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 Content
Standard A:Abilities necessary to do scientific inquiry. |
The purpose of this activity is to engage students in learning about their mouths.
1. Ask students to view the opening story on the Web site. Discuss the story of Exee as necessary. Ask students to tell you what question Exee wants to answer.
Open
the Web site in your browser (see instructions
for using the Web site). From the main page, click on Web Portion
of Student Activities and choose either English, Español,
or one of the accessible versions of the activities.
The Student Activities window will open and the opening story will play automatically.
You can play
the
animation
again
by
clicking on Exee Movie from the main menu in the Student Activities window.
Alternatively,
you can gather the students in a whole group area and read the opening story
from the transparency of Master 1.1, A Visitor from Outer Space.
Tip from the field test: Make individual copies of Master 1.1, A Visitor from Outer Space, so that students can use them as coloring books. Showing overhead transparencies of the pictures from the master can help with the discussion of the Exee story.
 If
you would like to use this activity as a preassessment of what students
know about their mouths, ask them to first complete the task individually.
Then, make the class chart from the individual responses. |
2. Invite students to make a list for Exee explaining why they have mouths. Exactly what do their mouths do? Ask them to demonstrate and then name the action. Record the students' responses on a sheet of flip chart paper titled What My Mouth Can Do. (See sample chart).
Encourage the students to think of as many things as they can. They might include actions such as those listed on the sample chart What My Mouth Can Do.
3. Review the functions of the mouth by asking students to group the actions according to those that help a person
You
might help students make a Venn diagram that organizes the different functions,
as illustrated in the sample Venn diagram.
Optional grouping activities include the following:
Tip from the field test: Students might be interested in talking about how Exee eats, drinks, and communicates. They will notice that Exee "eats" the tennis racket through an opening on the top of his head (do not call it a mouth). They might guess that Exee would drink through the same opening. Exee communicates through the lights on his instrument panel and by talking. Without the sound of Exee's voice, however, it might be difficult to know if Exee is happy or sad or glad or mad, because Exee does not have a mouth with which to make the facial expressions we use to communicate those feelings.
4. Allow students to explore what the mouth does on the Web site.
Open
the Web site in your browser. From the main page, click on Web Portion
of Student Activities and choose either English, Español,
or one of the accessible versions of the activities. The Student Activities
window will open and the Exee Movie will play automatically. You can skip
the animation by clicking
the skip button. From the main menu in the Student Activities window, select
What Do Mouths Do?
The purpose of this activity is to help students act out different things that the mouth can do (its functions) and to observe what is inside the mouth (its parts).
1. Introduce this activity by holding up a mirror. Ask students to describe what a mirror does.
Help students understand that a mirror reflects (or shows back) an image.
2. Tell students that they will take turns with a partner pretending to be a "mouth mirror." Let them know that they will be acting out the different things that the mouth can do (its functions) and observing what is inside the mouth (its parts).
First, demonstrate the activity by doing the following things with one student:
3.
Assign partners or allow students to find a partner. Ask them to decide who
will be the first mouth mover and who will be the first mouth mirror.
Inform students that they will trade roles after 20 to 30 seconds. Be sensitive to students who might be embarrassed to open their mouths for others to see.
4. Invite students to begin the activity and to observe their partner carefully. Remind them to pay attention to what they can observe inside their partner's mouth as it moves.
The mover slowly opens the mouth, closes the mouth, moves the tongue, bares the teeth, and so on. The mirror does whatever the mover is doing. Stress to students that movements need to be done slowly so that the mouth mirror can follow along exactly. After 20 to 30 seconds, tell the partners to change roles.
5. Instruct students to gather in a whole group area. First, ask students if they want to add any other actions to the chart What My Mouth Can Do. Then, ask students to describe what they saw in each other's mouths as they pretended to be a mouth mirror. On another sheet of flip chart paper, list the oral structures students observed during the activity. You might title this chart The Parts of My Mouth.
Encourage students to look into one another's mouths again if they cannot remember what they observed or could not see clearly during the game. Invite students to observe until they can name the parts listed in the sample chart The Parts of My Mouth. (Note: Save this chart for use in Lesson 2.)
Students probably don't know the proper name of the uvula (YOO vyoo lah), the small, teardrop-shaped object that hangs from the soft palate at the back of the throat; the frenulum (FREHN yoo lum), the line of skin from the bottom of the tongue to the floor of the mouth; or the papillae (pah PIHL ae), the tiny bumps on the surface of the tongue. Introduce the terms after the students describe them.
The purpose of this activity is to connect the structures in the mouth with their functions.
1. Remind students that one of the things they listed that they can do with their mouths is to eat. Ask them to pantomime how they might eat something.
| Content
Standard A: Abilities necessary to do scientific inquiry. Content Standard C: The characteristics of organisms. |
2. Be sure students have washed their hands. Distribute the crackers (or alternative snack food) and napkins and tell students that they will have a snack. Ask the students to take one bite of their cracker and to pay attention to how they eat their snack. (Remind them not to eat the entire cracker in one bite.)
What do they do with their mouths? What helps them eat the cracker? For example, what parts help them hold the food in their mouths so that it doesn't fall out?
3. After the students are finished with the first bite, ask them to describe how they ate their snack. What did they do first, second, third? What parts of their mouths did they use to eat a bite of the cracker?
As students respond, record their ideas on flip chart paper. You might organize the ideas into two columns, one that identifies the step in the process and another that lists the part(s) of the mouth they used during that step (see the following sample chart, My Mouth Helps Me Eat Crackers). Note that the title of the example is specific to crackers because we do not eat all foods in the same way. For example, we don't usually bite ice cream or pudding.
As students suggest words for the chart, invite them to finish eating their snack. The students probably will focus mainly on their teeth as they bite and chew. Encourage them to pay attention to what their jaws, cheeks, tongue, and lips do as they bite, chew, and swallow the food.
4. To bring in the role of saliva, ask the students what happened to the cracker at each step.
If students use the term, add saliva to the chart. At this point, use whatever words the students use to describe what they think made the cracker soft and mushy. Lesson 2 formally introduces the term saliva.
5. Ask students if they know what helped them taste the cracker.
Mention that the tongue is the organ of taste because it has taste buds. Students might look at one another's tongues and notice the tiny bumps that are on the surface. Students should be instructed to look at, but not touch, each other's tongues.
The tiny bumps on the surface of the tongue are the papillae. The taste buds are located at the base of the papillae at the sides, front, and back of the tongue. Students will not be able to see the taste buds, but you can point out their general location.
| Assessment:
At the end of each lesson, there will be a wrap-up during which students tell Exee what they have learned. You can collect students' journals after each lesson to assess their progress or wait until the end of the supplement to do a final assessment. |
1.
Hand out the Mouth Journals that you have assembled or have your students
assemble them from Masters 1.2 and 1.3.
2. Ask your students to write and/or draw in their journals their answer to the following question: What would you tell Exee about the mouth?
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