We loved our weather unit that we completed at the end of the year, but we are not loving this Chicago area weather. It's been cloudy, dreary, and gloomy. It doesn't feel like summer at all. Hopefully, you are enjoying better weather than we are!
We were able to transition nicely from water, the water cycle, and clouds straight to weather. We first had students make a model of the layers of the atmosphere. They labeled each layer and wrote what happens in it. Here is a sample of that.
We wanted to have our students understand the components that make up our weather, so we had them work with a partner to read the information on the BBC What is Weather? site. While reading, the partners had discussions about their reading to answer the questions we created for them. The answers were not as easy to come by as we thought they would be. For more added fun, the students went to another BBC weather site that was very interactive.
From there, we began our nonfiction reading about violent weather. We used the book Storms by National Geographic. The students took notes on the details about thunderstorms, tornadoes, and hurricanes. We found a fun, familiar Steve Spangler science project to do- Tornado In a Bottle. We bought enough connectors so students could work in small groups to create their own "tornado." Then came the challenge. The students had to connect what they learned about tornadoes from their reading to the tornado in the bottle. We found a great explanation on a site called sciencewithtoys.
The last thing we wanted to share with you from this unit is our weather idioms. We used the book Birds of a Feather: A Book of Idioms with Silly Pictures by Vanita Oelschlager to review what idioms are. Then, each student got a weather idiom of their own. They had to show their understanding of the meaning of the idiom through a written sentence, and then a draw a silly, literal interpretation of the idiom.
Well, we are keeping our fingers crossed that the sun will come out soon, and it will feel like summer. One good thing to come from these dreary days is that we have had time to look for, and read some new children's books that we want to share with our class next year, and with you next time we blog!
Kim and Anne
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