A Little More of Chewandswallow {Severe Weather Alert!!!!}

Next week is our last week in our weather unit. I am a little sad! The kids have done an excellent job over the past few weeks and are now some pretty awesome meteorologist.

This week, we have been spending time observing and checking our weather tools. We have been recording our findings in our science journal each day. Fortunately {Praise the Lord} we have had quite  a bit of rain. It was so cute...on our first day of "true rain" and I mean it RAINED...the kids just knew that our rain gauge would be overflowing. The rain let up long enough for us to make a quick run for it and check on our gauge. Much to their surprise, we had only collected about an inch of rain. This was a great lesson for them and something that could only be taught through this experiment. Although it appeared that we had a tremendous amount of rain all around {what they thought would be inches and inches}, in each little area, we had only accumulated about an inch. Here they are checking out our rain gauge! 

Now, we are beginning to realize that our water is...wait for it...DISAPPEARING! Who tipped over our rain gauge?!? :) As we transition into learning about clouds, this has been a perfect time to observe evaporation at it's finest! 

While keeping a close eye on our weather tools, we have also been researching severe weather. After being assigned a "specialty area" which was located on their meteorlogist badge, the students spent several days researching in our school library and then summarized and recorded their findings. I had created topics that outlined the research that I wanted them to include. They recorded their information in the "research boxes." They were glued to the screen and I am pretty sure they could have sat there for hours! {That is in between running to me to share new findings!} 

After the research was ready to go, the students spent a day creating their group poster and preparing their "informational speech"! Here are some of the students hard at work. Is it just me or are they not the cutest things working together?!? Love moments like these!

  They began their presentations today and I forgot to take pictures of the finished posters {something to add to the "to do" list for Friday}. At the conclusion of each presentation, the audience worked on asking thick questions. I was amazed by their detailed responses. The students were so proud of all of their hard work.  Next week, we will be focusing on clouds and we will also be creating our very own class weather forecast...that will be GOING LIVE...for our classroom at least!!! :)

In other news...Can someone please explain why Disney's A Christmas Carol is on tonight!!!! WHAT?!?!?

Happy ALMOST Friday Everyone!!!