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Let's Explore the Outer Planets

After our students had finished learning about the inner planets it was time for them to learn out the outer planets.  The teachers that were teaching about the outer planets were so excited to teach this topic and had so many fun things planned for the students.  The teachers gave each of the students three Popsicle sticks and each of them had a different outer planet on them.  One of them was red and the students were to raise that if they did not understand something, one was blue and that was if the students somewhat understood, and green was if they completely understood and the teachers would know to move on with the lesson.  Throughout the lesson, the students would have notes that they were filling in.  The students were also turning and talking about the answers to the questions that the teachers were asking throughout the lesson.  For the guided practice the teachers had a vortex game on the smart board that the students played.  The students had to match the correct inner and outer planet with the description that was on the board.  After they had finished with the game the students had the task of writing a letter to Astronaut Annie who was a person the would keep appearing throughout the lesson.  They had to write about one of their favorite outer planets and why it was their favorite.  To give the teachers an idea of how well the students understood the lesson the teachers had the students write one question that they still have about the outer planets, one thing that they are still confused about, and one new thing that they learned about the outer planets on a sticky note.

After the teachers had finished teaching their direct instruction lesson it was time for the students to show the teachers what they had learned from the first lesson and apply it to the next lesson.  The next lesson was an inquiry lesson.  The teachers started the lesson by playing a fun song for the students that would get them up and moving.  This also got the students engaged in the lesson and the activity that they were going to be doing.  For the activity, the students were first split up into different groups where they made different observations on the planets that they think they might have.  The students were then split up again and they taught their groupmates about the planets that they think they have and the observations that lead to the planet that they have.  After they taught their groupmates about their planets they went back to their first groups and shared their findings with the rest of the class.  The method that the teachers used was called the Jigsaw Method, this method really gets the students working together and the students are able to learn from each other.

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