EDUC 2220- Educational Technology

Infant-Pre-K Curriculum Plan: Technology-Based Lesson/Activity

Your Name: Christina Short Activity Title: Nature Scavenger Hunt

Number of children participating at one time: 3-4 children/ whole class Ages: Preschool, 3-5 years

Activities written for previous classes cannot be re-used and must be the original work of the student.

Ohio Early Domain: Cognition and General Knowledge

Learning &
Sub Domain: Science
Developmen
t Standards: Strand: Science Inquiry and Application

List at least 1 Topic: Inquiry

standard that
Standard Statement: “Describe, compare, sort, classify, and order.”
is addressed
by this activity.
Write out each
component
completely
and exactly,
as published in
ELDS.

Lesson
The children will go on a scavenger hunt through the wooded outdoor classroom area. They
Summary:
will use their ipads to take pictures of items found in nature that match a list of pictures given to
them. They will later play an online game where they sort the items to the appropriate color
category.

Estimated
Since we are working with preschool aged children who have shorter attention spans and also
Duration:
thrive on routine, we will split this lesson plan up into parts. To do this, we will have the entire
lesson in 5-15-20/30 minute increments over the course of 4 days.
Preparation What preparation is needed?
of materials I will need to buy or check out a book from the library for the literacy part. I will need to take
and pictures of all the nature items surrounding the outdoor classroom. After taking the pictures I'll
environment need to crop and organize them on a document, and upload them to my lesson plan for the
children to access through seesaw. I will also need to create a game to help the children sort
their pictures into the correct color categories. I will need to make sure the student’s ipads are
charged.

What materials will be used?

The materials needed will be the book, “We’re Going on a Nature Hunt”, by Steve Metzger, 3-4
ipads for each child, magnifying glasses, and baskets. Also an outdoor chalkboard and chalk
for list taking.

How will the learning environment be set up?

As I have mentioned in every aspect, my philosophy on education and my “classroom” is an
outdoor experience. Using what we are given naturally in the outdoors, combined with the use
of technology using the ipads is what this lesson is all about. The set up of the environment will
simply be the outdoor area which would look like a flourishing backyard with a garden. The
place where children can take their ipads once they’ve finished taking pictures and need to
then do work will be either the circle time area, cozy corner, or somewhere in the grass.

Instructional Procedures:

Day 1:
Day one of this lesson plan will begin with all the children coming to circle time. After finishing our normal circle
time/ beginning of the day activities we will begin with a 5 minute introduction of the lesson for that week. To
begin this lesson I will look around outside and exclaim how excited I am that it’s so sunny outside! I will begin to
talk about all the different things I see just around us and begin asking if anyone has ever noticed how many
plants we have around us.
I will ask some open ended questions and try to spark inquiry within the children. I will ask them if they can help
me make a list of some things they’ve found around our classroom, at the park, in their backyard, or some
things they think they might find! The discussion and list making will go on for about 10 minutes.
I will let them know we are going to be learning about our surroundings (outdoor classroom) this week and all
the things we can discover.

For the next 15 minutes, I will introduce the book I’m going to read and then read the book, “We’re Going on a
Nature Hunt”, by Steve Metzger.

I will then finish with letting the children know that we are going to be going on our own scavenger hunt
tomorrow and learn more about everything around us.

Day 2:

Day two will start at a more focused lesson time rather than the circle time. I will let all the children know that
we are going to be doing an art project at the end of the week that they can take home and discuss with their
parents all the near things they discovered! I will explain to the children that we will be going outside and
collecting leaves, acorns, flower petals, sticks, bark, or anything they find that they like in their baskets to create
their art project. The children will also be given magnifying glasses while they search for items to get a better
look and inquire. After they’re done collecting they will come give me their baskets. I will also reiterate that we
are also doing a scavenger hunt so I will be giving them ipads and having the children take turns in groups of
3-4 children at a time either doing their scavenger hunt or collecting their items while an assistant teacher
watches as the others free play.

The amount of time for the explanation will be 5 minutes.

The amount of time given for the search and picture taking outside will be 15 minutes per group.

Day 3:

Day 3 will consist of the biggest part of the lesson plan where the children will spend 20-30 minutes during their
lesson time to finish their scavenger hunt if needed and to do their matching game on the seesaw app. The
matching game will include the children looking at the pictures from the scavenger hunt and categorizing
them into their matching color groups.

Day 4:
On day 4, the children will finish up the lesson plan for the week by using the materials they gathered and
creating an art project they can take home. The children will be given the opportunity to find more materials if
they wish before and during the creation of their art project. They’ll have access to all art materials, crayons,
scissors, glue, paper, ect. in the classroom and all the natural materials they gathered outside to create a
completely unique piece of artwork. The time frame for this will be 20-30 minutes because it’s very important for
children to have the max amount of time for creativity. After they’ve finished their creations, I will use the ipad
to take pictures of everyone's artwork and upload it on their own profile and in the lesson plan to share through
the app with families. They’ll take their finished artwork home and share with their parents what they learned.

Day 5:

This day will be more of a free play day for most of the children. However, I will look into the app and see how
everyone did with their games and picture taking and see if I need to revisit anything with any of the students. I
will use the 30 minute window of normal lesson time to catch up with this. The 30 minute window will also be
used for any student who needs or chooses to finish their artwork.

Extension
https://tinybop.com/apps/plants

This is a link to an app that is a super interactive game where children can learn about different environments,
plants, and animals and how everything is correlated!
Differentiated Instructional Support: Describe how instruction can be differentiated (changed or altered) to
meet the needs of gifted or accelerated students: I could offer a different game or another on top of the given
lesson where students need to sort what items are edible and not edible that they find in the outdoor
classroom. Some examples would be rocks, sticks, and bark being non-edible versus the watermelon, lettuce,
and tomatoes growing in the garden being edible. I could take this even further into a lesson plan on things in
the wild that are edible like certain types of mushrooms, plants, and dandelions.

Discuss additional activities you could do to meet the needs of students who might be struggling with the
material: It is known that all students learn differently so I think that having some cards printed with the pictures
in hand or different pictures may help some students. Possibly also having colored cards or something to draw
more attention to items to better assist those needing more help.

Vocabulary: Categorizing/ Sorting, Color Coding, Roots (of the tree)

For teachers As a teacher of this lesson, I will be using my ipad/ computer to create the lesson for
my students through the seesaw app. This will ensure students all have access to the
lesson and games they will play. I will need to have a copy of the book I'm reading. I
will also need baskets and art supplies for the artwork. I will need magnifying glasses
for further discovery.

For students The students will need their ipads for this lesson. They can access the lesson through
the seesaw app our classroom uses. Through the app, the children will be able to see
the document I created of what they need to be looking for on their scavenger hunt
and to log into the games they need to play after. They will also use the ipad to take
pictures while they are outside to match with the ones I’ve provided. The students will
also need baskets to collect any materials outdoors they’d like to make for their art
project and magnifying glasses for more discovery.