How It's Made

It's the end of the school year, reports are written, units are finished and students are itching to go on summer vacation. This means I have been giving students a lot of choice, and doing one off lessons, including digital citizenship sessions, from Common Sense Media, and game making with Ready Maker. I've also had a few students test out typing.com. This site is free, and gives me lots of data on my students keyboarding skills. I can also set activities, (so can give them interesting articles to re-type, or the IB mission/Learner Profile). The students are really enjoying typing.com and a number of students are asking to do more of it! We plan to bring in some keyboarding activities in advisory next year, as some of grade 10s said they found typing a challenge in their e-assessments, (mostly not being able to type as fast as they think).

I usually start off my classes my having students look at a mystery object and guess what it is. Students are rewarded for coming up with interesting ideas, asking questions and explaining their reasoning. This is very popular and students look forward to this. I thought about spending a lesson doing this, at the end of the year, but I decided to change it up. Instead I will have students guess how common objects are made. After they guess each item, we will watch a short video from 'How It's Made'. I will have students work in small groups to come up with ideas, which we will share out to the class, before watching the videos.
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I've included gummy bears, mascara, Lego bricks, safety goggles, shuttlecocks and paintballs. We will then look through the channel and pick out some extra videos to watch.  Feel free to use the presentation or make your own copy (click 'File' then 'Make a Copy').

This did not take much time to make at all, is a very simple idea, but I believe it will have excellent results and most importantly, my students will have fun!