Cell Organelle Facebook Pages!

So last week I talked about my cell unit that I've been working on with my fifth graders. I mentioned something about posting a "Pin the Organelle on the Cell" game. Well, the more I thought about that, the worse it sounded as a good idea. You see, that game wouldn't tell me whether or not the kids knew the functions of the organelles - only that they knew how to determine what they looked like on a cell diagram. I needed something better - something that showed me that they understood the entire concept. That's where my friend Google came in. I literally just Googled "cell organelle activities" and clicked on "images" (I am a very visual person and I hate reading a whole bunch of stuff). I saw a cell on a Facebook page and I knew right away that Cell Organelle Facebook pages were genius. Unfortunately, I can't go back and give credit to whomever posted this picture - because it's just a picture. There was no other post about it anywhere that I could find - so I just made my own criteria and created a sample to show my kids. We had a brief discussion about what was required. I broke them up into groups and assigned each group a different organelle. They came up with cute names such as "Vicky Vacuole" and "Mitochondria Moe" and "Christopher Chloroplast". Then they set up their poster just like a Facebook page would look (using my example, below):

 I stressed that the MOST IMPORTANT THINGS were to make sure that when they created their "statuses" that they had to be related to the function of the organelle and that it had to demonstrate that they understood what that organelle did. They also had to create a "Friends" list and choose four other organelles. Those organelles then had to post comments on their wall (the comment had to have something to do with what that friend's function was). They turned out really cute and I could see that they really understood what each organelle did!!

These are just a few of them. We had our Boosterthon Fun Run on Friday - so it threw our schedule for a loop. We're still working on some of them - but this gives you an idea of how they turned out.

Oh! I also have the I Have, Who Has cell organelle game posted up on my TpT page. It's FREE, so click here to download your copy. It's just a quick little game you can use to review.

Up next - ECOSYSTEMS!! Complete with a terrarium/aquarium ecocolumn! Look for that soon!

So glad to be back and feeling like a human again. My fetus is treating me very nicely these days!!