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Authors: Carlota Cantero, Andrea Lerma, Jessica Molina, Clàudia Olivet and Irene Pedrola
DESCRIPTION
This activity is divided into 3 parts. First of all, we will check the students’ previous knowledge about the Solar System through some questions. Afterwards, we are going to work on some vocabulary that they will need for the main task. This second task will be done through a memory. After the questions and the memory, the main task will take place. With the app, Skyview, we will take a look up to the sky in order to discover different Celestial Bodies that surround us. At the end, with a whole class dynamic, we will create a mural with each planet and some traits of each.
CONTEXTUALIZATION
Target age: 5th grade
Target Language Level (based on CEFR): A1
Location: outdoors. In the playground or playgrounds if there are more than one.
PREVIOUS KNOWLEDGE
In their preovious school year, students had already worked on the space, so they have little knowledge about the different planets and satellites.
LESSON AIMS
Written reception: Can understand very short, simple texts a single phrase at a time, picking up familiar names, words and basic phrases and rereading as required.
Spoken Production: Can give a simple description of an object or picture while showing it to others using basic words, phrases and formulaic expressions, provided he/she can prepare in advance.
Written production: Can write simple isolated phrases and sentences.
Spoken interaction: Can interact in a simple way but communication is totally dependent on repetition at a slower rate of speech, rephrasing and repair. Can ask and answer simple questions, initiate and respond to simple statements in areas of immediate need or on very familiar topics.
Information exchange:
Can understand questions and instructions addressed carefully and slowly to him/her and follow short, simple directions.
Can ask and answer simple questions, initiate and respond to simple statements in areas of immediate need or on very familiar topics.
Grammatical accuracy: Shows only limited control of a few simple grammatical structures and sentence patterns in a learnt repertoire.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES (SWBATs)
With this activity, students will be able to develop skills and competences of these areas:
English Area:
Students will be able to comprehend short written texts in English.
Students will be able to search for concrete and relevant information in a text.
Students will be able to communicate orally and interact with each other by asking and answering questions about their research.
Assessment: we will assess the English Area SWBATs with the Little Scientists worksheet (vocabular, key points of the texts in the app) and we, as teachers, will also assess their oral communication with a rubric with the next points: Are they able to formulate questions? Are they able to understand the questions? The answers given correspond to the question asked?
Scientific, Social and Cultural Knowledge Area:
Students will be able to use digital resources to widen their knowledge.
Students will be able to discover the properties of the different elements of the solar system.
Assessment: we will assess this area with a yes or no rubric by assessing their final productions of the solar system: Have they been able to identify all the elements of the Solar System? Have they been able to discover at least 3 properties/characteristics of each element? Is the information in the final productions extracted of the digital resources they've used?
Digital Area:
Students will be able to select the key information they need to complete the task in the AR app.
This area will we contemplated but not assessed.
PREPARATION FOR THE APP TASK CYCLE
As future teachers, we have to bear in mind that this kind of activities require quite a lot of previous outside class work on searching and installing the apps and becoming familiar with them.
Firstly, we have to inform ourselves about the app in particular: is it free? Do we need an account? Can it be used simultaneously with the same account?... In our case, SkyView Lite app is free and registration is not needed.
Once we’ve found the perfect app to use in our activity, we need to download it and become familiar with it: what features does it have? Does it have different options or modes? What are the steps kids will need to follow in order to use it?... Although the app is free, you can upgrade it by paying a subscription. We will stick with the free version though.
Then we need to install the app in the tablets, computers or electronic devices we will use in class and register with an account if necessary.
And lastly, but most importantly, we need to explain to the kids how the app works, step by step, so they are able to finish the task successfully. We will give them some time to get familiar with the app, while making a brief explanation of how it works and answering possible questions pupils may have. The SkyView LIte app is quite intuitive, but we will explain to the kids that they have a searching mode* where they can look for instructions on how to find different planets, stars, constellations, satellites or galaxies. Afterwards, children will go outdoors (playground) to get started. This will take place in-class, and we calculate that it will not last more than 15 minutes, so they will have 45 minutes to do the main task.
MATERIALS
Pre-task:
Main task:
Writing material
A tablet for each student
Post-task:
Mural sheet
Writing material
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF EACH PHASE
Pre-task
Regarding the pre-task, as we said before, we will check the students’ prior knowledge about the Solar System through some questions. For instance, some of them would be:
What do you know about the universe?
Where do we live?
Is there any life in outer space?
Once the students have reflected on them, we are going to work on some vocabulary related to the universe. By using a memory, pupils will need to find the match between an image and its name. This way, they will be familiarised with the vocabulary that they will find during the execution of the main task. This task will last an hour.
Main task
Each child needs a tablet to carry out the individual part of the activity. At first, they go out to the playground of the school and try to separate themselves from the group. Therefore, they will have to use the app to find some planets and discover the main information which is required by the technical data sheet called “Let’s become scientists”. In other words, they must select the required information and write it down. This sheet will be revised with the whole class before doing the activity so no information or instruction is misunderstood. We will also make explicit that, although they will be able to find several elements of the universe through the app, they will only have to focus on planets. We will try to use as many outdoors spaces from the school as possible (by going to the different playgrounds and outdoor areas), so they can find a wider variety of planets. Moreover, it should be noted that, during this part of the task, pupils will not interact with their peers due to the fact that, afterwards, they will have to guess the planets that the others have discovered by telling the different traits - recollected in the technical data sheet - in a small group dynamic. To do it, they will have at their disposal some language support materials (language frames). This task will last an hour and a half.
Post-task
After having finished the main task, students will have to elaborate the final output, which consists of doing a mural of the Solar System. The mural will contain a draw of all the planets organised from the nearest to the Sun to the ones that are further. Furthermore, the mural will include schematic information about each planet (the information that the children have learned during the main task with the SkyView Lite app).
This task will be done by the whole group class altogether. Nevertheless, students will be divided into subgroups and each of them will focus on describing one planet. Finally, the mural will be put up on the class’ walls.
EXAMPLES OF MATERIALS AND APP IN USE
Photos of the implementation:
Materials
Memory
Language frames scaffolding
Technical data sheet
SkyView Lite Feedback:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YfXzWa1qBqcO0iBb7iJAVvuJxPk4JH6hBXlPoylSgE8/edit
CHANGES MADE
We saved a moment before each activity to revise the rules and instructions and to make questions if needed.
Instead of focusing on a large variety of celestial bodies, we narrowed down the activity by only focusing in planets, the moon, and the sun.
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