wish to include a stopover at the canteen for a light snack.
When pupils return to the classroom, get them to share the information their senses have helped them gather, e.g. I saw a yellow bird with the help of my sense of sight; I heard the bell with the help of my sense of hearing.
You may wish to draw a table on the board to list down what the children have seen, heard, smelled, tasted or touched.
Sight / Hearing / Smell / Taste / Touch
yellow bird / school bell
road traffic
Probe into what they found out using their senses by asking further questions to check if they have stated the correct sense, e.g. “What is the colour of the bird you have seen?” or “What does road traffic sound like?”
Teaching Strategy: Relating to real life
Process Skill: Observing
21st Century Skill:Use systems thinking / Textbook pages 14—15
Textbook page 16
Lesson 2.2
BSCS 5E / Lesson Notes / ResourcesEngage:
Pupils listen to a song to get them interested in the topic
Explore:
Pupils learn more about the topic through inquiry-based questions
Explain:
Pupils learn to retain information through reiteration
Explore:
Pupils learn more about the topic through a game
Explain:
Pupils learn to understand and reinforce key concept through an activity
Explore:
Pupils find out more about key concepts through an activity
Engage:
Pupils get interested in the topic through a demonstration
Explore:
Pupils find out more about topic through an activity
Engage:
Pupils get interested in the topic through an inquiry question
Elaborate:
Pupils learn to connect and consolidate ideas and concepts learnt through an activity
Explain:
Pupils understand key concepts through inquiry questions and teacher’sexplanations
Explore:
Pupils discover more about and consolidate concepts learnt through activity at home / What Are Our Senses?
Activity: Play the song about the five senses by Laura Purdie Salas, “I’m exploring with my senses” (to the tune of “I’ve been working on the railroad”).
Ask pupils:
- How do we find out about our surroundings?(Answer: We use our senses to find out about our surroundings.)
- Which are our senses?(Answer: Sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch)
- Can we taste a painting? Can we see a nice smell? Can we touch a song? Can we hear a lollipop? Can we smell a doorbell?(Answer: No, we are not using the right senses!)
- What kind of information can each sense tell us? (Allow pupils to respond freely. Tell pupils that they will learn what each sense can tell us in this section.)
Background:Light must be present for us to see. Light falls on objects and bounces into our eyes. The pupils (holes) in our eyes change in size to let in different amounts of light. Nerve cells in the eyes send information to the brain and the brain interprets the information to recognize shapes and colours.
Teaching Tip:Get pupils to trace the eyes on Page 17 of the Textbook. Tell pupils that our eyes give us the sense of sight.Discuss what our sense of sight can tell us.
Ask pupils to look at the pictures on Page 17 and decide which animal is big, and which is small. Get pupils to identify the shapes and colours of the things presented.
Process Skills: Observing, Comparing
Activity: Play ‘I Spy’. Ask one pupil to mentally pick one object in the classroom. The rest of the class will then guess which object the pupil has picked. The class can only ask questions to which the pupil answers “yes” or “no”. E.g. “Is it yellow in colour?”; “Is it bigger than my fist?”; “Is it near the ceiling?”
Teaching Strategy: Relating to real life
Process Skills: Communicating, Inferring
21st Century Skills:Reason effectively; Communicate clearly
Teaching Tip:Lead pupils to conclude that our sense of sight tells us the size, shape and colour of things.
Background:We use our ears to hear. When something makes a sound, sound waves travel through air to our ears and cause our eardrums to vibrate. Nerve cells in the ear pick up these vibrations and send messages to the brain. Our brain can then sense the loudness and pitch of sounds.
Activity:Carry out Activity 2 of the Workbook with the class. Pre-record the sounds stated in Activity 2 in the order stated in the answer scheme, as below:
Sound / Sound 1 / Sound 2 / Sound 3 / Sound 4 / Sound 5 / Sound 6
Letter / D (Telephone ringing) / F (Water dripping) / C (Doorbell ringing) / H (Knocking on door) / G (Keys dropping) / B (Brushing teeth)
Play the sounds in class and get pupils to identify them.
You can also play these sound effects from the website.
Ask pupils which sense they made use of to carry out the above activity.
Teaching Tip:Get pupils to trace the ears on Page 18 of the Textbook. Tell pupils that our ears give us the sense of hearing.Discuss what our sense of hearing can tell us.
Activity: Whisper an instruction, such as “Stand up”, to the class. Ask pupils if they can hear it clearly. Get pupils to describe the sound. Introduce the terms ‘loud’ and ‘soft’.
Tell pupils that our sense of hearing can tell us how loud or soft a sound is (also known as loudness or volume).
Whistle a high note (alternatively, use a whistle or any musical instrument to produce a high note). Get pupils to describe the sound. Introduce the terms ‘high’ and ‘low’.
Tell pupils that our sense of hearing can tell us how high or low a sound is (also known as the pitch of a sound).
Teaching Strategy: Demonstration
Activity:Carry out Experiment Time! with the class to investigate if two ears work better than one.
Blindfold a pupil and place a ear plug in one of his ears before getting some children to stand in position with objects to make noises. Repeat the experiment with the earplug removed from the pupil’s ear.
Teaching Strategy: Demonstration
Teaching Tip:Lead pupils to conclude that listening with two ears can help us better decide the direction that a sound is coming from.
Project Idea: Collect empty drink bottles. Fill them with sand, rice, seeds or water to make shakers. Listen to the sounds the shakers make. Do they make the same sounds?
Background:We use our nose to smell. Nerve cells inside the nose sense odours and send information to the brain. Our nose can tell the difference between 10 000 different odours!
Activity:Ask pupils to close their eyes. Spray a little perfume into the air. When pupils open their eyes, ask them what they smell. Talk about how our nose helps us smell things.
Process Skill: Observing
Teaching Tip:Get pupils to trace the nose on Page 20 of the Textbook. Tell pupils that our nose gives us the sense of smell.Discuss what our sense of smell can tell us.
Explain to pupils that our sense of smell can pick up odours and tell them apart.
Activity:Prepare some film canisters containing scented items or scented cotton balls (for liquid scents), e.g. onion, lemon peel, coffee beans, mothballs, cotton balls dabbed in vanilla extract, vinegar or peppermint. Get pupils to talk about what each canister smells like. Encourage the use of descriptive words.
Background:We use our tongue to taste. The tongue is covered by tastebuds, which sense salty, sweet, sour, and bitter things. Tastebuds collect information about flavours and send messages to the brain. The sense of smell is closely linked to the sense of taste. When we have a blocked nose, it may be harder to taste our food.
Ask pupils:
- What do your favourite foods taste like?
- Compare and contrast how different foods taste, e.g. watermelon versus pineapple.
- Get pupils to trace the tongue on Page 21 of the Textbook. Tell pupils that our tongue gives us the sense of taste. Discuss what our sense of taste can tell us.
Activity:Have pupils bring traditional or home-cooked snacks to class to share. Get pupils to identify the tastes and the ingredients that contribute to the tastes.
Bring to pupils’ attention that our sense of smell works very closely with our sense of taste. One often affects the other. For example, when we have a cold, and our nose is blocked, our food often tastes bland.
21st Century Skill:Communicate clearly
Background: We use our skin to touch or feel. Our skin is the largest organ.It covers the entire body. The skin can sense different temperatures and textures of objects. The skin can also sense pressure and pain. When we touch something, our skin sends messages through nerve cells. The nerve cells send messages through the spinal cord and to the brain. The brain then processes the information, and sends messages back to the body to respond.
Activity: Carry out Activity 5 of the Workbook. Place mystery items inside six boxes and get pupils to feel and make a guess of what the objects are.
Teaching Tips:
- Get pupils to trace the hands on Page 22 of the Textbook. Tell pupils that our skin gives us the sense of touch.With the help of the pictures on Page 22, discuss what our sense of touch can tell us.
- What sensation does each child feel when:
-a strong wind blows at Tom? (Answer: His body feels the coldness of the wind.)
-Min rubs silk against her face?(Answer: Her face feels the softness of the silk.)
-Ari touches the bark of a tree?(Answer: His hand feels the roughness of the tree bark.)
-Tom is tickled by a feather?(Answer: His foot feels ticklish.)
-something hits Min’s head?(Answer: Her head feels pain.)
- Explain that our sense of touch tells us if something feels hot or cold, rough or smooth. It also tells us if something tickles or causes pain.
Activity: Bring pupils out to a supermarket or fruit market. Get pupils to talk about the different colours and textures of fruits. Get pupils to find out which fruit has the nicest or strongest smells.Alternatively, you may want to bring some fruits to class. Let pupils explore the fruits with their senses of sight, smell and touch before cutting the fruits for them to taste.
Teaching Tips:
- You may want to let pupils find out more about Helen Keller or read them an excerpt of how her teacher taught her.
- Encourage pupils to explore at home, with the help of their senses, what a piece of toast looks like, smells like, feels like, and when they take a bite, what it sounds and tastes like.
- Ask pupils to think of things for which they would use more than one of their senses, e.g. seeing and hearing fireworks.
URL 2.1
Workbook page 9
Activity 1: I See You!
Textbook page 18
Workbook page 10
Activity 2: Listen Carefully!
URL 2.2
Textbook page 19
Textbook page 20
Workbook pages 11—12
Activity 3: Does It Have an Odour?
Textbook page 21
Workbook page 13
Activity 4: A Tasty Treat
Textbook pages 22—23
Workbook page 14
Activity 5: Think Out of the Box
Workbook page 15
Activity 6: Blind Man’s Game
Workbook page 16
Activity 7: Can You Tell Us Apart?
Consolidation Worksheet 1
Internet links for Lesson 2.2