End of the Year Activity - Roller Coaster Unit
Desperado, Nitro & Goliath are just a few of the roller coasters students learned about on the last 2 1/2 days of school. This thematic unit (designed by a teacher, Lovin' Lit, from Louisiana as a 7 hour plan for subs) included activities that related to all areas of the curriculum from reading non-fiction articles, recording and analyzing statistics, using map skills, to comparing and contrasting kinetic & potential energy. Videos and pictures of roller coasters were used to engage students. Sharing their war stories about being on a roller coaster helped them make connections. Then following directions students slowly created a lap book using the information about the roller coasters. They made bar graphs, learned about energy through this song . The final activity was to build their own roller coaster using simple materials. The designs were unique and many worked. I believe if we had more time - ALL of them would...