Lesson Plan - Technology / Mobile Laptop Lab   				10/1/2004

Classes - 3-410 (Starer) , 3-411 (Herrmann)

Aim: Students will understand and appreciate the contributions of the buffalo to Native American and American society.  Students will utilize their laptop computers to gather information and apply new learning as it relates to the buffalo.

Motivation: We warm up laptops while we are walking back to the Read Aloud Rug. Patron Catalog demonstration. Presentation of maps of United States and New York State, and the Bronx. Read aloud.  Demonstration of how to navigate selected web sites.

Vocabulary Words: buffalo, extinction, sustain, nourish, ancient

Procedure: 

Step 1 – Read aloud with short questions and vocabulary.

Step 2 – Working with the students on finding information

Step 3 – Students are working on their own worksheet.

My Own Script

We’re going to try something very different today – We’re going to turn the laptops on, just to get them warmed up and then immediately head on back to the rug so I can show you some things on your classroom eMac and read you a very wonderful book:

Read aloud book: They Came from the Bronx.
Recommended by my ten year old son on Monday.
How I found the book – Public library was open but it was checked out, libraries that had it were closed.  Tuesday I decided to see if Ms. Lamantia had it in our library.  I want to show you how easy it was to find the book: [Demo use of Patron Catalog] 

I looked through the numbers on the shelf until I came to number 394.26 and there it was.
The reason I’ve covered up the picture on the front cover is because I wanted to see if we could try and guess what sort of genre this book falls under ….. “They Came from the Bronx” – fiction or non-fiction?

Now that I’ve removed the paper what do you think?  What’s that a picture of?  What are buffalo?
The subtitle of this book is How the Buffalo were Saved from Extinction.  “Extinction” – that should be another vocabulary word, alongside “buffalo.”

[2nd Demo of Patron’s Catalog] I’m going to see what happens if I put the key word, “extinction” in Ms. Lamantia’s database and see if she’s got any books about that word … Holy cow!  Imagine how great it would be if Ms. Cortes would let you go down to the library and each hunt for your own book on this topic!  I know Ms. Lamantia would love it because she’s been telling me how lonely she is down there because not enough children have been stopping down to borrow books.  By the way, there’s an important trick you need to know in order to quit this program. You need the password, the first four letters of the word “circus” - circ

Getting back to the book we’re about to read, here are two more vocabulary words: “nourish” and “sustain.”  Nourish means to provide the kind of food or water you need to keep healthy and growing and sustain also to provide what you need to keep you alive, but it doesn’t have to be food.  It can be clothing, medicine or even … books!

This book’s title says “They came from the Bronx,” but does anyone know where buffalo really first came from?  I am going to show you a map of the United States, since this animal is called “The American Buffalo.”

I’m going to use my favorite Web Site, to find the map, but first I need to open up a browser.  Does anyone happen to know which folder has Safari in it

http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/web_games.htm
http://www.nyskwic.org/access_data/map_select.cfm

I’m about to begin this story, and I want you to notice something right away.  This book is really two stories that are happening at the same time.  One story is about a Native American boy and his grandmother out in Oklahoma, and the other story is about 15 buffalo that got shipped all the way from the Bronx Zoo back out to Oklahoma, where the two stories finally come together.  The story take place one hundred years ago.

[READ STORY]

Refer back to vocabulary words, “sustain” and “nourish.”
“What parts of the buffalo could be used by Native Americans to help sustain them through the winter?  What parts could be used for nourishment?

Did you know that you can get buffalo burgers nowadays in many restaurants?  I’m going to show you a chart that tells you how much people are paying for a buffalo these days …

The Fort Niobrara Annual Bison Sale, October 8, 2003!

But first you need one last vocabulary word – another word that means buffalo: bison
Also: “mature” (that means grown up), “cow” and “bull.”  Which one is the mommy and which one is the daddy?

I see that they sold for buffalo cows … the most expensive one cost $375 … if you round that up to the nearest hundred that’s $400, but it still doesn’t sound all that much to me. And the average price was only $264.  A four year old bull would run you an average of $625.  Would you round that up or down to get to the nearest $100?  How about that Mature Cow … Would you round that up or down?  Now if the Cow costs roughly $300 and the Bull costs $600 how many times as expensive was the bull? Think about it … but I want to move on.

If we navigate back to our school’s own little Buffalo Page, there’s a very wonderful site linked to the Part I activity, What Can You Make from a Buffalo?

I’m about to click on that long location, but first I’d like someone to stand up and read direction #2:

I’m going to read number #3 “Read entire window, scroll down before writing”
Let’s try it out.  I’m clicking at the top where it says Skin and Fur.  Now I’m picking the object at the bottom that looks like a pair of shoes.”
How about the teeth?  Notice how they turn green, to show that they’ve been selected.  I don’t know what this thing on the right is, but it looks kind of like teeth to me… I got a pink box but it doesn’t say I was correct this time.  How about this thing on the left that looks like a necklace?  That’s Correct, but I can’t see what it says ….. thank you, Mr. Padilla, I guess I’d better use the slider.  And don’t forget to close the window down, like it says in the instructions.

OK, I’d better let you folks get started now.  We’re going to be using Safari

[Independent Worksheet Activity]  

We’re only going to be doing this for five to ten minutes, because I still want to show you one more thing back by your classroom computer, but this time I want to have someone try it out next to me on the other eMac, so let’s see how quickly you can shut down the laptops when  I give the signal, and come back over to the rug.

[Demo download of Powerpoint presentation] – Ask some one to try to search for the word, buffalo, and the word endangered.