Precipitation and the Water Cycle

The beginning of this week we finished our cloud books.  They turned out great.  I discovered that I only have one set of watercolor paints in my classroom, though.  So, I had one student go around and dab on some grey/black water color paint to everyone's stratus clouds.  Note to self:  look for watercolor paints on sale so everyone can have their own next time!!

We talked about 4 types of precipitation this week:  rain, snow, sleet, and hail.  I used the chart that "Fun In First Grade" posted on her blog.  We brainstormed some words as a class to fill in the blank to describe each type of weather.  Words we came up with were wet, cold, round, etc. Then, I had the children choose one word to fill in the blank and draw a picture of the type of precipitation.  Since we live in FL, sleet was fun to explain!! See picture below:

We made a classroom thunderstorm together, which I was so excited to share with the kids!  I remember doing it when I was little and I've done it with camp kids in the past.  Everyone always loves it.  It goes like this: 

It all begins on a windy day. (Have students rub hands together slowly.)
The wind begins to blow hard. (Rub hands together quickly.)
Suddenly, big rain drops begin to drop from the sky. (Snap fingers slowly, then quicken the pace.)
Can you hear the rain drops coming faster and harder? (Clap hands for downpour!)
Oh no! It’s pouring! And what’s that I hear? Thunder! (Stomp your feet once and yell boom!
Continue to clap for rain.)
After thunder, you know lightning will be coming next. (Flick classroom lights.)
(Repeat the thunder and lightning pattern a few times. When ready, make the storm pass.)
Just like any storm, I think this storm is going away. (Begin snapping fingers quickly.)
It seems like there are just a few drops left. (Snap fingers slowly.)
There’s the quiet wind again. (Rub palms together.)
And, look, the sun comes out. It’s a nice quiet day again. (Turn lights back on.)

After learning the types of precipitation, we talked about what happens to the puddles that form during the rain.  The kids gave me all kinds of thoughts of where the rain goes, but one child actually came up with the word EVAPORATION.  I have to say I was impressed to hear that come out of a first grader, but it was a great lead in to the water cycle!  We colored and labeled the water cycle and I taught them a song to help them remember the big, long water cycle words.

Water Cycle Song 

(sung to Oh My Darling tune)

Evaporation (bring hands from ground to above head)

Condensation (hands for a cloud above head)

Precipitation (bring hands down to look like rain falling)

on my mind (point to head)

Oh it's called the water cycle (make a circle in the air)

and it happens all the time (point to wrist)

And that is where we are at this point.  I am so excited, I have just got a field trip lined up to go along with the end of our weather unit.  The local University nearby has a meteorology dept and the head of the Undergrad program said he'd take us on a tour and do some experiments with the kids!! I'll have to give them some background knowledge on air pressure before we go so his experiments make sense to them, but I think it is going to be great.  He is going to do a helium weather balloon launch off the roof with them.  Now to get my chaperones and bus lined up!! On to rainbows and snow next week to finish up learning about weather!

Happy Teaching!! :-)

Weather Unit and other Misc. Things!

Now that I have a long weekend I can catch up on blogging about the fun things that have been happening in first grade!!  We started a weather unit and the kids are LOVING it.  Hurricane Isaac just passed, so they can relate to what we are talking about and it is fun to see how excited they get about learning.  I got the idea from "Fun in First Grade" to make a chart of weather words and then have them make their own little charts of words.  I had them list everything they knew about weather first (see pic below) as whole group and then instead of choosing 10 like "Fun in First Grade" did, I had them choose 6.  It was great to see how many weather words they could come up with.... I especially liked "drizzling."  Check out Fun In First Grade's blog post about it here: Fun In First Weather

Next we talked about wind.  We discussed "good wind" vs "bad wind."  For example, we talked about hurricanes and tornadoes being bad wind.  Then, we talked about good wind being wind for flying kites and cooling you off on a hot day.  I had the children take a large piece of paper and draw a line down the middle.  They drew one picture of good wind and one picture of bad wind.  I rolled the paper to make the top of a windsock and then let them glue strips of paper to hang off the bottom to complete their windsock.  They loved making the windsocks and talked about all the places they could hang them when they got home.  I didn't get a picture of them, but they were so cute!  Next year I'll make a point to take a picture!

Now we are on to clouds.  We watched a youtube video on the three types of clouds: YouTube Cloud Video.  We also visited this website to get another look at the three types of clouds: First Grade Learns Clouds.  One at a time, we used cotton balls to create the types of clouds in our "clouds" books.  On Monday we'll finish them by making the stratus clouds.

Some other random fun stuff that we have been doing in First Grade is cutting our spelling words out of kid-friendly magazines.  I thought of this one afternoon on a whim as a time-filler and the kids LOVED it.  I planned for it a second time and it was just as successful.  I am going to wait a little while before we do it again, so as not to overuse the idea, but it's a good one to keep in my back pocket! :-)

In Language Arts we introduced the topic of nouns, so I sent the kids on a hunt for nouns in the classroom with partners.  It was interesting to see which nouns they picked.  Almost all of them listed our classroom fish, Hunter!

Ooh and the last thing I wanted to share was my "Don't Monkey Around" behavior chart.  I talked with my mentor teacher and she said she thought my kiddos needed something more concrete to look at DURING the day to help manage their behavior.  At the end of the day I give stars out to the students that have good behavior and once they get 5 stars they pick from my treasure chest.  My "Don't Monkey Around" chart starts everyone out on the monkey.  If they have to flip a card for behavior, it goes to yellow and then red.  If they get to red a note goes home and they do not get their star for the day.