Teaching the changes associated with pregnancy and the developing baby can be challenging!  You know that if you just give students the information to read, they won’t!  But, if you create an assignment that combines technology with hands-on that forces them to interact with the information, it’s a win-win for all! Thus, the Pregnancy Tower project was created!

Set

• Group students into small groups of 3 if possible, giving each group 9 large index cards.
• Originally, this assignment used the March of Dimes My 9 Months App.  However, that app is no longer available.  So, now the students use the Cleveland Clinic Month by Month Stages of Pregnancy website complete this project.

Materials

• iPads or Laptops
• Class Text Books (optional)
• Index Cards
• Markers
• Tape

Activities

• Groups will assign their group members specific months to research, using provided resources (see guide sheet) and create an informative index card for each month.  Each card must contain the following information:  Month #, Size of baby, What’s happening developmentally with baby during assigned month, Changes and discomforts mom is experiencing in this month and a picture of the baby during this month.
• Once students have their index cards completed, I let my groups figure out how they wanted to build their tower. However, you could give them specific instructions if you want the towers built a certain way.  Note:  I do tell students that their towers must be stable no matter how they construct them.
• As a way of actually using these towers, I give students a reinforcement worksheet where they must figure out the month the specific characteristic is happening.  They have to use all of the towers in the room to figure this out. You can decide if you want students to physically move around from tower to tower or if you want them to pass the towers from group to group. (I actually made this worksheet to correspond with all of the class towers.  Some students included certain characteristic information while other groups did not.  Therefore, they had to use everyone’s to get this assignment done.)  I will leave this as a WORD document so it can be easily edited for your class results.
• Once students have filled in their charts, go over the results for correctness.

Attachments

• Pregnancy Towers Month by Month (PDF)
• Pregnancy Towers Application (Word)
• Pregnancy Towers Key (PDF)