Good Morning!

Thank you for having me in your classroom today.

Mrs. LaRosawww.middleschoolscience.com

How can we tell these aliens apart?

We can classify the aliens by their characteristics.

Your Challenge

Your group will be given 20 aliens to classify.

Choose one general characteristic to categorize your aliens into two large groups. Ex: has ‘abc’ and does not have ‘abc’.

Groups do not have to have the same number of aliens in each.

Record your info on the chart provided.

Decide as a Group

• After you have completed your two groups, split each group into two new groups.

• Choose one characteristic to separate the first group.

• Choose one characteristic to separate the second group.

• You should have 4 groups when completed.

• Continue splitting each group until you can no longer split them into new categories anymore.

Oh NO! I forgot about these aliens! Where do they go?

Can you tell me where you would put them in your classification scheme? Start from the beginning of your chart.

Teacher Notes – by Liz LaRosa This is the sample lesson that I used for my job interview – I got

the job! http://www.middleschoolscience.com/aliens.ppt This ppt slide was made using the following lesson plan:

http://www.microbeworld.org/resources/experiment/pgs1-6.pdf The chart that I made and used for this lesson is located at:

http://www.middleschoolscience.com/aliens.pdf Aliens were printed onto card stock and numbered from #1-20

and placed into plastic zip-top baggies. One set per group of students.

I chose only 2 of the 4 extra aliens to use at the end of the lesson if time allowed for the students to classify them.

The lesson was planned to last at least 45 minutes. I was able to complete most of the lesson, 60 -75 minutes would have allowed me to finish the lesson.

I taught this lesson to a 5th grade class of 18 students.

Tips Discuss classification for a few minutes and ask students for examples. Ask students for ways to tell the aliens apart, introduce the word characteristics. Hand out the alien card sets after you have talked about what their challenge will be. Have the students do their first sort and walk around the classroom and check on each

table. Make sure that the categories they have are very clear and specific. When they are ready, ask for what categories they used. Each group may have

something different and that’s OK. Practice writing the data into the chart, make sure they understand what they have to

do with their information and the alien cards. Let the students continue to classify their aliens and monitor each group. When they are done, ask students for some sample categories. Choose one of the aliens randomly from the set and ask each group how they classified

that alien from start to finish. Introduce the aliens you “forgot” and give them a few minutes to figure out how to

classify them. Did they fit? Any problems? Etc… Have each group clean up by placing the aliens back into the baggies and then thank

them for a great class! The kids really were engaged in this lesson plan, it was great!