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This is my first year as a 5th grade teacher. I am about to start a Life Science Chapter on Animal Growth and Heredity. My students usually need concrete, hands-on activities that introduce a topic before we move into reading the chapter, taking notes, creating graphic organizers, and talking about more abstract concepts. Because my Science textbook does not have enough hands-on activities I have to supplement by researching and designing my own lesson plans. I’m going to start with Animal Growth but am at a loss on how to go about teaching the concept of cell division, the difference between mitosis and meiosis or terms like chromosomes, genes, etc. I’ve found some good videos from Brain Pop that do an animated version of these concepts but it would be great to get ideas on engagement activities, twin-text ideas (non-fiction and fiction), labs, etc.
I have found a website that has some great hands-on activities to introduce the topic of heredity. This website http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/begin/traits/activities/ has a Traits Bingo and a Handy Family Tree activity that I think will work well with my class. Has anyone incorporated the completion of a Pedigree Chart or Punnett Square in their lesson on heredity? What worked? What didn’t? Please share your lesson! I thought that using either would be a good graphic organizer to reinforce the idea of how traits from both parents are passed down to their offspring/s but not sure about how to go about designing the activity. Thanks in advance for your thoughts, suggestions, and advice.
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