Overview and Rationale

I had the opportunity to student teach at Roosevelt Magnet School in Peoria, Illinois. It is an urban school with a high poverty rate. I had a good size class of 27 third grade students. The make-up of the class included one Caucasian student, one Hispanic student, while the remainder of the class was African American. There were four students whom were diagnosed with having either ADD or ADHD.

I chose to teach my unit on plants, because it is important for students to understand how plants live and grow. Therefore the students were taught the life cycle of plants as well as the features and characteristics of plants. Students should also know the needs of plants. Learning about living things such as plants will help them understand the world around them. Through this unit the students are also able to develop their vocabulary skills and learn new terminology related to plants.

The unit was based on the subject of science; however I was able to incorporate other subjects into my unit. The students are able to develop their reading, writing and listening skills throughout this unit. For instance, writing was incorporated by have the students create graphic organizers for a paper about plants. Art was also incorporated by having students draw and label the parts of a plant as well as trace the path of water through the plant.

Furthermore, I created an interactive bulletin board to go along with the unit. The students had to use the bulletin board to arrange the stages of the plant life cycle in order. They were able to do this during learning center time.

The learning centers I created also allowed the integration of other subjects into the plant unit. The learning centers included a writing center, an art center, a reading center, a listening center, a computer center, a science puzzle center and a vocabulary center. I allowed the students to work in the learning centers three days in a row for approximately 45 minutes and we called that time learning center time. I broke the students up into small groups or partners; hence it provided the students with opportunities for cooperative learning. The students were given oral instructions for the centers as well as written directions at each center.

I also brought technology into my unit by having students play a CD Rom game on the computer related to science. This activity was part of the computer center which was also used during learning center time.

The Illinois Learning Standards were addressed for each lesson that was taught during the unit. And adaptations were made for each lesson for students with special needs.

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