Description

What our Inventors and Inventions lesson plan includes

Lesson Objectives and Overview: Inventors and Inventions explores the many things that people have created throughout history and who those people are. Students will discover interesting facts about several famous inventors and the objects they made. They will also have the chance to brainstorm ideas for new inventions of their own. This lesson is for students in 1st grade, 2nd grade, and 3rd grade.

Classroom Procedure

Every lesson plan provides you with a classroom procedure page that outlines a step-by-step guide to follow. You do not have to follow the guide exactly. The guide helps you organize the lesson and details when to hand out worksheets. It also lists information in the yellow box that you might find useful. You will find the lesson objectives, state standards, and number of class sessions the lesson should take to complete in this area. In addition, it describes the supplies you will need as well as what and how you need to prepare beforehand. This lesson requires copy paper for drawing and colored pencils.

Options for Lesson

You will find several additional ideas and activities to incorporate into the lesson in the “Options for Lesson” section of the classroom procedure page. A couple ideas relate specifically to the activity. If you want to, you can have students work alone or in small groups rather than in pairs for the activity. Students could also write out the answers the questions related to their new invention. Another option for older students is to have them research and create a timeline of various inventions throughout history. One more option is for students to take a survey asking 10 adults at home or in their neighborhood what they believe the most important invention is. They can then report their results to the class.

Teacher Notes

The teacher notes page provides an extra paragraph of information to help guide the lesson. It stresses the importance of ensuring students understand that everything manmade had to come from an idea first. You can use the blank lines to write down any other ideas or thoughts you have about the topic as you prepare.

INVENTORS AND INVENTIONS LESSON PLAN CONTENT PAGES

Introduction

The Inventors and Inventions lesson plan has two content pages. The first page describes what an invention is, which is something a person makes that is new. Many years ago, there were no wheels, cars, computers, video games, corn flakes, or frozen foods. Someone had to have the idea and create it, or invent it. The people with those ideas are inventors.

Inventors create most inventions because they want to serve a need that they notice people have. Many historians believe that the wheel, knives, and arrows were early inventions that ancient peoples came up due to needs related to transportation, protection, and hunting. Most of these inventions were made of wood, rocks, and old bones.

Anyone can be an inventor. If a person has an idea for something new and creates it, they are an inventor. There are many famous inventors from all over the world, and not all of their products are physical things. Some invent theories or ideas about how the world works. Others invent multiple things, not just one. Thomas Edison, for instance, invented a phonograph, movie camera, and several other things.

Inventors and Their Inventions

The lesson then lists many people and the things they created in a table. Albert Einstein is among the most notable figures in history. The invention he is most well known for is the atomic bomb. However, he was not pleased to be a part of that invention once he knew what it could do. Elias Howe invented the sewing machine, which made making clothes way easier than it had been.

Another invention that students will most definitely be familiar with is the airplane. The Wright brothers invented the airplane, which is a product that has improved more and more over the last several decades. A man named Charles Babbage created the first computer, another product that has since come a long way from its humble beginnings.

Louis Pasteur invented vaccines and developed germ theory. Joseph Lister created antiseptics. Galileo Galilei created both the telescope and the thermometer. And Martin Cooper invented the cell phone, an invention that will be around for years and years to come. Even kids can be inventors. The popsicle, after all, was invented by an 11-year-old in 1905.

INVENTORS AND INVENTIONS LESSON PLAN WORKSHEETS

The Inventors and Inventions lesson plan includes three worksheets: an activity worksheet, a practice worksheet, and a homework assignment. These worksheets will help students demonstrate what they learned throughout the lesson and reinforce the lesson concepts. The guide on the classroom procedure page outlines when to hand out each worksheet to your students.

CREATE A NEW INVENTION ACTIVITY WORKSHEET

Students will work with a partner on the activity. Each pair of students will think about and discuss an invention that would be helpful to people. They should also consider who would benefit from the invention, how to make it, how it would work, and what to call it. In the box at the bottom of the page, students will sketch out a picture of the invention. Then, on a separate piece of paper, they can make a final copy of the drawing and label parts wherever necessary.

MATCH THE INVENTOR PRACTICE WORKSHEET

For the practice worksheet, students will match the inventors to the inventions they created. There are six groups of people and things to make it easier to complete. You can choose whether or not you allow the students to look at the content pages for reference.

INVENTORS AND INVENTIONS HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT

The homework assignment simply requires students to draw a line from the inventor in the middle of the page to the picture that represents their invention. Again, the page divides the people and their products in half so that it is easier to complete. There are 12 total matches to make for this assignment.

Worksheet Answer Keys

There are answer keys for both the practice and homework assignments. The correct answers are all in red to make it easy for you to compare them with students’ responses. If you choose to administer the lesson pages to your students via PDF, you will need to save a new file that omits these pages. Otherwise, you can simply print out the applicable pages and keep these as reference for yourself when grading assignments.