Overview:

The following lesson plan involving insects will introduce the students to insects that are common around the school. The students will then write a creative story about being an insect for a day and will include scientific data that they learned. This activity will take approximately one hour and will be intended for 3rd grade.

Purpose (Objective):

1. TSW identify common insects around the school and will learn their characteristics of survival.
2. TSW use this information the students will then compose a creative writing story by becoming an insect for the day.

The TEKS that are incorporated in this lesson are 3rd grade 8d, which reads:
Living organism needs-food, water, light, air, waste disposal, and environment.
Describe how organisms modify environment to meet their needs.

Materials:

School grounds, paper, pen, insect scoop net, Insect Identification Book or Common Texas Insect Identification Book

Getting Ready (Background information):

The day before planning this activity you as the teacher should walk around the school and locate certain areas that may be common to some insects (wood piles-beetles, flowers-bees and butterflies).

Motivate (Engage):

To introduce this activity I will ask the students several questions to get them thinking such as: How do we survive?, Do animals and insects have the same basic needs?, How do their needs differ from ours?, and What might be some problems insects would encounter with the environment?. Then I will tell the students that we are going to walk around the school and look at different insects in their habitat.

Activity (Explore):

1. While walking around the school and looking at the different insects in their habitat I will ask the students thought provoking questions such as, How do you think this insect survives?
2. After we have walked around the school and observed several insects in their habitats we will return to the classroom and discuss what we saw and new things we learned.
3. I will then tell the students that based upon what they learned they will write a creative story pretending that they are the insect.
4. The students will have to include scientific data in their stories such as the insect habitat, transportation, and protection.
5. Before setting the students loose to create their creative stories I will show them how to use the Insect Identification books in case thy need to refer to it. If the students are unsure about certain information I will provide insect books that will be available for them to use.

Safety Tips:

I will inform the students that while observing the insects in their habitat we are only there to observe and should not try to touch or grab them because the insects may bite or sting.

Concept Discovery (Explanation):

The students will be able to explore common insects around the school grounds and observe their characteristics of survival. After going outside and looking at the insects the students will apply learned information to their creative writing stories.

Going Further (Extensions):

Students that would like to learn more about insects and their habitats will be able to collect a harmless insect and their goal will be to provide it a habitat where it can survive for one week.

Closure:

I will summarize the activity by asking the students what new things they learned today. I will then discuss with them how different animals adapt to different environments and what happens if they do not conform to their surroundings.

Assessment (Evaluation):

I will assess the student's knowledge about insects by reading their creative stories. If the students include scientific information on how their particular insect survives in certain environments then I will know that they have learned the information presented.

Connections:

Mathematics:
Another area that you can incorporate TEKS is for 3rd grade (7) which Expresses Relationships and making predictions by generating tables of ordered pairs. This could come in handy when teaching math. You could teach the students how to chart information about the insects.

Language Arts (Writing):
This lesson plan does include creative writing and therefore would be graded using the following Rubric:

Did the students use:	Unsure about facts	Scientific and not creative	Understands concepts
Scientific information about their insect?
Their imagination to develop their story?
Information that they learned from looking at insects around the school?

Return to Lesson Plans