How Inventive! A New TpT Unit Giveaway and a FREEBIE! {giveaway closed}

Back when I taught 3rd grade in Oregon, one of our science standards was to learn about inventions.  Students were to create a prototype and test it.  My district used OCDE Project GLAD® (Guided Language Acquisition) units to teach science that teachers in the district wrote.  The people who wrote the inventors unit were not given a lot of resources or time, so the unit was lacking.  Because of this, I decided to write my own!  I taught my unit to incoming 4th graders at summer school, tweaked it, then taught it again to my 3rd graders that year.  I tweaked it again and used parts of it (the informational text and biography writing) with my 2nd graders this past year.  Now it is all ready for TpT and I can't wait to teach the whole unit this year!  It is by far the best version of the unit!

To introduce the unit, I start off with a KWL.  I want to know what background knowledge the kids come in with.  I then give the Pre Test.  There are 4 different homework sheets, too, that involve the families.

The next step is to build academic vocabulary.  I whole-heartedly believe that students can handle this type of technical vocabulary,  We just have to break it down for them in easy to understand chunks.  Students will predict the definitions, look up the origin of the word in a dictionary to study the root, draw pictures of the word, and finally define the word.  I have essential vocab and additional vocab in this pack with picture clues and definitions.  I also have a literacy center for matching vocab words and definitions.

 Poetry is the best way to learn new content!  Kids will get these songs and chants stuck in their heads!  My class likes to sing all day long and some kids will choose to read their poetry books during Read to Self or even as recess!

Each inventor has a poster with a motivational quote, informational text, various sheets to choose from for note taking, various sheets to choose from for organizing an essay, and paper for writing a biography.  You can choose to split up your class and have each group learn and write about one inventor, then teach each other in a Jigsaw manner, or you can have all students learn about all inventors.  It's up to you!

These activities are for when you are done learning about the individual inventors.  Sheets are included for if you choose to do a jigsaw and students can write down information that they learn from each other.  There is also a geography and timeline activity to tie in Social Studies.

This is such a fun, new component!  When I found out that Holly Durst from The Bachelor wrote children's books and that her book, Chocolate Socks was about inventing something, I knew it would be perfect for this unit!  In her book, the main character wants to combine two of her favorite things in the world: chocolate and socks!  She makes them on a conveyor belt (brings in some Henry Ford history!) and shares them with her friends.  It is a darling book about being creative and following your dreams!

In my literature connection, I created two writing prompts, a synonym literacy center, and an invention brainstorming sheet.  This book is a great segue into the Invention Project!

The last component is the Invention Project!  Students will go through the steps of the Scientific Method to create their own product!  How fun!

Here are some of the inventions my kids came up with when I taught 3rd grade:

"Robo-Mom"

"Camera with a radio"

"Radio Shirt"

Pretty funny!  The kids loved this culminating activity and it brings in those scientific method standards!

You can check out my unit here on TpT!

Does this look like something that you could use in your classroom?  Well I am going to giveaway one of my units and a Signed copy of Holly's book, Chocolate Socks!  Enter below! GIVEAWAY IS CLOSED.

And as a freebie for all of you, you can download the literacy center, Synonym Socks, that I made with go with Holly's book!  Just click the picture to download.  Enjoy!