Seed+Ideas

Seed Ideas
Sometimes you need to make up your own "stuff" in a combined grade. If you're going to make up stuff, you might as well make it up so that it fits both grades at once. It takes a little bit of planning up front, but it pays off in the back end. These are just some seed ideas on how you might put together two grades' worth of curriculum through whatever means noted. The hard work hasn't been done yet. I've found that if I get a good idea, I can run with it quickly. If I have to struggle to get an idea. . . well, it's better to wait until later. Let's put a whole bunch of seed ideas out there for people to run with.


 * 3/4 - Science - Understanding Life Systems - 3s manage the plants in a class mini-ecosystem and report on their effect on the whole; the 4s manage the animal life and report of the health of the whole system.
 * 4/5 - Science - Understanding Structures and Mechanisms - teams of 4s & 5s design and build a structure(s) that include moving and working parts. 4s need to know and report on how the pulleys and gears help it function and how they addressed the design challenge; 5s need to know and report on what forces are acting on the structure and the mechanisms that might be strengths or weaknesses in their designs.
 * 1/2 - Geometry & Social Studies ( 2 for 1!) - make concrete maps of the local community, describe locations of various landmarks. 2s need to do all of this plus use cardinal directions and describe a route. If you make structures for your concrete map and they happen to be geometric solids . ..