Lesson 1: Thinking about How Things Change

2nd Grade Balance and Motion Unit Blueprint—Investigation 3: Rollers

Pacing Suggestions (45-60 minute lessons):

Day 1—Part 1: Rolling Wheels
Day 2—Part 2: Rolling Cups
Day 3—Rolling, Rolling, Rolling! FOSS Science Story
Days 4 & 5—Part 3: Rolling Spheres

Teacher Resources:
	Rollers Lab Sheet (Adobe^® Reader^® PDF) Cups Lab Sheet (Adobe Reader PDF) Spheres Lab Sheet (Adobe Reader PDF)	Rollers Lab Sheet (Microsoft^® Word^®) Cups Lab Sheet (Microsoft Word) Spheres Lab Sheet (Microsoft Word)

Essential & Unit Questions ¹

Benchmarks ²

Formative and Summative Assessments ³

Using Assessments to Monitor Student Learning

What are parts? Why are parts important for some things?

11A(K-2)#1: Most things are made of parts.

11A(K-2)#2: Something may not work if some of its parts are missing.

11A(K-2)#3: When parts are put together, they can do things that they couldn't do by themselves.

12C(K-2)#3: Make something out of paper, cardboard, wood, plastic, metal, or existing objects that can actually be used to perform a task.

Rolling Wheels

Class discussion/sharing about wheel systems (See Step 10 on page 10 in Teacher's Guide.)

Rolling Wheels

As a result of exploration, do students understand that the wheel and axel work together to make the wheel system function?
Do students discover that different configurations yield different types of movement?
Do students discover that the parts have to be put together a certain way in order for the wheel system to work properly?

What are some descriptions of the way things move?

4F(K-2)#1: Things move in many different ways, such as straight, zigzag, round and round, back and forth, and fast and slow.

Rolling Wheels

Class discussions about different kinds of motion (See Steps 1, 6 & 12 on pages 9 & 11 in Teacher's Guide.)
Student lab book question: Describe how your roller (wheel system) moves.*

Rolling Cups

Class discussions about the way the cups move (See Steps 4 & 13 on pages 15 & 17 in Teacher's Guide.)
Student predictions about motion of cups (See Step 10 on page 17 in Teacher's Guide.)
Student lab book questions: (1) Describe how one cup moves down the ramp. (2) Describe how two cups taped together move down a ramp. (3) When pennies are added, how does the movement of the cups down the ramp change?*

Rolling Spheres

Class discussion about the way marbles (spheres) move (See questions under bullet points 2 & 3 in Step 15 on page 25 in Teacher's Guide.)
Student lab book question: Describe how your marble moves.*

*Lab book questions available under "Teacher Resources" section

Rolling Wheels

Class discussions about different kinds of motion: Are students able to distinguish between rolling and spinning? Following "Show-and-Tell" (Step 12), do students recognize differences in speed and motion of the various rollers?
Student lab book question: Do students provide accurate and detailed descriptions about how their rollers move (fast, slow, zigzag...)?

Rolling Cups

Class discussions about the way the cups move: Do students recognize the different ways the cups move?
Student predictions about motion of cups: Can students accurately predict/describe the motion of the cups?
Student lab book question: Do students provide accurate and detailed descriptions about how their cups move (fast, slow, zigzag, straight...)?

Rolling Spheres

Class discussion about the way marbles (spheres) move: Do students know that a sphere moves in all directions? Do students know that ultimately, the marble always moves down?
Student lab book question: Do students provide accurate and detailed descriptions about how their marble moves (fast, slow, down...)?

12D(K-2)#2: Draw pictures that correctly portray at least some features of the thing being described.

Rolling Wheels and Rolling Spheres

Students draw pictures in their lab books of the assembled items. (Lab sheets available under "Teacher Resources" section)

Note: The FOSS Teacher's Guide does not direct the teacher to have students draw pictures of the various systems. This is a valuable experience and has been added to the unit. It also reinforces the benchmarks related to "parts."

Do students make legible drawings? Are students' drawings showing improvement in organization/legibility?
Do the pictures correctly portray some of the features? Are students including more features/details in their drawings?
Do the students' drawings contain accurate and complete labels?

What is necessary to keep an object from falling to the ground?

4G(K-2)#1: Things near the earth fall to the ground unless something holds them up.

Rolling Spheres

Class discussion about how the ball will move if the runway is sloped downwards (See Step 9 on page 24 in Teacher's Guide. Note: In order to assess students' understanding of why the marble goes down, the class discussion will have to go beyond the three points in the Teacher's Guide. Consider asking "Why does the marble go down the runway?")

Do students' know that the marble ultimately goes down?
Do students understand that if the runway is sloped, the marble is not fully supported and moves (falls) down the runway?

For conceptual benchmarks.
Bolded Sections indicate portion of benchmark addressed.
Unless noted as a Summative Assessment, the assessments are formative and should be used to guide teaching and learning.