Forums

Hi, I currently teach 4th grade (my second year) and am wondering if there is anyone here that has found any particularly good resources for teaching a lesson on plant and animal cells. I checked out the SciPack on Cell Structure and Function, but a LOT of it is too advanced for my students. Any help would be appreciated. Have a great weekend!

Hi Ross,
I agree, that is a complex topic for 4th graders. The 6th grade teachers at my school used to have their students make ABC books of cell parts.
A book chapter called Is It Living? might give you some ideas. Also,check out the book chapter entitled, 'Is It Made Of Cells?'.
Finally, there is a book chapter that has an egg discrepant event: Osmosis and 'Naked' Eggs: The Environment Matters. Sometimes I find ideas embedded in these book chapters.
Ross, do you have microscopes available to your students? There are some neat activities they can do using them. Making a simple hay infusion where you place several pieces of hay in a glass bowl filled with spring water will usually spawn lots of microscopic organisms within 2 or 3 days. See '' if you are interested in protists.
If not, another idea is to watch The Virtual Lab archived web seminar. It tells you how to access it online for classroom use.

Thank you for sharing! I am also a 4th grade teacher and I just finished the Cell Structure & Function scipack. I agree it is too advanced for 4th grade, but I liked the interactive activities where you can click and move the labels of the cell. I am going to try to do it with my class. Hopefully this will help them identify the difference between animal and plant cells. Also, you can cut out the different parts of the cell and their labels and have physically place them correctly inside the cell, then they compare/discuss it with a partner. I think that kids nowadays are visual and kinesthetic learners. So the more hands-on and interactive activities we prepare/plan the better.

Although I teach middle school science, you might be able to adapt this a bit for younger students. At the end of our study of cellular organelles I have my students work in cooperative learning groups to create a "tour of a cell." They are assigned eukaryotic, plant or animal cells. Students create maps of their tour, "photos" taken along the way which are diagrams of important organelles, and journal entries of moments when they encounter cell activities, along with advertisement for highlights of future "trips" to which cell they were not assigned in order for me to be sure they can distinguish between the two. I used this at another school with a group of students who had a variety of learning challenges in writing and who then recorded their trip, including creating their own song lyrics applied to a current popular song. Hope some of this is useful. Criss H

I taught four grade last year and having students know the difference between an animal and plant cell is something I had a hard time with also. I used a lot of visuals of both the cells and the major difference is plant cells have a cell wall and have cholorplast to make their own food. Animal cells only have a cell membrane and not cholorplant. I did a fun jello lab with the students I pre-made red (represent animal cell) jello and green (represent plant cell) jello and put it into ziplock bags and had different types of candy to represent the parts that were inside the cell. The students were to decide which type of candy was to represent that part of the cell. An example is the nucleus students choose a large marshmallow or a big gum ball. The students loved it! I have attached a worksheet that may help as a starting point.

Attachments

CandyCellLab.doc (0.04 Mb)

Great idea Hellen! I remember doing something like that but in 7th grade. We had to make a project on the parts of a cell. A lot of students did the jello activity and it was not only fun but we all learned A lot! Thanks for the resource!

Hey Ross! I agree, the information in the SciPack was good, but it was too difficult for 4th graders. I think I mentioned in another thread that Discovery Education has some good resources. Of course, this would require you to have access to a bunch of computers or an interactive board. I just introduced this with my students and they were excited to try some of the interactive activities. I don't know how successful it will be in helping the students really "get it", but their enthusiasm was great! Cells are such a tough topic because although they are "concrete" they are also very "conceptual" since we really can't see them (especially the organelles within cells). Good luck and let us know what you find that really works!

If you have access to microscopes Elodea or Anacharis (a common plant you can get in a pet store) is a great one to look at under the microscope. You can easily see chloroplasts and cell walls. If you had money to order things, a good one to look at is Stentor because they are large and slow moving (but order the demi-slides, not the loosely packed stuff). Yeast cells are good to observe (give them a little sugar and water first). A cool demonstration with yeasts is to put some yeast, sugar, and water in a flask and put a balloon on top. The balloon will inflate with CO2 so you can talk about how the cells are alive and producing CO2. Cells Alive (cellsalive.org) has some interactive cells to label.

Hi I teach Kindergarten and I agree that cell division is way to complicated for 4th graders, much less Kindergartners. I'd probably only have my students label the parts of a cell and just make them aware that our body is made up of lots of cells. Best of luck to all who teach this interesting and most difficult concept!

Holy smokes, you're teaching plant and animal cells to 4th graders? Some of my 9th graders have a hard time with that...I give you all credit. It's awesome to read what other teachers use to teach about cell parts. I figure that if you can get a 4th grader to understand all of that, these activities are very helpful for people like me who have low performing 9th graders too. Thanks for sharing the jello activity, I thought that was very engaging.

Yow! So many great responses! Thank you very much to all that replied! I definitely have a lot of new things to try out this year, first on my list, JELLO CELLS! Such an incredible idea! The only thing is how to adjust it to make sure it conforms to the Health & Wellness program (so frustrating!). Anyways, I appreciate the responses, I'll let you know how the lessons turn out.

I love this topic! Some of my favorites have been listed, but I did want to add a couple of important points. Students will try to memorize the "colors" of the different organelles. This is a problem because while chloroplasts are indeed green, mitochondria are not red or blue (the two most common colors illustrators use). Print copies/handouts in black and white so that students are forced to concentrate on structure rather than just color or location. The difficulty in teaching cell parts is that you can't pull one out of your pocket and say, "Here kids, this is an animal cell. Check out its Golgi apparatus." Actual pictures of cells are seldom good enough for students to really see, so we're left with illustrations that require students to transfer knowledge from a drawing to reality - quite the conceptual leap. The "naked egg" experiment listed above is one of the most helpful tools I've found. Not only do I revisit it for my unit on osmosis, I use it during my introduction to cell parts. I vehemently explain that the yolk is NOT the nucleus in an egg, but and egg is indeed a type of cell and it works well as a model of many kinds of animal cells if we use just a little imagination. If you're very careful, you can actually "dissect" the naked egg so that students can see the closest thing you can get to an actual handheld gigantic cell. They can see/touch the cell membrane, the cytoplasm (egg white), and the "nucleus" - I use this to help students grasp the concept of "membrane-bound organelles" because the egg yolk is held within a very thin membrane. If you're even more careful, you can actually lift the egg yolk by its membrane (while kids ooh and ahhh) and explain that like the egg yolk, all organelles have their own thin membrane. Another good activity for to help kids grasp the concept is the cell as a candy factory, not sure if it's already been listed or not, but I'll attach it just in case. I use this activity before I teach my unit on cells to provide a good framework for my students. May favorite cell activity, which has already been listed, is the jello/candy cell. I remember my first year using it - I had a special education student who was everyone's darling. He tried his best, but couldn't do much more than write his name on his paper. But the hands-on cell candy activity clicked for him. I stood with the special ed teacher and choked back years has he argued with his partner about why the sour gummy worms were a better choice for the rough endoplasmic reticulum because they had bumpy things on them like ribosomes, and RER has ribosomes, so they should use that. It made me so proud of him! I also have to second the CellsAlive website...I've used it almost every year. Good luck - cells have always fascinated me! Kendra

Attachments

The Cell as a Candy Factory (Journal Article)

I think that at the 4th grade level, integrated connections with Language Arts and Possibly art can help to bridge a better understanding of the cell structures. I currently received a refresher on a language-arts based strategy that I think might work for your study of cells. Depending on what they actually observe (whether by microscope slides, computer-based models, pictures from science magazines, etc.), students can work on creating/replicating their own learning about the cell. Students can use an extra fine permanent marker to draw what they actually see. The thinking is that with a permanent marker, their observation of the cell features can't be "erased" and they will be more attentive to the features of cell wall versus membrane, etc. Then students look at the color within the cells. The chloroplasts with chlorophyll is pretty vibrant under the microscope in elodea and students can model that will oil pastels and/or chalk. The attentiveness that students will have in examining the cells or cell pictures will be pretty impressive and you would have integrated art and science together! From what I'm gathering, elementary teachers need to heavily adapt the cells concepts to 9 and 10-year-old students and this is a literacy concept. Here are articles that explain the concepts of what I'm trying to summarize: Image to Word-Word to Image: Literally, a Vision http://www.prel.org/products/products/imagetoword.htm Using the Visual Environment as Access to Literacy: Tools for Teachers http://www.prel.org/products/paced/spring06/access_literacy.pdf

Thank you all for sharing. There are a lot of great ideas I can use and since this is a subject I will be teaching in second quarter I feel better prepared. I was nervouse as to how to teach about the cells which is why i took the course. I ordered some models of plant and animal cells and some plates to use under the microscope as well. What i have found in the past is that the vocabulary is very challenging for the students so i spend a lot of time on vocabulary in this unit. Our school has the Buckle Down books. There is a chapter on cells that I found very useful and they really highlight vocabulary in this book. We will usually practice vocabulary and do some activities like word searches and bingo to reinforce it. I found that once students knew the language they had an easier time identify and caomparing the parts of the cells.

Back to the drawing board!! The lessons that I tried using Discovery Ed didn't really do the trick. Although the students were interested in the videos and pictures, and they got involved with the interactive activities, I guess it wasn't "memorable". I'm glad I have this forum to refer back to! I like the Candy Factory activity Kendra. It sounds like it will take the more conceptual ideas into a concrete reenactment. I just have to find the time to do it right. Thanks for all the ideas! Mahalo, Jason

Hi Ross -

I have used the Teach Genetics site from the University of Utah with my high schoolers, but it would definitely be a neat addition to whatever lesson you decide to teach. They have a cell size and scale comparison that shows the students just how small a cell is.

They also have an exploration of animal and plant cells which has all the different organelles listed and described. This might be too much for your students, but it's a great reference for you.

Hopefully these work for you!

Hi Helen, I agree, students have a difficult time at this age to understand the differences between animal and plant cells! Your activity sounds like a lot of fun and very effective! I found a site that lists the differences, similarities and all attributes. You can click which you would like to view and the chart changes with an explnation. It also gives a diagram so students can have another visual to help them see. This site could be used afterwards to clarify and check their observations and thoughts. Thanks for the great idea! I'm looking forward to trying to trying it and having my students get a better understanding! www.diffen.com/difference/Animal_cell_vs_plant_cell Aloha, Tara

Wow! I am also in the middle of teaching animal & plant cell to my 4th grade students. I noticed that this year my students are very artistic, kinesthetic, and visual. I agree that the SciPack is very difficult for 4th grade. I had them watch videos on Discovery Education. I also used StudyJam.com. This is an excellent website that not only includes visuals, but also songs. I am also planning on doing a cell model next week using Jell-O (ready made) where they can cut it in half and use candy to identify the different parts of the cell. To incorporate reading and writing, I will have them read an article about animal & plant cells where they have to use context clue to define vocabulary words such as cells, vacuoles...etc. They will then complete a graphic organizer to compare & contrast animal and plant cells, and then use it to write a compare and contrast essay. To incorporate art, I will have them draw animal and plant cells and label their parts. Thank you all for sharing!

I was doing the science objective involving cell functions and I loved the activity where it showed the head of a pin and zoomed in on the different cells. I think students can better understand the world of a cell after seeing this.

Hi Everyone! Thank you for all of your wonderful ideas for reinforcing the differences between plant and animal cells. I also teach 4th grade and love the idea of using jello and candy! Thank you Helen for the fantastic idea! This year I was very fortunate to have a parent who is a cellular biologist. She offered to bring in one of her microscopes to the classroom, took cheek scrapings from each student, and then the students were able to view their cells. It was an experience that the students enjoyed and several told me afterwards that they wanted to become cellular biologists when they grew up! Since I won’t have the luxury of having this parent come in every year, I hope to continue to do something similar. I am doing some digging to partner with a hospital close to our school and hopefully, we will be able to welcome more scientists to the classroom!