Saturday, January 24, 2015

Groundhog Day!

Hey Science Friends,
Well, it is about a week until February 2. It is hard to believe that time has passed this quickly. So this week is the prime time to talk about the weather in class. If I could wish I would wish for some spring weather if we are not going to get any snow. I guess we will have to see what the groundhog has to say on the big day.
https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Groundhogs-Day-HOORAY-1659260
This coming week we are going to have a little fun before we hear if the groundhog sees his shadow or not. Either way, we are sure going to have a little groundhog fun before the day.
Part of the fun of the week will be reading all of the books that go along with it. Much to my surprise I have found quite a few books on the subject. And when you mix these books in with books about the weather, you have a lot of books to add to any Science center.
Our Science objectives include observing and describing the daily weather. We do that each day and on Wednesday we have Weather Wednesday. So, this will make a welcome little addition to spice up what we already do each day. Not only are we going to observe and describe the weather, we are going to predict, report and graph the weather too. We are making some weather headbands to get us geared up for these special reports.
We will be taking some surveys and asking...
Will we have six more weeks of winter weather?
Some of us want a little more winter but not all of us! I guess we will find out what kind of weather we want to see. It will give us a chance to look at the results, discuss the results of the surveys and find out what kind of weather we want the most or least.
We are going to sort seasonal things into the categories of spring and winter. My class loves sorting especially if it is a cut and paste sort that goes in our notebooks. And because they love sorting, I made them another sort to review living and non living. During this unit we also review basic needs.
 
The kids will also be excited to add illustrations to their new weather book. We are even going to do some labeling because we love labeling just about anything. We are labeling animal parts of the groundhog. When we finish reading and researching groundhogs we will be ready to write some groundhog reports. The kids are always amazed that when we put our research projects together and finally display them. All in all, I think we are ready for some groundhog fun but I couldn't leave it at that...
Because anybody knows that any good Scientist is good in math so I had to make some printables to go in our math boxes to support our current math focus. I know the kids will be excited to dig in to these printables and games. And I can't wait for some number talks with Ten Grouchy Groundhogs!
https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Groundhogs-Day-HOORAY-1659260
For more information click on the image above!
 


2 comments:

  1. I'm getting excited to teach about shadows in the upcoming week using the Groundhog as a focus! Weather, shadows, if you have older students- hibernation (they are true hibernators, so waking up to see the shadow is out of the question!) and climate.
    I've used some of these lessons for shadows often- especially the "Shadow Race" http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/lesson-plans/casting-shadows-across-literacy-1016.html?tab=4
    Thanks for sharing all of these great books!

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  2. What a great way to incorporate a theme into the science classroom. I think it is important to incorporate different learning domains as you did when adding in math and literature into the science classroom. Having the students predict and do different graphs is a great way to teach them about different science techniques. I feel that students would have a blast learning about the weather more in depth with the groundhog in mind. I also believe that they would be very interested in learning more about shadows. This is a great resource with lots of cool books!

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