Learning About Hot and Cold

Today our little class did a fun lesson on hot and cold (as part of our unit on energy).  We started by touching hot and cold packs to review vocabulary.  (I was able to pick up hot and cold packs in the dollar section at Target.)  Next we did a "story problem".  The story problem read, "George wears a hat and long sleeves when it is cold outside.  He wears short sleeves when it is hot outside.  Look at each pictures and talk about it.  Decide if it is hot or cold outside in the picture.  Glue the symbol for hot or cold under the picture."  Students answers by speaking, pointing to a symbol, placing the symbol on the picture or using their eye gaze boards.  Some students goals were more about exploring hot and cold as a means of sensory exploration and they touched or held the hot or cold pack to match each picture. (Much data was collected for alternative assessment during this phase of the lesson.)

After finishing our work we had a most excellent competition.  The students and staff divided into two teams, Team Hot and Team Cold.  Each team had to cut out as many pictures of people dressed for their named temperature as possible and glue it on a poster board.  The team with the most pictures of people glued on their board in 45 minutes would win.  The only other rules were no duplicate images and students must be fully participating (as we can be a pretty competitive bunch of adults).  In the end the music therapist arrived in time to be our judge.  Team Hot has 115 people dressed for hot weather on their board.  Team Cold had 111 people dressed for cold weather.  However, after calls for a re-count it was determined that it was a tie at 112 to 112.  Thank you to music therapist Monica for judging our competition.