These are entries that *I* made in the unit study folder of the PHS forum on AOL when it first opened.
When we had the unit study chat a couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that I am in the process of planning several units for this year - and one of them is "Weather". I offered to share my planning with everyone - step by step as I
plan my unit - so that others can see how I do it. I said I can plan out my year in about 8 UNINTERRUPTED hours in the library. However, this year I am trying to go through books I already own and make more detailed plans - so I am probably going to be looking at closer to 20 hours.
Ok - before I start I would like to share that we personally buy LOTS of books - we have children who are prolific readers and we like having books on hand for ready reference. You will see a lot of Usborne books and Eyewitness books in my lists (if I share other unit studies) because I *LOVE* them - and because I sell them and get them at 25% off for my own library. I realize that not everyone's budget is like this - so please don't feel like you
*HAVE* to buy the books that I mention - ok?
Now - on to the first step of this unit study. I have found myself wondering *WHY* I want to teach weather. If I can define my purpose - then it will be easier to teach this study. I also want to decide what thinking skills I want to integrate into this unit - and what writing skills I will integrate.
Purpose: I want my children to UNDERSTAND how weather works. I want them to realize what causes storms, and how storms travel. I also want them to learn how to act/react in bad weather. I want them to see storms throughout history (even in the Bible) and see how God can use storms. Terminology will not be as important in this study as being able to understand the hows and whys of weather.
Skill Development: I want them to learn how to read charts and graphs, and be able to put their observations in a chart and graph format to present to others. They will be observing and recording the temperature and clouds in
the morning, noon and early evening of each day. After the first week - they will also be making predictions in the evening for the next day's weather!
Writing: We will focus on descriptive writing. We will be describing storms, and the results of those storms. We may also describe the good weather also. I want them to work on making their writing concise - with good adjectives and adverbs - but not TOO many adjectives/adverbs. We will
spend a lot of time "webbing" our observations w/ graphic organizers.
Here is my resource list. The items that are " * " are on order and I haven't seen them yet!
Weather & Climate by Usborne $7.95
Weather (Golden Guide) - $5.95
Clouds & Weather (Peterson First Guides) - $4.95
Audubon Pocket Guide - Clouds and Storms - $7.95 (GORGEOUS PICTURES)
* Weather and the Bible - $7.95
* The Weather Sourcebook - $17.95
I haven't decided - but I may also order:
The Weather Companion - $14.95
Eyewitness Weather - $19.00
Now - to be honest with you - I *could* teach this topic with just the $5.95 Golden Guide to weather - the chapters in it are titled:
What makes the weather?
Rain, snow, dew and frost
The atmosphere - restless ocean of air
The earth's motions and weather
Highs and lows
Air masses
Fronts and Frontal Weather
Storms
Weather Forecasting
Weather Maps
Weather and Climate
Books for more information
FOR MY NEXT STEP: I'm going to "backtrack" a little - and see what Kathryn Stout recommends my children need to know at this level - for this, I will be checking "Science Scope" by Design-A-Study.
According to Science Scope - this is what my children should be learning about weather at their age.
Here is some of what she lists:
Recognize characteristics of seasons - including changes in:
length of daylight
temperature
plants
how animals deal w/ changing weather
Describe ways people prepare for various seasons
Observe that characteristics of a season vary from place to place
**Read degrees on a thermometer after measuring temperature in Celsius and Fahrenheit.
**Find out the boiling point and freezing point of water.
Due to copyright I realize that I probably shouldn't post much more - although she does give more guidelines. I have ** some of the items because I know my children either don't know this or haven't done it before - so I want to cover it. Among other things she mentions that I teach are:
familiarity w/ the water cycle (she tells what that is) and certain properties of air
I want to make sure that my children know these -and I *think* that they do - but I will be informally testing them next (yes - before I plan my unit - I test them).
After looking at her goals for "Intermediate" students - I decide to add some of the higher level goals because my children have been interested in the weather for some time and done a lot of reading/watching tv shows on this
topic.
I now feel better about MY goals because I realize that they are at least grade-level if not higher!
Now that I have an idea of *what* I want to teach - I will informally test my children. I am going to take a few of my objectives and "catch my kids" at a good time and ask them some questions.
I have done this already - and this is why I have the objectives that I have - because I know that they are not quite sure how storms form, (they have some ideas - but they need to be more concrete in their mind). They already
know what makes the seasons change and how that affects animals, plants and humans - so I will not be covering this...
I think it is very important to do this before I do much - if any - planning on a unit. I want to challenge them - but not overwhelm them or bore them - so I want to see what level of understanding they have about the subject matter. Since my children read MANY MANY books - and we talk about the
weather frequently (we live in Tornado Alley) - it was very important to me to find out how much they knew...I found that they remembered more than I have from tv documentaries that we have seen because they found it
"interesting". Now - to refresh MY memory...
My next steps will be to look through my weather books and come up with the terminology/vocabulary I want my children to learn. I haven't yet done this - so I will have to post the vocabulary that I want my children to learn in another message. I also want to make a list of the experiments/actiivties and field trips that I want us to try to do. Once again, I will have to put these in another message because I'm not done yet w/ making my list.
But, something I always try to consider is *why* I want to do this experiment or activity. Chris Davis from the Elijah Company has taught me to think about what my compelling reason is for doing something BEFORE I do it. (Thanks Chris- you've saved me from burnout).
The two last things I want to mention here are:
looking for Bible verses on weather. I will use a Bible Concordance for this - my husband remembers a place in scripture where David talks about watching a storm come in...and I know for sure that there is one place where God kills more of the Israelites' enemies with hail than they did with the sword. I want my children to see how weather is talked about in the Bible. (I wish I had the Encyclopedia of Bible Truths for School Subjects)
Secondly - I will list videos I can buy/rent or beg off of people to use to enhance our subject. For example, I "happen" (BWG) to have 2 video tapes from The Weather Channel on storms, etc. I also have their textbook (I
forgot to mention that) - and that will be a help.
Answers to some questions!
How long do we take to study a unit? When planning a unit study, I keep in mind that I am only taking a month per unit study. We find that we work best when we have 4 weeks of school and then one week of vacation. Therefore, my units are 4 weeks (or 20 days) long. The unit which I am planning online (and I'd love to have the input of others) - is only one of 9 units we will study this year. I don't have my listing of units right here - but the ones I remember that we will be doing are: Flight, Weather, Geology (with a field trip to Carlsbad Caverns), and the Middle Ages.
I have an advantage though that some people don't have. My children STILL love to learn. That desire has never been killed by long boring studies - although it has at times diminished when I've tried using textbooks. Textbooks just don't work for them - so we've always used "real books" and "real stories" etc.etc. I say this because even though we might do the unit study for one month - my kids may STILL read about the subject afterwords on their own. That is why I find myself having to teach them some weather
objectives that are for higher grades - just by reading on their own they have already mastered much of what others learn at their age - and they are interested in learning more!
How do I manage 8 hours at the library at once? Well, usually I write up my objectives at home - and decide on my purpose for doing the unit study. Then, I go into the library with my pen and paper and sit on the floor in the children's section and pull out all the books I can find on a subject. I
leaf through them (sometimes I do read them) - and I make a listing of the books I want to use when I get to that subject. If possible, I may list paragraphs I notice that I like and want to use for dictation practice (more on that in another message). I try to find an experiment book or two and
leaf through it looking for experiments or activities to do - and I list those too - hoping to plan them into my unit in the week they would be most appropriate!
Also - I don't do 8 hours at once - I may do a couple of 3 hours stints - and then a 2 hour one - or I may do some 4 hour stays - or I may just do some 2 hour visits. It depends upon what I'm finding and how excited I am.
About integrating math and English. I integrate English by having my children write about what we are learning. I don't really "do" grammar - my kids will take a year or so to thoroughly learn that when they are older. We do cover grammar rules by editing what they write, and by having them take dictation. I will pick a passage from a book (usually a paragraph or so) and dictate this to them - they will then give me their papers and I will look for errors in both spelling and grammar. This helps me diagnose rules that
they need to learn or refresh their memories on! We also use "Great Editing Adventures" which they love and I love also. It's a painless way to teach and review basic grammar. My hubby and I believe that if grammar is used properly by the parents - then the children will pick it up. We also feel it is very important to expose them to good books - that they will pick up on good grammar that way also.
I won't go into math because for 2 years we didn't do formal math - we found that our children were burnt out on it! We played store, and measured things, and they played LOTS and LOTS of computer math games, and when I went
to test them this year for placement into Saxon (just to see how they were doing - Saxon burned them out to begin with) - they were at or above grade level. We have since then switched to the "Key to.." series - and they do a certain amount of work daily in that! My kids won't like it - but I am also going to reinstitute our "Calculadder" drills also! I integrate math with my units whenever possible - but I don't count on my units as the only way of teaching math.
About books - that's a tough situation. Unfortunately, our local library has lots of older books and kids books - and we personally have over 2000-2500 books. (I've been trying to get them organized - hence I have an idea of the amount). I don't know what to tell you about that - perhaps someone who has to work around that problem could give you advice. Personally, I would pray about the Lord providing more $$ in our budget to buy one or two major books per unit, OR - I would pray that the Lord provides a friend who has lots of
books!! We have just decided to get our books somewhat organized so we can loan them out to our local homeschool group! We had been doing this - rather informally - now we want to do so on a little bit more formal basis...
The vocabulary list...
greenhouse effect
convection
Two basic cloud types: Cumulus and Stratus
precipitation
hail
dew
frost
cloud seeding
5 areas of atmosphere: troposphere, stratosphere,{tropopause too},
mesosphere, thermosphere, exosphere
condensation
Wind Deflection (also known as Coriolis Effect)
highs and lows
wind velocity
air masses
fronts
squall lines
thunderstorms, tornado, hurricane
That's my list - there are some things in this that my kids already KNOW from living here in Oklahoma - like tornado and hail....however - I want to make sure they understand the difference between hail and ice and dew and all of
the various types of precipitation that fall from the sky!
What is webbing?
I don't have my "Graphic Organizers" book here with me right now - but learning about these things would be great for all homeschool teachers! I use it to organize the information I'm going to teach - and then w/ my kids
to informally test them and see what they know.
The one we're using right now is the "web" - or the "bicycle wheel" in my mind (at least it starts out as the bicycle wheel).
Picture in your mind a circle - and in the middle of the circle is your topic. In our case - for our writing today (we're working right now on just writing good paragraphs and learning about the structure of a paragraph according to Writers Inc. - which I can't recommend highly enough for you as a teacher) - my kids can choose from several topics...one of which is vacations. Of course- we will narrow that topic down to one vacation - but I've given them 24 hours to think about some of our vacations. Now - I'm
going to assume that one of the kids will pick our trip on the train last year...so I'm going to put "Train trip" in the middle of our imaginary circle for this message. Now - like a bicycle tire - this circle is going to have "spokes" coming out the sides (or like we draw the sun with it's rays?). On
one spoke will be "food" - and then it will have little spokes coming off it to list some of the different foods we ate. Another spoke might have "people" and we'll list on little spokes off of that the people that we met on the train...(Eric met one man and they got to be friends - and Eric lectured him on the dangers of smoking (whenever the man would go to have a cigarette). The man later said that he never met a kid who got along so well w/ adults and felt so comfortable talking on their level - and that he was "special"). Of course -this man would go on a spoke under "people". Then -
there were the towns we went through - we might list those...
This whole process is called "Webbing" (I think - I may have titles mixed up).
Now - for a simple paragraph - I probably won't do "webbing" - we'll just do the bicycle wheel w/ the spokes (one layer only) coming out of it...what will be in the circle will be our topic - but also the idea we want to convey in
our paragraph. For example - the center circle might contain: "Our train trip - BORING". Now - everything that goes on the spokes had BETTER show how the train trip was boring...
Our topic sentence for the paragraph will say something like: We went on a train trip last summer.
Our "detail" sentence might say: It was really boring.
Then - our other sentences will say something like: It took us more than 2 days to get from Oklahoma to Maine. There was nothing to do but eat and sleep and watch the towns go by. There were no kids my age to play with.
And then we'll add a concluding sentence: I sure hope we don't go on a train trip again.
Now - I personally don't like formula paragraphs. The problem is though that so many children will wander in their thoughts and what they write. I want my children to learn to stick w/ a subject. So - the way I see it - I am teaching them some "organizing skills" in both their thinking and their
writing. Later - I hope to show them how they can be "free" from the formula approach - but still write well! However- I'm giving them a formula for now - because it will give them a handle on how to write well...
When I have my book of graphic organizers beside me - I will try to list some other ways to use them. I have found learning about these things (the organizers) to be invaluable in showing me how to organize what I want to
teach and how to TEACH what I want to teach...I wish every published unit study included information on graphic organizers...
MORE WEATHER STUFF...
From the "Yellow Pages" Science book (published by Incentive Publications - sold in teacher bookstores) - here are some questions about weather...
What is air pressure and how is it measured?
What happens to make it rain?
How is fog formed?
How can one accurately predict weather conditions?
What are the different kinds of clouds?
What are clouds made of and how are they formed?
How does weather affect the earth and its inhabitants?
How does one read a weather map?
What factors determine climate?
How are climates classified?
How is relative humidity measured?
The book also gives a chart listing the types of clouds and the weather prediction from seeing them...and the Beaufort scale of wind strength!
I thought these might be interesting questions for y'all.
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