Offline Classroom Activities — Science 3

Term 1 · Week 3 · CG Quarter 1, competency 4 · Observed, Predicted, Measured

This is the English copy of a Filipino document. Grade 3 is taught in the mother tongue under MTB-MLE. offline-activities.md is the version a teacher runs. Lines the teacher says aloud, and the sentences the learners sort, are preserved here in Filipino, verbatim. Teaching from this copy would break MTB-MLE.

Three individual and two group activities. No electricity, nothing to buy, and no laboratory equipment. All five are written for a room of 45 or more with fixed desks.

Why these exist. They are not a substitute for the game or the slides. They are the lesson when the power is out, when there is one tablet for the whole row, or when the class is under a tree because the room is in use.

Activity 1 — The Ten-Object Walk (individual)

Instructions

1. Draw a table with three columns: Object · Number · Unit.
2. Walk around the room. Choose ten objects you can measure without leaving your row.
3. Measure each one. Write the number in the middle column.
4. Write the unit in the third column. A row with no unit is not finished.
5. Star the smallest object and the largest.

Differentiation

Assessment

No percentage. Count the rows that carry a unit on each paper.

Activity 2 — The Saw Box and the Think Box (individual)

Instructions

1. Fold the paper down the middle. The left side is ANG NAKITA KO — what I saw. The right is ANG PALAGAY KO — what I think it means.
2. Look at your object for one whole minute without writing. A minute is long — wait it out.
3. Write three things on the left side.
4. Write one thing on the right side.
5. Pass the paper to the learner beside you. They look for anything that got into the wrong box.

The question that reads

When a learner asks where a sentence goes, do not answer it. Ask this instead:

"Nakita mo ba ito, o iyan ang palagay mo tungkol sa nakita mo?" — did you see it, or is that what you think about what you saw?

Differentiation

Assessment

Activity 3 — The Blind Description (individual)

Instructions

1. Describe your object on paper. Do not say what it is.
2. Three sentences only, and each must have a number in it or a word nobody could argue with.
3. Give your paper to the teacher. It will be read aloud.
4. The class tries to guess which object it is.

Why it works

When the class cannot guess, it is not because the class is weak — it is because the description was vague. That is the lesson: an observation that is not specific is useless, and the child sees it within ten seconds without the teacher saying so.

When it is guessed at once, say out loud: "Malinaw ang paglalarawan niya. Bakit?" — their description was clear. Why?

Differentiation

Assessment

Sort each paper into one of three. This is a record, not a mark.

Guessed first try · Guessed after a follow-up question · Not guessed

Activity 4 — The Case of the Missing Unit (group)

The five statements

Each has one thing wrong. The number is not the error — the way of saying it is.

1. Ang aking lapis ay 14. — my pencil is 14.
2. Ang pinto ay 200 sentimetro ang taas. — the door is 200 centimetres tall. The number is right; there is a better unit
3. Ang barya ay 2 metro ang kapal. — the coin is 2 metres thick.
4. Ang mesa ay mahaba, mga 1 metro siguro. — the table is long, maybe about 1 metre.
5. Maganda ang pisara at ito ay 3 metro. — the board is beautiful and it is 3 metres.

Roles — everybody has one

With four, the Reader and the Questioner combine. With six, add a Second Measurer who must agree with the first measurement before it can be written — and that is the best version of this activity.

Instructions

1. The Reader reads the first statement.
2. The Questioner asks: "Ano ang mali dito?"
3. The Measurer measures the real object.
4. The Recorder writes the corrected statement. It must have a number and a unit.
5. Repeat for all five.
6. The group chooses one statement for the Speaker to report, and the Speaker must say why that one was chosen.

The answers

Rubric — 12 marks

Activity 5 — The Observation Court (group)

The twelve sentences

Three of each kind, shuffled.

Roles — everybody has one

With five, the Judge also keeps time. With seven, add an Objector who may stop one decision once in the whole game — and must say why.

Instructions

1. Shuffle the twelve slips. Draw them one at a time.
2. Each counsel gets one sentence and ten seconds.
3. The Judge decides and places the slip on one of four piles.
4. The Recorder writes the decision and one reason.
5. After all twelve, the group counts: how many did everybody agree on?

The point of the game

Not to win. The three Observed and the three Measured should produce no argument at all — if the group argued about those, somebody is not yet seeing it. The three Opinions are what can split the group, and that is exactly why they are opinions.

Say this out loud at the end: "Ang pinaka-madaling pagkasunduan ay ang obserbasyon. Iyon ang dahilan kung bakit ito ginagamit ng agham." — the easiest thing to agree on is an observation. That is why science uses them.

Rubric — 12 marks

If the class has no rulers

This is not an obstacle. Cut a paper strip the length of the teacher's palm and mark it into ten equal parts.

Tell the class these are not centimetres. Call the unit a palad — palm — a real unit with a name that is the same size across the whole room. The competency is putting a unit on a number, and a palad is a unit.

When a ruler does arrive, the question becomes: "Ilang palad ang isang sentimetro?" — how many palms in a centimetre? — and that is Mathematics 3, Quarter 2.

Part of the E-turo MATATAG artifact set. Companion files: syllabus.en.md · lesson-plan.en.md · lesson-plan-ilaw.en.md · worksheet.html