Procedures and Management Strategies
The weather unit I created had a total of fourteen lessons, five of which are included herein. When creating these lessons I worked to not only incorporate math, science, social studies, and language, but also worked to vary the types of activities that made up my unit.
In science we studied the rain gauge. Students read the rain gauges at different times during the period of several days. These findings were then recorded in their weather journal. Students compared the readings and totaled the various readings to get a total for the two days. Recording data in this way was a new concept for these first graders. This activity in particular took guidance, and was a step by step procedure carried out whole group.
Many of the lessons incorporated children's literature, many of which had wonderful illustrations. Through literature we extensively discussed different weather types. At the same time, many of the children's books were at the children's reading level. This way students could explore the literature at their own speed, and independently.
Other activities required prediction, interpretation, charting, and graphing. Some of this was done individually and some whole group. These visual aids also helped students stay on task and understand the information.
This unit allowed students to express themselves, and make use of the information for personal reasons. Students were asked at times to express how they feel during bouts of violent weather. This gave students a chance to openly share feelings and helped them understand that these feelings are common. Feelings were then expressed through drawings.
Really, the list of how this unit incorporates chances for student involvement, learning, and expression is long. Because of these different kinds of learning and teaching styles, student interest was high. It was so high, in fact, that at parent teacher conferences, I heard several comments about how students were asking to watch the weather. Parents were surprised at how much students knew. It is a very interesting topic! This interest decreases management problems.
All in all, with a combination of the material and our normal classroom rules, classroom management was not a concern. We took our time getting through the lessons to ensure comprehension of material and inclusion of every student. When the lesson was done, each student had a terrific journal to show the learning that had taken place.