Blog Archives
Fabulous Weather
Once again it has been a while since I’ve updated! I’ve been busy teaching second graders and I just finished up my first unit plan! The topic was Weather and we covered clouds, the water cycle, snow, tornadoes, and rainbows. I was really happy with everything and I got really good evaluations from my cooperating teacher and university supervisor. It was a good week!
Monday was cloud day! The students learned about the four main types of clouds: cumulus, stratus, cirrus and cumulonimbus. The lesson began by reading a “Weather Watcher” book on Clouds. The students then completed a graphic organizer as we took an in-depth look at clouds on the Scholastic Weather Watcher. The students looked at each type of cloud and made observations. Then I would read about each cloud to the students. Once the graphic organizer was completed, the students used it to create cotton ball clouds. I was impressed with how they turned out! A few students did struggle with differentiating the different types of clouds. I think more teacher-directed instruction would have helped these students along with more structure for the cloud activity.
Tuesday the students learned about the Water Cycle. I had students work in small groups to create rain in a jar. I began by reviewing the cloud lesson from the day before and making the connection that the ice cubes represented the cloud. As the students watched the jars I gave some teacher-directed instruction talking about evaporation and the water turning to vapor. The the students lifted the lid to see the rain drops gathering and we talked about the vapor turning back into water (condensation). We also discussed what would happen when the water drops got too heavy and the students guessed they would fall as rain (precipitation). After the students lifted the lid we gathered in the front of the room to learn the water cycle boogie. This song/dance outlines the three main parts with motions to aid in student memory of the water cycle. This is a difficult concept for second grade and the vocabulary is difficult so the song was a fun way to assist the students in learning. They LOVED it! I gave each student an image of the water cycle and a copy of the water cycle boogie to keep.
Wednesday we learned about snow. The purpose of the day was basically to review the concept of the water cycle and that when the temperature is cold enough the rain is snow. The students watched a video clip of the Blizzard in NYC over Halloween weekend. I also did a read aloud of Snowflake Bentley to get the students motivated. They love being read to so they really enjoyed the story. For the lesson we reviewed the water cycle boogie and then we created real and paper snow globes for each student. I pre-cut all of the pieces to the paper snow globes. I made a blue circle, black square and “If I lived in a snow globe” for each student. To make the snow globes I bought plastic mason jars from Walmart and I also bought cheap little snow man ornaments (some pink and some blue) to glue to the lid. I allowed each student to add the glitter and water and to twist on the cap with the snowman of choice. Then I used the hot glue gun to seal the rim to avoid any leaks and this way they could not be opened on the bus.
Thursday was Tornado day! We started with another video clip, this time of the Tuscaloosa tornado in the spring. The students were really interested in the clip and asked to watch it again. Following the video clip I read a short Weather Watcher book on Wind allowing students to activate some background knowledge. Then I used the Scholastic Weather Watcher Website to learn more about Tornadoes as the students filled out a “Gist” graphic organizer that I created. Following the completion of the graphic organizers, I had the students return to their seats. I had created “Tornadoes in Jar” for the students to look at to see how the tornadoes really work. The students really enjoyed it!
Finally Friday! It was rainbow day! We did a review of the week and what we learned. We also reviewed storms/tornadoes to lead into the rainbow lesson. I read A Rainbow of my own to the students as the motivation. Then we read about rainbows from Weather Wiz Kids. Following the discussion I had the students create their own rainbows using fruit loops. Surprisingly.. they didn’t eat them! I also gave each student a Roy G. Biv card to help them remember the colors of the rainbow. Today was an easy/fun day to conclude the weather unit for the students.
If I had more time I would have done the introductory and culminating activity. As an introduction I would have read Weather Words and What they mean by Gail Gibbons and talked about the basics of weather. This also would help to see if the students have any previous knowledge on the topic. As a culminating activity I wanted to have a weather day. The idea was for students to dress up as meterologists and give a weather report to the class in small groups. Too bad there wasn’t more time! Oh, here was my bulletin board in the hallway outside the classroom:
This week I also implemented my own classroom management strategy. This particular group of second graders is chatty so I created “quiet critters.” The critters sit on my desk in a jar and when the students are working quietly they come out and sit on the desks. However, if it gets too loud the critters go back in the jar because they are scared. The students really liked them and it seemed to work well. I made the critters with some pom pom balls and googly eyes that I purchased from Walmart.
It was a good first full week and I learned a lot. I even got a few of these that warmed my heart and reminded me why I love the profession:
Fabulous Weather Day
For my science methods course we had to find a journal article from NSTA’s Science and Children Journal. When researching I found an article from January 2007 titled, “Fabulous Weather Day.”
This article talks about first grade classes in Kensington, Maryland. Years ago the teachers started creating a weather day for their students. The students did a weather unit leading up to weather day and it was a fun/exciting way for them to close the unit. Over the years weather day has grown and become that activity in first grade that everyone waits for.
I will always remember in Kindergarten we did a similar activity. We had a science day where all four homerooms rotated to each teacher and did a science activity. My homeroom talked about butterflies so we used coffee filters, coloring and clothes pins. Next door in Mrs. Caroff’s homeroom we made clay volcanoes and made them erupt. Now.. I was in Kindergarten 16 years ago and I still remember the activities I did that day! All that time went by and I could still tell you about it. This is a prime example of how meaningful activities will leave a long lasting impression on students.
Another example: a student teacher in my second grade classroom taught us the water cycle boogie to help us remember the water cycle. At the ripe age of 21 I can still sing the song and do that dance to tell you exactly how the water cycle works.
I could never stress how important it is to find these types of meaningful activities to help students learn. I will admit at the beginning of the semester I wasn’t real thrilled about having another science class. However, I forgot how fun it could be to learn science. In high school and early college years I learned to hate science because of the demand and I didn’t always understand it. When I look back on those classes we never did anything meaningful or enjoyable. Therefore, I don’t remember much of anything.
In elementary classrooms we want our students to love learning. I hope that I will be able to create this type of environment in my own classroom. We need to include hands on activities, experiments, videos, field trips, virtual experiences.. anything that makes learning more exciting and meaningful! While in science I had an idea to create my own personal “magic school bus” in my classroom. To take my students to another place beyond that classroom without going anywhere at all.
I hope in my PSII experience I will get to implement some of these ideas and improve as a teacher. When I leave that school, I want the students to have the same memories about me as I did about my second grade student teacher.
What is the area of my skin?
On April 18th, I ventured into a fourth grade math class with three of my peers. Our goal for the day was to teach a lesson titled “What is the area of my skin?”
The math concept of our lesson was just that: area. After modeling two examples, the students were split into pairs. The students then traced each others hands onto the one-inch graph paper. Once the students had their hand traced they had to count the number of blocks inside the line. Some students had to combine pieces to estimate a whole.
After the students counted up the total number of blocks they had to multiply that number by 100. And voila! Each student had an estimate of the area of their skin.
Overall, I feel the lesson went well. One thing I find intimidating is going into a classroom to teach a guest lesson. There are so many things that you don’t know. We couldn’t prepare for the students prior knowledge, diversity, differences in teaching styles, etc. It can be very overwhelming and terrifying to pre-service teacher. I’m an obsessive planner and I am more comfortable when I feel like I have every (or almost every) angle covered.
Another thing that was nerve-wracking was the lack of experience in math classrooms. In my pre-student teaching one experience, it was primarily focused on language arts. Prior to this lesson I had not taught math to a group of students. For my first time, I think it went well. However, there is always room for improvement. Math was never my strong area so I have to work on portraying math in a positive way to my students without my own math fears shining through.
Going to the classroom always brightens my day. This classroom was extremely responsive to us as guest teachers and I was very pleased after some resistance from students in a prior experience. Each teaching experience is valuable to learning and in each one I learn something about myself.
Below I am including the lesson plan and Student Work Examples:
live.laugh.love.learn.teach. 