This week we are finishing up our Earth Science unit with this 2nd week about Natural Disasters. Monday –
We are reviewing our vocabulary words and reading our Science newsletter today. This is mostly review of last week’s booklets that are located in our Science notebooks. Tuesday – Today we are finishing up highlighting in our newsletters and we are creating a notebook page. We will be listing/illustrating things that cause fast and slow changes to the Earth’s surface. This page will be our daily work grade for the week. Wednesday — We will review and work on our crossword puzzle today in class. ‘Catch-Up’ Day is also today. Thursday — We will take our Week 14 quiz today. Students will be tested on 9 questions from their newsletter and their seven vocabulary words. Students will also be turning in their Science notebooks for me to check their notebook pages 60 – 76.
We are currently studying Week 13 Weather and Climate newsletter in Science. This newsletter goes just right with our next one — Natural Disasters. These are some of our favorite things to learn about this year!! We are testing on Thursday, Jan. 22.
Wednesday (1/14) – We introduced our new vocabulary words and highlighted several sections in our Week 13 newsletter. These words are located on page 59 in our Science Notebooks.
Thursday (1/15) –
Today we reviewed Water Cycle and completed a booklet on NB 60. I purchased this booklet from the Science Penguin’s TPT store – the link is here. Students will have to be able to label the parts of the water cycle on their test. This booklet is a great study guide for them. 🙂 I will also be taking it for a Daily Work grade for the week.
Friday –
Today we focused on air masses and fronts in Science. We discussed and labeled the six air masses that affect weather in the U.S. This is located on page 64 in our notebooks. This led us to page 62 where we learned about warm, cold, and stationary fronts. I want students to be able to recognize these key words when they hear them during news forecasts during our weather homework assignment next week.
Also today we learned about weather balloons. A student brought in one they had just found in a tree — which amazed the students and also the teacher!! 🙂 I’m including the video we watched about them.
The above picture is the remains of the weather balloon we looked at in class today.
Tuesday (1/20) — We will review, we will look at a weather forecast and the weather map on NB 61. We will finish our newsletter and learn more about our homework assignment on NB 63.
Wednesday (1/21) —
We are completing a Venn Diagram about weather vs. climate on NB 65.
Thursday (1/22) —
Week 13 Quiz Day .. Our quiz will consist of our 6 vocabulary words, our 4 water cycle parts to label, and nine questions from our week 13 quiz. We will start Natural Disasters on the following Monday.
I will be checking our 4th grader’s Science Notebooks this next week (1/21 – 1/24) as time permits. This rubric is what they will be graded by. Science Notebooks are equal to one test grade in the grade book. We will start Chapter 9 notebook on Wednesday.
Learn how to make a tornado in a bottle with this fun science experiment for kids. Using easy to find items such as dish washing liquid, water, and a bottle you can make your own mini tornado that’s a lot safer than one you might see on the weather channel. Follow the instructions and enjoy the cool water vortex you create!
What you’ll need:
• Water
• A clear plastic bottle or a plastic jar with a cap (that won’t leak)
• Dish washing liquid
• Two drops of food coloring OR a few pinches of glitter
• Optional – 10 – 15 pieces of aluminum foil pellets (These items would represent the debris that the storm would pick up.)
Instructions:
1. Fill the plastic bottle or the plastic jar with water until it reaches around three quarters full.
2. Add a few drops of dish washing liquid.
3. Sprinkle in a few pinches of glitter or food coloring (this will make your tornado easier to see).
4. Put the cap on tightly.
5. Turn the bottle or jar upside down and hold it by the neck. Quickly spin the bottle in a circular motion for a few seconds, and then stop and look inside to see if you can see a mini tornado forming in the water. You might need to try it a few times before you get it working properly.
What’s happening?
6. Spinning the bottle in a circular motion creates a water vortex that looks like a mini tornado. The water is rapidly spinning around the center of the vortex due to centripetal force (an inward force directing an object or fluid such as water towards the center of its circular path). Vortexes found in nature include tornadoes, hurricanes and waterspouts (a tornado that forms over water).
Today in Science we reviewed our group work from Friday. On notebook page 72 students were instructed to work in groups and use their knowledge about hurricanes and tornadoes to compare and contrast them. I was very impressed with their group work and finished pages! Above are two finished pages from 2nd period.
Today we integrated Reading skills into our Science content!! We reviewed the skill Main Idea and Supporting Details. We discussed the information we could gain from the Science Map on page 64 on our workbook. This map showed us the area in our country that was most likely to have tornado activity. We used this information to complete the graphic organizer on page 65.
We’ve added 3 new pages to our Science notebooks during the past 2 days including LOTS of information about tornadoes!! We’ve underlined important information that we MAY see on our test next week. 🙂
This week we are finishing up Chapter 6 Water Cycle and Weather. It has been a perfect week to learn about weather with all of our crazy weather we have been having!! Today we kicked class off with our new notebook page 61 where we labeled the weather map symbols, and we predicted the weather from our symbols on the map!!
Students have homework this week — and it is located on notebook page 60. It is part of their Science Notebook for Chapter 6, and it will count as a notebook page. Students are to watch or look up the weather. There are lots of ways to accomplish this — a weather forecast on TV, a weather app (my personal FAVE is The Weather Channel app – it is FREE!), an internet weather site, radio, newspaper weather forecast, etc. Students are to date the page when they do the assignment, record the type of media (TV, Internet, etc.), and record any symbols they saw or heard on the forecast. For extra credit, students may send me a picture of them looking at the weather forecast OR bring it in. This is not mandatory, but I thought it may be FUN!! 🙂 This assignment is due on Tuesday, December 17th. I am including a picture of me checking the weather on the Internet as an example 🙂
We are reviewing our vocabulary words and reading our Science newsletter today. This is mostly review of last week’s booklets that are located in our Science notebooks. Tuesday – Today we are finishing up highlighting in our newsletters and we are creating a notebook page. We will be listing/illustrating things that cause fast and slow changes to the Earth’s surface. This page will be our daily work grade for the week. Wednesday — We will review and work on our crossword puzzle today in class. ‘Catch-Up’ Day is also today. Thursday — We will take our Week 14 quiz today. Students will be tested on 9 questions from their newsletter and their seven vocabulary words. Students will also be turning in their Science notebooks for me to check their notebook pages 60 – 76.
Mrs. Goggans' 4th Grade Scientists 