Science Grade PK Student Monitoring Plan

Name: School Year:      
 
Skills and Processes: Students will demonstrate the thinking and acting inherent in the practice of science.
Constructing Knowledge
  Raise questions about the world around them and be willing to seek answers to some of them by making careful observations and trying things out.
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Describe what can be learned about things by just observing those things carefully and adding information by sometimes doing something to the things and noting what happens.
           
Seek information through reading, observation, exploration, and investigations.
           
Use tools such as thermometers, magnifiers, rulers, or balances to extend their senses and gather data.
           
Explain that when a science investigation is done the way it was done before, we expect to get a very similar result.
           
Participate in multiple experiences to verify that science investigations generally work the same way in different places.
           
Suggest things that you could do to find answers to questions raised by observing objects and/or phenomena (events such as, water disappearing from the classroom aquarium or a pet's water bowl).
           
Use whole numbers and simple, everyday fractions in ordering, counting, identifying, measuring, and describing things and experiences.
           

 
Applying Evidence and Reasoning
  People are more likely to believe your ideas if you can give good reasons for them.
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Provide reasons for accepting or rejecting ideas examined.
           
Develop reasonable explanations for observations made, investigations completed, and information gained by sharing ideas and listening to others' ideas.
           
Explain why it is important to make some fresh observations when people give different descriptions of the same thing.
           

 
Communicating Scientific Information
  Ask, "How do you know?" in appropriate situations and attempt reasonable answers when others ask them the same question.
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Describe things as accurately as possible and compare observations with those of others.
           
Describe and compare things in terms of number, shape, texture, size, weight, color, and motion.
           
Draw pictures that correctly portray at least some features of the thing being described and sequence events (seasons, seed growth).
           
Have opportunities to work with a team, share findings with others, and recognize that all team members should reach their own conclusions about what the findings mean.
           
Recognize that everybody can do science and invent things and ideas.
           

 
Technology
  Design and make things with simple tools and a variety of materials.
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Make something out of paper, cardboard, wood, plastic, metal, or existing objects that can actually be used to perform a task.
           
Recognize that tools are used to do things better or more easily and to do some things that could not otherwise be done at all.
           
Assemble, describe, take apart and reassemble constructions using interlocking blocks, erector sets and the like.
           
Recognize that some kinds of materials are better than others for making any particular thing, for example, materials that are better in some ways (such as stronger and cheaper) may be worse in other ways (such as heavier and harder to cut).
           
Explain that sometimes it is not possible to make or do everything that is designed.
           

 
  Practice identifying the parts of things and how one part connects to and affects another.
Objective(s) Date/
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Investigate a variety of objects to identify that most things are made of parts
           
Explain that something may not work if some of its parts are missing.
           
Explain that when parts are put together, they can do things that they couldn't do by themselves.
           

 
  Examine a variety of physical models and describe what they teach about the real things they are meant to resemble.
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Explain that a model of something is different from the real thing but can be used to learn something about the real thing.
           
Realize that one way to describe something is to say how it is like something else.
           

 

January 2008

 

Science Grade PK Student Monitoring Plan

Name: School Year:      
 
Earth/Space Science: Students will use scientific skills and processes to explain the chemical and physical interactions (i.e., natural forces and cycles, transfer of energy) of the environment, Earth, and the universe that occur over time.
Interactions of Hydrosphere and Atmosphere
  Describe the weather using observations.
Objective(s) Date/
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Observe and describe the weather using senses.
           
Describe qualititative changes in weather, such as temperatures, precipitation, wind, etc.
           

 

January 2008

 

Science Grade PK Student Monitoring Plan

Name: School Year:      
 
Life Science: The students will use scientific skills and processes to explain the dynamic nature of living things, their interactions, and the results from the interactions that occur over time.
Diversity of Life
  Observe a variety of familiar plants and animals to describe how they are alike and how they are different.
Objective(s) Date/
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Gather information about how some animals are alike in the way they look and in the things they do.
           
Gather information about how some plants are alike in the way they look and in the things they do.
           
Draw a picture of two animals that look alike (or plants) and of two animals (or plants) that look different and respond to questions that are raised by those who observe the pictures.
           
Identify some of the things that all animals do, such as eat, move around and explain how their features (observable parts) help them do these things.
           

 
Genetics
  Observe, describe and compare different kinds of animals and their offspring
Objective(s) Date/
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Recognize and describe the similarities and differences among familiar animals and their offspring.
           
Describe how offspring are very much, but not exactly, like their parents and like one another.
           

 

January 2008

 

Science Grade PK Student Monitoring Plan

Name: School Year:      
 
Chemistry: Students will use scientific skills and processes to explain the composition, structure, and interactions of matter in order to support the predictability of structure and energy transformations.
Structure of Matter
  Use evidence from investigations to describe the observable properties of a variety of objects.
Objective(s) Date/
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Comments
Examine and describe a variety of familiar objects in terms of the materials from which they are made (clay, cloth, paper, etc).
           
Based on data gathered, describe the observable properties of familiar objects (size, shape, color, and texture).
           

 

January 2008