Ideas for Teaching the Parts of the Cell

Interactive Internet resources are great for research and reinforcement when learning about cell parts.www and internet image by mbs from Fotolia.com

Some students can read material or hear a lecture and understand the concept perfectly, while others need visuals or interactive activities in order to learn new material. Special needs students often need tactile activities in which they can manipulate an object and use the sense of touch to formulate understanding. When teaching the parts of a cell, it is important to provide a variety of activities to meet the needs of each student.

Make a Model

For students who are visual and tactile learners, provide opportunities to make an illustration or model of the cell and its parts. An illustration can be easily completed by giving each child a paper plate to represent the cell. Students can then draw and label the parts of the cell onto the plate.

Tactile learners can make a model of a cell using any number of materials, like play dough. Students can use various colors and shapes to represent the parts of the cell.

Linguistic learners are able to read and write effectively and learn best by interacting with text and prior knowledge. An analogy collage would serve these students effectively. Ask students to create a poster of the parts of a cell and their functions.

Once this part is completed, students can find photos or clip art of real-world objects in advertisements or magazines that serve the same function as each of the cell parts, and add them to the poster in the appropriate place with explanations as to how they are related or being compared. Some examples would include a picture of a brain to represent the nucleus, as the nucleus acts as the brain of the cell by telling it what to do; a gate to represent the cell membrane, as it keeps things from going in and out of an area; and a toy box for the vacuoles, as they act as storage for the cell.

Interactive activities are good for all students, and many reinforcement activities can be found on the Internet. If an educator has a Smartboard, interactive games provided on the Smart Exchange website allow students to choose the given part by clicking on it. If the answer is correct, the cell part will animate.

Additionally, the Internet contains a gamut of interactive flash games that allow students the opportunity to answer questions and identify the correct parts of the cell.