4th Grade Tree Salesperson

4th Grade tree salesperson? Come again?

In 4th grade the students are learning about the different types of trees and how to classify trees based off of their characteristics. Typically, our students research and create a keynote presentation to share with the other students about the tree they chose to research. However, it was time to jazz this puppy up! We decided to give sales a try. Our objectives still include teaching the students how to classify trees and separate the trees into angiosperms or gymnosperms. But... instead of your typical, "Let me tell you about this tree presentation," where students simply inform us about a tree, they will add the dimension of persuasion to their presentations.

Students will:
-Research the tree
-Create a presentation using the keynote app
-Their goal will be to inform us about their tree from the standpoint of a sales person. In order to accomplish this, they will need to research which climate and environment the tree adapts and grows the best and persuade their audience to buy their tree.
-Come up with a catchy beginning to interest the "customers" (AKA other students in class)
-Add images
-Potentially add videos

I love the idea of this project as it adds in multi dimensions and skills. The project still has the student inform the audience about their "product," but they also learn the art of sales and persuasion. At the end of all of the presentations, students will vote on which sales person truly persuaded them and which tree they would buy and why. You could use Google Forms to collect the data and then turn it into a graph. Hello, curricular teaching!

Virtual “Post-it" Wall

Typically when teacher’s review concepts, it looks something like this:

Teacher: "What is one thing you can tell me about yesterday’s lesson?"

Student raises hand. Teacher calls on student to answer. One student responds. Another student raises his/her hand and answers. And so forth. 

Point being, student’s respond one-at-a-time and more often than not, you only assess a few students rather than your entire class. What if there was a way to have each student respond with a virtual post-it response? Meet Padlet. (Website or app based)

Essentially, padlet is a virtual wall that gives you the ability to allow students to respond all at once in an organized fashion. Picture a wall in your classroom where you write a question on a large piece of paper and students respond on a post-it note. Padlet allows you to do this, virtually. Padlet also allows you to add images, links, and graphs to your wall. One of my favorite features of padlet, is the ease of sharing the padlet with your class! You can share via email, social media, and you can even embed the link onto your own website/class blog. However, I find the QR code that padlet creates for you (Genius! One less step for us!) to be the easiest way to share your wall. The students would use their devices, scan the qr code, and it would take them directly to the padlet in order to post their responses.

Ideas of how to use padlet in the classroom:

1.     Brainstorm new topics

2.     Exit Ticket/Bell Ringer (One thing you learned. One thing you remember.)

3.     Post, “What is something from this lesson that you need extra help with?”

4.     Book reviews (favorite quotes, characters, questions)

5.     Back Channel (As you teach, students can pose and respond to each other’s questions over the topic that you are teaching.)

6.     Prediction (Stop and predict what is coming up next in your novel.)

7.     Note taking

The ideas are endless!

The image below is a sample taken from the padlet website.