One of the biggest challenges for teaching biology is helping students learn the vocabulary that is foreign to them. I took to a beach ball to assess what the students knew about each of the macromolecules.
Anytime you can get a part of the beach into your classroom you need to take advantage of it. This activity works great to supplement the Biochemistry Boxing Activitythat you can get free here by signing up for email updates.
Vocabulary Activity
To do this activity you will need a beach ball and a dry erase marker. Write the names of the macromolecules or any vocabulary terms on each section of the beach ball.
Toss the ball to the students and when they catch it they look to see where their right thumb lands and say the definition of the word their thumb landed on.
I then have the students throw the ball back to me to prevent them from being tempted to bounce it off their classmates heads.
Participation is 100% and it allow me to assess their knowledge of the vocabulary. If a students thumb lands on wild they get to pick the vocabulary term. The kids did not want to stop this activity.
The interactive notebook has been a great teaching tool for me for the last few years. The Interactive Science Notebook (INB) is a learning tool that involves an “input” (right side) of teacher’s notes and handouts. It also include an “output” section (left side) that allows students to creatively relate that information to their own experiences or organize the information in a variety of proven techniques or best practices. The versatility of the interactive notebook is only limited by the student or the teacher, therefore it has no limits. Throughout the year, I will post a variety of engaging examples that I use in my classroom. You will be amazed how the interactive notebook reaches all of the learning styles in your classroom and allows students to personalize their learning. I am currently in the process of gathering, organizing and explaining how I implement the activities I do throughout the year into a book. The left side of the notebook is for graphic organizers, charts, stories, raps, poems, pictures and more. The right side is used for notes and teacher handouts (“input”)
Note: Successfully implementing the Interactive Notebook involves extensive set-up and procedures but the pay-off is worth it.
This week we began biochemistry. We focus on the structure,function, examples and pictures of the four macromolecules. I have developed an effective lesson that uses printable macromolecule boxes that my students really enjoy using. There are 3 different games/activities that I use to help my students grasp this concept. This lesson is more than worth a try. It is easy, you will love this and so will the kids.
