Elementary Education General Lesson Plan Format
Science 2013 Science
Muscles Matter
Title:
3rd
Grade Level:
60 minutes, can be split over multiple days
Length of Lesson:
Where can you find muscles?
Essential Question(s):
What is the function of a muscle?
How can I identify a muscle?
This lesson is one in a series about the human body. Students begin by connecting prior knowledge
Lesson Summary &
through a brainstorming game and then break into groups for four stations related to muscles. This
Context*:
lesson comes after the initial introduction of the skeleton and before any discussions about skin. We
are building the body from the inside out, from skeleton to muscles covering skeleton, to skin
covering it all.
3.L.1 Understand human body systems and how they are essential for life: protection, movement
Common Core and/or
and support.
Science Essential
3.L.1.1 Compare the different functions of the skeletal and muscular system.
Standards:
ICT Essential Standard:
 Students watch a video clip in the Elaborate Section.
 Students organize learning through the use of a Smart Board and accompanying software.
st
21 Century Skills:
 Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: Students will problem solve as they investigate the lungs’
functions and how it fits into the schema of muscles.
 Communication: Students communicate in small groups throughout the lesson, sharing experiences
and knowledge, and communicate in a whole-class setting as we compile a graphic organizer.
 Collaboration: Students share ideas after investigating using their lungs and building a model of an
arm. They collaborate in multiple group settings throughout the lesson.
 Information Literacy: Students will evaluate sources as they read and research for the Label and
Read activity and after watching the video clip.
 Flexibility and Adaptability: Students have an opportunity to be flexible as they work together and
move through all stations.
Students will be able to:
Student Outcomes
 Categorize muscles by their features.
“TSWBAT”
 Illustrate and explain the purpose and the process of a joint bending using a model.
 Discuss the purpose of specific muscles.
Process Skills
Materials
Teacher
Student
Engage ***
Teaching Activities:
 Discuss the process of lungs expanding and contracting as muscles.
 Identify muscles using a diagram.
 Explain the importance of a muscle or group of muscles in daily life.
Observe: Students will observe the contracting and relaxing of a model arm and then feel their own arm
contract and relax.
Classify: Students will classify muscles as smooth, skeletal, or cardiac.
Measure: Students will measure the number of exercises they can complete in a minute with the help of
a partner and a stopwatch.
Communicate: Students will discuss findings with a partner, small group, and whole class throughout
the lesson.
Predict: Students will predict what life is like without a certain muscle.
Smart Board and files, projector, computer, copies of recording worksheets for all students
popsicle sticks (2 per student), tape, balloons (1 per student), small rubber bands (2 per student),
markers, Science Journal, poster board, sticky notes, cups, water, straws, bubbles and bubble wands,
stopwatches, appropriate recording sheets
Engage: Students will engage by playing the BrainSavvy game with the help of the SmartBoard.
Students will break up into six teams and one person per team will be appointed “recorder”. The
teacher will give students thirty seconds to brainstorm everything they can about a certain vocabulary
word. At the end of thirty seconds, an appointed student from each group will move their “brain” up
one space for each answer. The first team to reach the center of the game board wins! Teacher can use
words and prompts such as: ligament, tendon, contract, relax, muscle, why we need muscles, what
muscles are made of, or tissue
Explore: Students will move through three stations today, spending ten minutes in each station.
1. Model Arm
Students will begin by making a model of the arm using materials listed above. Students will model a
hinge joint by laying two popsicle sticks on the table and taping them together on one side. Students
will bend this joint and record observations in their Science Journal. Students will have a sheet with
questions of “What do the wooden sticks represent? What does the tape represent? Where do you find
hinge joints on your body?” and will respond on a recording sheet. Students will then label one end of
the sticks wrist and the other end shoulder. They will label the tape part elbow. Students will use a
small rubber band to attach one end of a balloon near the word shoulder and will bend the hinge joint to
look like the letter L. A second small rubber band should be used to attach the other end of the balloon
to the model arm just past the elbow joint. Students will again record on their journal sheets, answering
the following questions: “What part of the body does the balloon represent? What do the rubber bands
represent?” Students will open and close the model arm, observing and recording what happens to the
“muscle” (balloon). They should illustrate the model in two ways: with the “arm” open and closed.
Students will be prompted to lift their own arm and bend and straighten at the elbow. They will record
any changes they feel in muscles.
2. Read and Label
Students will read a Kid’s Health Article titled “Your Muscles” and will create a graphic organizer with
vocabulary from the article. After, students will draw and label muscles on a large poster silhouette of
a person.
3. Lung Investigation
Students will spend some time feeling how our bodies change when we breathe in and out. Have
children put their hands on their sides, just above their waists. Breathe in really deeply. Ask them to
observe what happens to their chests. Describe what happens when you inhale and your lungs fill with
air. Now exhale. Describe what happens to your chest when you breathe out. Students will discuss
observations in a small group.
Next, give each child a clean straw and a cup of water. Breathe in and fill your lungs with air. Now put
the straw in the water and blow out through the straw. Students will discuss what happens with the aid
of the prompts, “What happens to the water? What happens if you blow hard? Softly?”
Next, students will have an opportunity to try with soap and bubble wands. Students will blow hard
and soft, observing the bubbles at each stage. Students will discuss, “what happens to the bubbles if
you blow hard? What happens if you blow softly?”
Students will complete a graphic organizer explaining what they tried and what happened as a result.
4. Muscle Bootcamp
Students will set up an activity that will continue over the next few days. Students will pair up and
time how many sit-ups, push-ups, and jumping jacks their partner can complete in a minute. This data
will be recorded on the student’s worksheet and will be retested over the next few days to see if
students improve. Students will record data in the chart and will write down what muscles they are
using in each exercise. If time, students will draw a card with an exercise or stretch listed and will
practice the exercise, noting the name of the exercise or stretch and the muscles used.
Explain: Students will come together as a group and will start adding information to a graphic
organizer on the Smart Board. Students will create a similar organizer in their Science Notebooks.
Teacher will ask questions to draw out student responses from the activities completed. This is the
time to introduce formal vocabulary: contract, relax, ligament, tendon, and joint. Teacher will also
create a branch of the diagram for types of muscles and draw branches with smooth muscles, cardiac
muscles, and skeletal muscles.
Elaborate: Students will each be assigned one of the three types of muscles. As teacher and students
Closure:
watch the KidsHealth Muscle Video, students should record where their type of muscle is found. The
video contains vocabulary that is above the sophistication of the average third grader. Teachers can
choose to show clips of the video or to turn down the volume during a portion of the video and narrate
it to students as it is beneficial for their group of students. After the video is over, we will go back to
the graphic organizer and add details students learned in the video.
Evaluate: Students will complete an exit ticket writing assignment to be turned in. They will pick a
Assessment:
muscle and write a few sentences about how life would be different without that muscle. Students can
be specific and give the official name for the muscle or can generalize and say “arm muscles, leg
muscles, etc.” according to ability.
Student Objectives Met:
 Categorize muscles by their features: Students categorize muscles as smooth, cardiac, and
skeletal after watching the video.
 Illustrate and explain the purpose and the process of a joint bending using a model: Students
make a model arm and explain how a hinge joint works.
 Discuss the purpose of specific muscles: Students read about certain muscles and discuss their
purpose. Students write about the necessity of certain muscles and imagine life without that
muscle.
 Discuss the process of lungs expanding and contracting as muscles: Students explore using
their own lungs and using a model of lungs.
 Identify muscles using a diagram: Students label muscles on a poster with sticky notes.
 Explain the importance of a muscle or group of muscles in daily life: Students collect ideas
about the importance of muscles and reflect on what life would be like without a certain
muscle.
Grouping for the stations will be strategic, placing struggling and high achieving students together to
Modifications/
ensure all students understand the tasks as well as participate in the tasks associated with each activity.
Enrichment/ Universal
Some students will be given an outline for the graphic organizer with clear structure for the
Design
information. Students who finish early will pick an exercise or stretch out of a hat, try the stretch, and
write about which muscles it engages. Students who need additional support can be given a shorter
reading passage or a sheet with questions clearly detailed.
Citations: Muscle Reading Passage: http://kidshealth.org/kid/cancer_center/HTBW/muscles.html
Lung Investigation Inspiration from http://www.pbs.org/teachers/includes/content/sid/humanbody/lungs.pdf
Muscle Bootcamp Inspiration from http://www.ehow.com/list_6460227_muscular-system-lab-activities.html
Muscles Video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6u0u_59UDc