Mind Map

Awhile back I the read the book  Mapping Inner Space. It inspired me to use this strategy to assess my students at the end of the year. It was amazing! Since it was successful I incorporated into my science notebooks that I used.

After a few lessons on a specific topic I give my students an informal assessment using this mind mapping strategy. In their notebook I strategically inserted a page (see image below) where the students add big idea in the center of the web and then they branch out ideas from the center.

So for example in the center in my 3rd grade classrooms students wrote the word system. The previous lessons in science have been about the bones, muscles, eyes and ears. Within all of the lessons the underlining idea was systems. I add an example of my own mind map. A mind map however can be done in any form. It could a road with different "stops". I had one student draw a tree with system on the tree trunk and each branch was a sub category. Then on each branch he made a smaller branches with other thoughts. 

In a future blog I'll make reference to websites or programs where you can create your mind map on a computer.