Today is our first official "snow day" of the school year, and I'm not sure if we'll be headed back to school tomorrow (the high temp isn't supposed to be above freezing until some time on Friday and there's quite a bit of ice on the ground).
We just finished up on the water cycle last week, and my first graders were so excited about observing the weather. They were so proud to use their science vocabulary when we discussed the weather during calendar math on Monday ("precipitation" and "accumulation" are their favorites)!
I love it when I teach something and then they have a clear example of how it relates to "real life." O.k. enough of my rambling, I'll get to the good part. Today is the 2nd day of "14 Days of Love," and it's another great giveaway! I thought about saving this one for later, but I think it's perfect for today. Lettering Delights has an adorable weather boy/girl set right now. If you like it, you just might win! I'm giving away 2 of them! If you're interested, post a comment about a fun science or weather activity that your students have enjoyed. The contest ends on Saturday, February 5th at noon. I'll send the winners a money order to cover the costs, and then they can set up an account and order at letteringdelights.com!
During our science unit on air and weather I set up a weather station with the different instruments for measuring weather. Everyday a different student gets to be the the class meteorologist and deliver the weather report. They LOVE it!
ReplyDeleteMy students always love making the Water Cycle bracelet to help them remember the correct sequence!
ReplyDeleteWhen I teach weather, we do an activity when we get to snow that the kids love! We write down a compound word on a piece of paper. Then we ball it up. Everyone goes to the Carpet and we have a "Snowball" fight. When I call Time to stop throwing, The students then pick one snowball to "unwad" and read the compound word. Then we start again. The kids have a blast and ME too!
ReplyDeleteI love the weather girl and boy. We have a snow day today too.
ReplyDeleteFor science this year, we grew a bean garden in an aquarium. It was wonderful because we could see the way the root systems grew through the glass. The kids absolutely loved it when we put worms in to aerate the soil and they could see their tunnels.
I love teaching science!
ReplyDeleteYou have to do this with your kiddos:
You give each group a cup of sprite and 5 raisins. Before they put the raisins in the cup, they make a hypothesis about what will happen. Will they float? Will they explode? Will they sink? or Will they dance up and down?
They dance up and down! It's so crazy!!!
-Rachelle
www.whattheteacherwants.blogspot.com
Hopefully this is not a repeat. It doesn't appear my first comment went through...I got some weird message after I clicked post.
ReplyDeleteWe made barometers with coffee cans, balloons, and straws. We measured the air pressure every day. I think the kids liked this one best because they got to take it home and play meteorologist with family.
I also teach a water unit in third grade. We learn about the water cycle too. Last year we made water cycle bracelets. (I think the idea came from Christina Banbridge.)
ReplyDeleteThe students use yellow, green, clear, white, and blue beads. They assemble a bracelet and learn that the yellow is the sun (heats up the water), the green is the earth. It evaporates (clear beads), cools and condenses into clouds, which is the white bead. The blue bead is the precipitation. The precipitation soaks into the earth and then the process continues.
The students LOVED this activity and wore the bracelets for months.
*Tanya
www.lewislearninglibrary.blogspot.com
This year I brought in a tub of snow & some ice. We hypothesized which one we thought would melt faster. Then we intermittenly observed as the tubs of ice & snow as they melted. We talked about the 3 stages of matter & discussed what the liquid would turn into if it was hot enough to evaporate. They all though we should continue this expirement in the summer when the sun could evaporate the water which I transitioned into talk of the water cycle. U live it when I can link two concepts seemlessly. :)
ReplyDeleteMs. M
www.msk1ell.blogspot.com
During our weather unit, I bring in old clothes and we play a relay race game. The students race each other to the piles of clothes/accessories and have to 'dress' according to the weather that is shouted out. It's a lot of fun and a great way to assess who knows their weather vocabulary!
ReplyDeleteI just attended a district staff development day where we talked about incorporating more vocabulary into our everyday lessons and I decided to adopt one idea in my classroom. During calendar time instead of talking about it just being sunny, windy, rainy, etc, I'm starting to incorporate more robust words such as frigid, blustery, etc. My kids have enjoyed singing the words (we sing and spell what it's like each day). They've started saying things like, "it's cold Miss J but it's really frigid," etc. It's a quick way to ramp up your everyday typical routines.
ReplyDeleteWe graph the weather daily as part of our calendar routine. We sing a cute little song called "Weather Watcher" to the tune of "Frere Jacques". It goes like this:
ReplyDeleteWeather watcher, weather watcher,
What do you see? What do you see?
Tell us what the weather's like, tell us what the weather's like,
Won't you please? Won't you please?
The students love to sing this song, and love even more when it's their turn to graph the weather for the day :)
My favorite weather activity this year was to make a thermometer with my kids...they really enjoyed it...and grasped the idea of the measuring instrument!
ReplyDelete-Gladys
http://teachinginhighheels.blogspot.com
We are working on our Penguin unit. As we discuss the cold conditions in the Antarctic, the students always have questions about how the penguins stay warm. We then explore how blubber works by putting both hands inside plastic gloves. Students then put one hand in a bucket of ice water and then the other hand goes inside a bag filled w/Crisco (to simulate blubber) and then the ice water. We time which hand gets colder the fastest (ALWAYS the non-Crisco hand)! Students love this experiment!
ReplyDeleteI love during the Winter to teach about Snow. We usually read a story like "Snowmen at Night", and then do the Steve Spangler experiment of "insta snow". The kids love it, especially since many have not seen snow before. They get to observe, talk about solids and liquids, and then take their own baggie of snow home.
ReplyDeleteWe are doing a project based activity with worms. We made a worm home out of plastic containers and put dirt and torn up paper and our red wigglers. We feed them once a week and later we will do more activities with them. The kids love feeding the worms...it is like we have dozens of pets.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite science activity to do in Kindergarten involves Matter and Color Mixing! We start out by putting colored liquid (blue, red, and yellow water) into an ice tray, let it become a solid in the freezer, then letting the students pick two different colored ice cubes to put into their Ziploc bag. As the solid turns into a liquid (ice cube into water), the colors obviously mix forming another color. We hang our bags of liquid in the window for a few days and watch them turn into a gas!!!! Very cool! :)
ReplyDeleteI'm in K and we just did the penguin blubber glove from Deanna Jump... my kiddos thought it was SO COOL, they were completely fascinated!
ReplyDeleteI live in Florida where the morning weather can be drastically different from the afternoon weather. This range can be temperature to rain fall. We collect weather data from September through December. When we return in January, we anaylize our data. We compare the am vrs. the pm data. This opens the door for individual projects from groundhogs day through spring. Kids sign up to research various cities throughout North America and determine whether the groundhogs predicition was accurate by comparing data from various cities. 10 minutes a day leads to a cool yearly project!
ReplyDeleteCheryl
www.saouds2ndgraders.blogspot.com
I am student teaching in 2nd grade, and we are doing a unit on animals right now. This week we are focusing on mammals, and to help the kids understand the different characteristics of mammals I was able to bring my dog (a big lab) in. Having the dog really helped illustrate to them that mammals have a backbone, have hair, and are warm-blooded.
ReplyDeleteI do know how to properly spell analyze and prediction. My post above...Terrible! :)
ReplyDeleteI love the Weather Boy and Girl.
ReplyDeleteWhen teaching the concept day and night I use the book Snowmen at Night. We then create a snowman on black paper that resembles a snowman at night. We create a marshmallow painted snowman on light blue paper to represent a snowman during the day.
To help my kids understand evaporation, I let them paint with water on a piece of construction paper or on the sidewalk. Then we leave our papers outside (do this on a sunny day)and check them in a 1/2 hour or so to see their pictures/writing have disappeared.
ReplyDeleteI teach kindergarten and my kiddos love to learn about the seasons and types of weather that accompanies each. We have a lot of fun with this throughout the year!
ReplyDeleteI did a unit on weather last year with my firsties. The activity they enjoyed a lot and that I think has the most educational promise was our hail stones activity. Puts students into groups of two. Each partner gets some playdough (colors in groups must be different-1 white, 1 blue). Partner 1 makes a ball out of some of her playdough, then partner 2 puts a layer of their playdough around the ball, this continues until the playdough is gone. At the end, cut apart the ball and you'll see the layers of the hailstone. Then you can discuss how hailstorms are formed the same way. The kids loved the activity and they learned a lot too!
ReplyDeleteWe make a cloud in a bottle. you use a 2 litter bottle and you need one of those toppers that you pump to keep the fizz inside. First you try to make a cloud with just air in the bottle. Put on the pump cap and pump 20 times, open slightly and you will see nothing. Then you try air and a little water...nothing. then you add a lit match, which goes out right away and you put the cap on fast. when you crack the top back open after pumping a cloud will form. you have to make sure you talk to kids about the difference between the smoke from the match going out and the cloud. the cloud forms because the 3 ingredients are present. air, water and dust particles. So fun! We have to do it over and over!
ReplyDeleteIn Kindergarten, we graph our weather each day. dress the weather bear, talk about seasons, etc. One thing we do each day is to sing a song about the weather. For example, if it is sunny, we sing Sunny, Sunny ....the weather song by Dr. Jean. We sing only what applies to that day. It helps the children to learn to spell and recognize some common weather words, plus they Love it!
ReplyDelete