Sunday, October 16, 2022
Using Halloween Dollar Store Finds in Math
Saturday, September 10, 2022
First Day Back to School Get to Know You Activity and Art Silhouette
Wednesday, August 17, 2022
Weathering and Erosion Books and Freebie
My Grade 4s are now half-way through our Weathering and Erosion Science Unit and we are digging into many non-fiction books to help us learn the knowledge we'll need to apply to different scenarios in our assessment.
Here are some of the books we have been loving, both for teaching (short snippets) and own choice reading.
When choosing books, I always try to make sure that there are books for all students in my class:
- reading level below, at and above the typical reading age for my class.
- text size - some with a larger type and less words on each page
- narrative stories that hide lots of real facts in the story
- books that cover a range of topics under our overall theme
Thursday, August 11, 2022
9 Fun Activities to Teach Weathering and Erosion
It took me by surprise my first year of teaching Year 4 when I saw how engaged and into rocks my class was when learning about weathering and erosion. And year after year, it holds true that this is their favourite science unit! It's also my favourite to teach. I get excited every year when we do this unit. I've also been known to collect and carry rocks back from long and difficult hikes just because I thought the kids would love them!
So here are a 10 quick and easy activities you can implement tomorrow during your rocks, weathering and erosion science unit.
1. Get Outside
Walk around the school ask and students to look for signs
of weathering and erosion. Identify the causes of the rocks breaking down and
the agents of erosion that moved the sediments to a new location. This is a
great activity to identify REAL examples and to reinforce appropriate
vocabulary to talk about these changes to the Earth’s surface.
Tip: Students can take photos to annotate and record the signs and possible causes of erosion on their iPad’s as they are walking around.
Kids love looking at rocks! Ask them to bring in rocks from home and collect interesting rocks yourself. You can also purchase small gem kits from Scholastic. Put the rocks on display with some magnifying glasses and bowls to sort by observable characteristics and your only problem will be keeping the kids away!
3. Get Hands-On
Let the kids see weathering and erosion in action by doing hands-on activities that investigate chemical and physical weathering with simple materials like sugar cubes, sandpaper and a little vinegar!To investigate erosion, I take the kids to the sandpit and make some sandcastles! We conduct fair tests to see the effect different amounts of water has on the sandcastles. Later we test and demonstrate how different erosion prevention strategies, such as planting trees and plants, work on the sandcastles under the same conditions.
Use Google Earth to look at landforms from around the world
such as Wave Rock in Western Australia, the Hoodoos in Bruce Canyon or Giant’s
Causeway in Northern Ireland. The kids could explore Google Earth all day if I let them!
5. Anchor Learning
Create a chart together that shows the Weathering, Erosion and Deposition process. Students love drawing this one found all over google in their Science Journals.
6. Read Books
Put a range of good quality books at a range of reading
levels with your rock sorting or Observation Station and have them available as free choice
reading.
Repurpose the earlier photos from around the school later in
the unit to apply erosion prevention strategies.
Students can use apps like Explain Basics or SeeSaw to draw, annotate and record the strategies they would use to fix and prevent further erosion in an area.
8. Review Key Vocabulary
Who doesn’t love a good word search or cross word? Cross Words are great in helping kids remember definitions of key words that you need them to know and use!
9. Watch a Video
Magic School Bus “Rocks and Rolls” anyone? Also check out some good videos by Crash Course Kids on YouTube like Weathering and Erosion and The Grand Canyon. Make Your Own Erosion is another good one (do the investigation too!). You can also find before and afters of natural landforms such as the 12 Apostles in Victoria, Australia. Scrat’sContinental Crack Up is a fun video to watch when introducing the topic at the start of the unit.
So that's it! 9 easy but fun weathering and erosion activities to add next time you do this unit. What are your fun ideas? Share them in the comments!
Wednesday, January 20, 2016
Back to School - Tips for a Great Day!
At my school we have a stationery drop-off day the week before school starts. This is a wonderful idea - not only do parents and students learn where their classroom is, they also get to meet me and this makes the first day of school so much easier. There's less supplies to organise and parents aren't as anxious dropping their kids off. Even in Grade 1, parents feel comfortable walking their kids in, giving their child a kiss and cuddle and leaving without hanging around, making the morning much less stressful for them and their child.
The stationery drop off day also has an added benefit - I can put the parents and kids to work! I display a PowerPoint with instructions on how to organise all that stationery! This saves me so much time! I usually chat with the parents while their child reads and follows the instructions - or not, which is also very telling! And don't you hate it when NOTHING is labelled - I have plenty of markers ready for mum or dad to label their children's supplies :)
You can show you're organised by having labelled tubs ready for the stationery to be placed into and spread out throughout the room so the kids get to look around the room while they sorting!
It is also a good idea to have clipboards ready with volunteer sign-on sheets, contact details etc. to save you time later.
Activities on the first day
My favourite thing to do on the first day of school is play an 'All about my teacher' game. I take the kids outside and line them up along a line in our undercover area. I have 20 or so true or false facts ready to go. I read each statement and if the student thinks it's true they take a step forward. If they are correct, they stay there. If the answer is actually false and they have stepped forward then they have to go back to the starting line. If they didn't move (so they thought the answer was false), they stay where they are. It's a lot of fun, and you can see the kids trying to work out whether the statement sounds like their teacher! My kids are always surprised to find out I love jumping in mud pits and carrying heavy loads up hills on my weekends (I love obstacle course races)! It sets a good tone for the rest of the day and you'll be able to share lots of things about yourself so the kids can get to know you.Another thing I like to do is team challenges. Here are some tried and tested games I love from Funky in Fourth this year:
What's your favourite activity to do during the first few days of school?