Grade: 3rd grade
Subject: Language Arts/ Social Studies
Topic: Writing About Personal Experiences of Good Citizens using Ozobots
Description: Students will write a personal narrative about how they have acted in the past to improve the community or how they would like to act in the future to improve their community. Students will include words that create visuals in the reader’s mind. Once finished writing, the students will code Ozobots based on what they included in their writing.
LA TEK: 3.19a write about important personal experiences, 3.10a identify language that creates a graphic visual experience and appeals to the senses, 3.12b identify examples of actions individuals and groups can take to improve the community
Technology TEK: (1)Creativity and innovation (A) create original products using a variety of resources; (2) Communication and collaboration (A) draft, edit, and publish products in different media individually and collaboratively; (3) (D) Acquire information appropriate to specific tasks.
Lesson: Once you have taught what a good citizen is, ask students to reflect upon their own actions. How have they helped their community? Give one sheet of paper to each table group and ask them to fold it in half. Students think, pair, share with their table group as to what they have done to help their community (this can include things they have observed their family do). Have students make a list at their table group on the left side of the paper of what they have done. Allow five minutes. Then ask students to think, pair, share about what they would like to do to help their community. Make a list on the right side of the paper of what they would like to do.
Students will now use these lists to help them write a personal narrative. This will be one of their first writing experiences of the year, and will be used as a pre-assessment so that the teacher can see the writing ability the students are coming with. Ask students to write about a time they have helped their community. If they have not, they may write about how they would like to help their community. Remind them to include imagery and sensory words that give the reader a graphic visual in their head. When writing, ask student to skip lines. This space will be where students will later add in the coding for their Ozobot.
You may want to let students practice how to draw lines for the Ozobot on blank white paper before they draw the lines on their paper. One Ozobot per table group should be sufficient. See the videos in the resources section to learn how to use Ozobots.
In the spaces between each line of writing, students will draw a path for their Ozobot. For each place that they used a sensory word or created a visual image, students will code the Ozobot to do a trick underneath those words. For each place the student mentions something they did to help their community, students can code the Ozobot to do a different trick. Students should have the Ozobot follow a path throughout the entire paper, doing tricks every time imagery or community acts are mentioned. Students can make a key at the bottom to say when each trick will happen. Caution: once students figure out that they get to only code tricks when they mention these things, they will want to rewrite and make their paper better- build in time for a rewrite and some great learning- hurray!
4Cs: Creativity, Communication
Resources: Ozobots
Device Type: Ozobots can be checked out through Library or Instructional Technology Departments, see your ITS or Librarian.