Using STEM in Speech: Fossils

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Due to some craziness in my personal life, I had to take a break from blogging for a while. I did have most of this post sitting there in draft form, and really want to finally get it posted here, since my students had such a great time with this unit!

Since we had just covered Rocks and Minerals in Speech, it made sense to tackle fossils next! A lot of my students are really interested in dinosaurs, so of course this unit was a big hit with many of them. To my surprise, a lot of my kiddos were able to name all kinds of dinosaurs, but didn't exactly know what a fossil was. Most of them thought a fossil was just a leftover dinosaur bone, rather than a rock. Below are some of the various activities I did with my groups (of course tailored to their various skill levels and type of goal they were working on):

1. Learning about the different types of fossils
Before any of the activities, I did briefly explain the different types of fossils to my older students.  Here's the run-down (don't worry, I had to google it, too!):

• mold fossils (a fossilized impression made in the substrate - a negative image of the organism)
• cast fossils (formed when a mold is filled in)
• trace fossils = ichnofossils (fossilized nests, gastroliths, burrows, footprints, etc.)
• true form fossils (fossils of the actual animal or animal part).

2. Exploring and matching cast fossils
For this, we used this Fossil Sorting Activity Kit by Dancing Bear (the same company the mineral kit was from). We used this kit to work on describing, comparing and contrasting, matching the fossils to the cards, and to practice articulation targets by saying the name of the fossil / reading the description from the cards out loud. The kit comes with a couple of magnifying glasses that students could use to get a better look. I used a jewelry organizer to store the fossils, but the kit also comes with small plastic bags for this purpose. This was definitely a hit, kids still ask me if we can "do the fossils again" (even though we did this back in January).

3. Matching "bones" to their mold fossils 
For this activity, I purchased the Safari Toob with the Prehistoric mammal skulls as well as some of the Crayola Air Dry Clay (I initially tried Playdoh... DON'T! It got stuck to my skulls and created a giant headache). I used the clay to make some spheres that I patted flat and then used a skull to make an imprint of the mammal. After letting the clay dry, we had the perfect matching activity!

4. Making mold fossils
This was a nice activity for kids to take home! All you need are some toy dinosaur bones and Playdoh (or the clay from the previous activity). Have students make a sphere and pat it flat to get an oval shape (just make sure it's not too flat, or they might make holes if pressing to hard). Then have them press down their dinosaur to make a mold fossil. Let it dry and then let students take it home. This was a quick and easy activity for my younger students.

5. Making a True Form Fossil
I reserved this activity for my 5th graders.If you've seen "Jurassic Park", then you'll be familiar with bugs encased in Amber. I had my students re-create this true form fossil by having them trace the shape of a clear glass gem (like these vase fillers) onto a piece of construction paper, draw a bug in the middle of the circle, and color the background yellow-orange-ish. After cutting out the circle we used Mod-Podge to glue the gem to the paper. It made a pretty craft that could easily be turned into a fridge magnet.

 
All in all, my students really enjoyed the fossils unit and got exposed to lots of new vocabulary and concepts. Since they're still asking about it, I'll definitely be bringing some of the activities back this year!



 

ThinkFun Review #3: Zingo! Time-Telling

Get Zingo! Time-Telling here.

The last of the games that I received from ThinkFun for review is Zingo! Time-Telling. This game is a fun way to teach kids how to interpret clocks and time. I think being able to tell time is very empowering to a lot of special needs students, since it will allow them to better be aware of how much time will have to pass until the next transition or their next break. Knowing how to read a clock will also help kids who have poor time management skills to better plan ahead and know how much time is left to complete a job. This is definitely a very functional skill that is vital to daily life.



Two difficulty levels.

Since I work with a lot of students who do not yet have this skill, we took a few sessions to expose them to the concept and practice using Zingo! Time-Telling. This game is similar to other versions of Zingo! in that it contains game boards, a Zing-zinger, and tiles. As with other versions, this game comes in two difficulty levels: one side of the board contains both analog clocks as well as the digital numbers underneath, whereas on the flipside only the analog clocks are shown. I used this game with groups of second and third-graders. Common Core State Standards require instruction for this concept beginning in first grade and culminating in third grade (1.MD.B.3, 2.MD.C.7, 3.MD.A.1), so I figured those were good groups to practice with.

My 2nd grader is matching up the tiles.

Prior to introducing this game, I did a quick pre-teaching lesson with a real clock just to warm students up to the idea. With my 2nd graders I used the easier difficulty and with my third-graders the more challenging one. This worked out perfectly, as it was right around the difficulty level they could handle. What I really liked about this game is that the hands are color coded to match up to the colors of the tiles. This makes it very visual for students and helps them determine which number corresponds to the hour and which number corresponds to the minute. We talked about the different clock icons and compared the clock's hands to the digital numbers. My older students had fun, too! We tried to figure out the tiles we needed to fill in our board before moving the Zing-zinger. I noted some marked improvement towards the end of the session: students needed fewer prompts, especially for the minute part. After they had filled up one board, they asked to play again. I love it when students are learning while playing!

My 3rd grader is trying to find a match.

This game might also be a great tool for older students to work on time application skills or sequential skills. You could use it to teach the concepts "before/after" or teach scheduling and time-management. Or, if you are a parent or teacher, you can simply use this game to drill those math common core standards. 

Once again, we have a ThinkFun winner! Please make sure to also check out my reviews of Rush Hour Jr. and Zingo! Word-Builder. I will be definitely on the lookout for more great games by this company.

~Viola