Transcript

[Here is] an example of how I integrate science with literacy.  This is Magnet Man.  Magnet Man is a character that I create with the students to integrate our science unit on magnets with literacy. So, Magnet Man is made out of rope and it's hot glued together.  At the end of each of the arms and each of the legs is a magnet.  The children choose how they want to have their heads and where the arms and legs go.  We also have to be careful the children have to know, use what they know about magnets so that opposite poles are together so that they can grab things and such.  

With this character, I find it's very motivating for students, especially boys because its something that they can hold on to, and something that's really quite different from something that they might have at home or have had experience with before.  So they use this character in their narrative to write a story that has to use what they know about magnets.  So my requirement of the children is for them to use what they know about magnets in the story.  

For example, if this is a super hero, then they have to use their magnets somehow to rescue a character that's in distress.  They write these stories in their journals, their rough copy of course.  Then they will edit it using our editors checklist.  And then, once they finish that, they do a good copy.  The good copy, I have them do it on cash register tape, which is very long. I make a big ceremony of it, I make a big, long piece, I tear it off, and I put it around their neck, and they very proudly go back to their desk.  They now have to write the story on one long sentence after another; one long story like this.  They then take the story once its finished and they roll it up. This is one that one little girl has done.  Shes written her story, this one is called, Apos Adventures to Space.  And so they'll roll it up, and we put the paper clip on it.  It has to be of course a metal paper clip to work with the magnets.  

And then, Magnet Man can then hold his own adventure story.  As an extension to this project, we then have the children work in partners to create a movie.  And they have to plan with their partner a movie starring their two magnet men.  I have a little planner that I have the children write up, that outlines the setting, and the problem, and the solution, because I find when children make movies, they often go into free-play mode which means the story is the never-ending story that goes on and on, and you really need to make sure that you have the children focus that there's the beginning, and the middle, and the end.