Secondary teacher needs help with Year 1 tasks

[Greenandcabbagelooking]

I'm welcoming some Year 1s into my science lab soon. I'm a Secondary trained teacher, and although I have experience with children that age in a non-school setting, I have very little idea what I can expect them to be able to do, either independently or with support.

The task will be choosing the most appropriate material (from a selection provided) for different purposes. Then justify why they have chosen that material. Challenge task is to say why one other would not be suitable.

Will they be able to fill in a table? Do they need the names of the materials provided?

And on a practical level, do I need to make my worksheet in cursive font, or will Ariel/TNR be ok? I can't even do cursive writing myself!

Thank you Primary colleagues!

I would say they would be able to fill in a table with some support (been a while since I was in Y1). Some of them won't be able to read well enough to read column headings etc. I would say definitely yes to names of materials provided if you want anyone to be able to read them afterwards!

My school insists everything be in a cursive font (there are free downloadable ones out there) but I can't see that anyone would have a problem if yours wouldn't, since you're not a teacher in their school - they're coming to you. If you don't go for cursive, though, I would go for something with "normal" a's, like Comic Sans.

I would maybe lean towards having the materials in front of them and dividing them into "suitable" and "unsuitable" rather than filling in a table, as they would probably spend most of their time filling in the table rather than doing the actual science. Group work and share their answers verbally?

I would say that Y1 would be able to fill in a table if you made it nice and visual for them - eg pictures of the material as well as its name, examples of what you want them to do - maybe a sheet blown up so you can show them yours.
I would go for a cursive over comic sans any day.
Concentrate on the science and make everything else really visual then you can't go wrong. Some of them might surprise you.

Rather than writing the name of the material into the table why don't you let them glue little squares of each different one into the relevant column? Those that can write can put the name underneath if it's somewhere on a board to copy the others won't need to.

I would make the other part of the table a tick or cross and then the more able can manage to draw a conclusion from the experiment I.e material x is the most suitable because...

I'd expect to have to model filling in a table tbh. You'll be amazed at how wrong everything can very quickly go without lots and lots of modelling. Reading headings is hard work for many that age, think about pictures or read it out for them. The recording part of the lesson should not really be the main part of your focus in Y1, it's the discussion, practical hands on where they learn, and their experience of being in a lab. It might be a good idea to have a large a3 version of anything you expect them to write on as there will likely be a little bunch who will need to do this as a group with an adult scribing.

Looking at your task again, if you want a written sentence about why they've chosen a material, give them a stem: This is good because.... Id say you would get better answers and more learning orally though. They can choose the material then discuss why with a partner with you scribing good suggestions.

Even by Y3 some children find tables tricky - working out where to put the ticks. Anything recording needs quite a bit of support I'd say.

And if you're not used to teaching Y1, they always take much, much longer than you think to do just about anything at all!

Thanks, everyone. This is really useful. I think we’ll go for oral assessment, rather than writing it down.

DS did this type of task in Year 1 - they had small clippings of each material to stick on against pictures showing different purposes 9e.g. a picture of a rainy day).

They did physical sorting first, testing of any they weren't sure about (e.g. a glazed cotton fabric for 'waterproof' - some said yes, some said no, because it was shiny like a waterproof tablecloth. Equipment available - bowl of water, spoons - to test.

Once they'd done the sticking, there was a sentence very much as you described : for a waterproof coat [I think the context was equipment for the class teddy] I would choose ...... . I would not choose ......because .......

As a supporting adult volunteer, my main job was sutting the small samples, as some were hard with infant scissors. Otherwise very straightforward.

However, what I would say is that this is something they could, and probably will, do in their own classroom at school. Isn't there anything that you can do with your laboratory equipment, that just isn't possible in a primary classroom?

(WE took our KS2 classes over to the local secondary to see a dissection, for example, or secondary teachers have brought them with local 6th formers to us. We can't access e.g. the equipment or items to dissect very easily in primary, so that was a HUGE wow moment or the children.

Equally things like flame testing, oscilloscopes ... I don't know what particular lab you have, but think 'what could a primary school genuinely not offer, or only offer with real difficulty, because of lack of access, equipment, consumables, chemicals, expertise etc?' and then perhaps plan around that?)

Primary kids never get to do chemistry.

Is there a 'safe' experiment you could do with safety specs on (just for the fun of it) for them to wear? (you might need elastic or similar to keep them on)