TEYL & CLIL: Science - Cristian Bastidas, Jessica Rodríguez, Ricardo Yepes

 Early Childhood Teaching and Learning: TEYL & CLIL: SCIENCE

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Expository text

Questions

Questions to activate prior knowledge In order to introduce the text, we are going to ask kids the following questions:
Questions	Answers of a third grader
What do you know about plants?	Possible answer: Plants can be used for many things such as decoration, to make medicines, or to give us oxygen. (Answered by a third grader girl)
Where can you find plants? What plants have you seen?	Possible answer: I see trees and flowers when I am in the street or in the park. (Answered by a third grader girl)
Questions to focus students’ attention on the text We are going to share with students the handouts with the texts, and ask them to look at the papers while we ask these questions:
What do you see in the handout?	Expected answer: Images of seeds, flowers, leaves, a fox and a seed dressed as gardeners and with gardening tools like a watering can, a flowerpot and a rake.
Which words do you recognize?	Expected answer: Seeds, plants, water, sun’s light, grow/growing, dirt, roots, stem, leaves, flowers.
Questions to invite students to make predictions before reading the expository text Since children will have already recognized some words and the topic that we are going to cover, we will ask them these questions which they can answer as they read the text.
What do you imagine a seed needs to grow?	Expected answer: Seeds need water, sunlight, and soil.
What do you think is the relationship between seeds and plants?	Expected answer: The relationship between seeds and plants is that seeds can develop into plants, and plants can produce new seeds.
Questions to invite students to make predictions while reading the expository text Different students will be asked to read each of the sentences aloud so we can read it all together. We will take two breaks to share the answers to the questions below. We, as teachers, will listen to the students' responses and complement them with the following information and images.
While reading How do seeds grow?: Do you think a bean is a seed? Why?	Yes, beans are seeds because if you sow a bean plant, it germinates with stems, leaves and more seeds.
While reading How plants work?: Have you seen this plant? Do you know its name? Do you know where its seeds are?	This is a dandelion. These are dandelion seeds. They are attached to something called “pappus” (the little white hair). These seeds can be easily released by a puff of breath.
Questions after reading the text Finally, this question will be asked in order to help them to monitor their comprehension of the text.
Are plants living things? How do we know it?	Expected answer: Yes, plants are living things. We know it because they grow (they start growing from a seed), they eat (water, for example), they move as they grow and to catch sunlight, and they reproduce (they can create new seeds).

Audio of the text

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Main ideas

Connections between the text content and their own personal experiences

●     🍀 Kids can establish a connection between this topic in English and the subject of biology, because in it, they deeply learn about the way plants are composed, the kind of plants there are in the world and how important they are in environmental terms.

●      🍀  Most of the time, grandparents (specially grandmothers) have a garden where they have planted. If this situation is factual for students, it could be a good chance to ask their grandparents about that topic and relate it to what they have learned in class.

●   🍀Bogotá’s Botanical Garden is a good place to see plants from diverse environments in Colombia. This place is often visited by families and couples to have a nice time while learning about the kind of plants that can be found in our country. Therefore, it is very possible that young learners can visit this place and confirm what they learned during class.

Cycle diagram

Video (experiment)

The experiment is divided into two parts:

🍀1🍀

🍀2🍀

Comprehension questions about the video

1. How was the experiment divided into 4 cups?

The first one will have                   a plant needs; the second one will not have                ; the third one will not have                  , and the fourth one will have              instead of               .

 

Answer: The first one will have everything a plant needs; the second one will not have sunlight; the third one will not have water, and the fourth one will have sand instead of soil.

2. What were the expectations of the experiment?

The cups without sunlight and soil to grow    __      ; the cup with all elements to grow          ; the cup without water              to grow at all.

 

Answer: The cups without sunlight and soil to grow a little; the cup with all elements to grow a lot; the cup without water not to grow at all. 

3. Why did the cup without sunlight grow that much and why it is yellow?

Because the seeds were looking for             to feed themselves and without that it cannot produce                       .

 

Answer: Because the seeds were looking for light to feed themselves and without that it cannot produce chlorophyll.