The last few days have been comprised of lots of work. Students have been super busy putting together both their group and individual projects. Each and every student worked to the best of their ability to complete each assignment successfully. I think their dedication and determination came from their eagerness to learn about this topic because it was something of interest as well as something that they see every day; they were able to connect. To me, it is important to see my students connect with the topic they are learning because without that connection students aren't willing to put as much work into the content and do not feel what they are learning is necessary. However, it was proven that this topic was of interest of my students. I was thoroughly impressed with how well they worked in a group setting since we have not done many group projects this year. They learned how to compromise and cooperate to get their work down professionally and in a timely matter. I was also very pleased to see that each member gave input and worked on the project, no one carried the whole work load. The students took time and really cared about their individual projects, I think this had to do with the fact that they had to present to the whole class. I was pleasantly surprised to see a majority of the class go up to present with confidence. They all had a good understanding about their cities climate and did a nice job explaining. I am so happy to have seen this unit become a success, both the students and I enjoyed it. The students learned many new skills that can be applied in a variety of different settings that I hope to continue to see them apply!

Within each group the students will be given an individual assignment. Each student will be assigned a city that is within the climate region they have. This will allow them to discover more deeply the climate and weather of that area of the United States. With the knowledge they attained from the group project they will able to apply it to their individual work. Not only the new information about the climate will they be able to apply but also how to conduct research on the internet and how to pull out the important information. The student is required to track the weather of the city that is assigned to them including the temperatures, interesting temperature changes, precipitation, sunny/cloudy, as well as point of the city on the map. The students will individually present their research the class so that everyone gets a greater understanding about the different climate regions and that how even in the same region that the weather does vary. I think this will trigger the students to think and question their learning to form a deeper understanding of this unit. The goal of both of these assignments is to push the students to think critically and to begin to understand how to apply knew/old knowledge to a new setting. In this unit the students are learning the basis of weather and a lot of different vocabulary that is associated with weather. They are then required to take this knowledge and apply it in order to complete the group/individual project.

Today I broke the class into groups based on the 6 different climate regions of the United States. The different regions are Northeast, Northwest Pacific, Mid/South Pacific, Midwest, Southeast, and Southwest. The students will work as a group to conduct research about their assigned climate and will later give a group report to the class. The information they will be looking for is tracking the temperatures over the week, the temperature ranges during the year, the seasons, precipitation, sunny/cloudy and general information about the climate such as the sates that make up the region. They will have to show the class where the region is located on a map. This assignment is designed to help the students attain a deeper understanding of climate and weather. I want them to begin to see how different states and parts of the country have different weather at different times as well as activate their thinking of why this occurs. This will ensure that students put their "thinking caps" on to think outside of the box as well as build the cooperative and team building skills necessary to work with others. The research should be conducted from online resources to give the class an opportunity to become familiar with how to conduct research on the Internet as well as to pick out important information. I posted a link to a page of good resources the students can use to begin their research. At the end of the week each group will present in front of the class. While the group presents the other students are expected to take notes on a note sheet with questions that I will provide in order for everyone to learn about each climate. 

In class today we went over a PowerPoint slide about weather. It was a general overview of the topic and it included important vocabulary terms that the students should become familiar with over the course of this unit. The PowerPoint is available on my website under the "Weather Unit". Here you can access it to view the material learned in class as well as be a reference to complete various homework assignments or just something to look back on. I was pleased to see that the students were pretty familiar with the topic of weather. Of course they new the basics, rain, snow, tornado, sunny, cloudy ect. but they were unfamiliar how to describe it in detail as well as how and where it is formed. This is what this unit is built to do, inform the students on a deeper level. This might seem like a lot of information but the students have access to a few links to interactive websites, this is also located on my webpage. These websites are extremely helpful and will also be used with homework assignments. I think that this is a great opportunity for the students to become more familiar with learning on the Internet as well as how to access and use it.  I will be introducing the websites to the students over the next few days and will go over them as a class so that they are aware how to use them and why I want them to use them. I am excited for this unit and I think the students are going to really enjoy it!

I wanted to keep you all up to date about our new class unit, weather! All of the students are super excited  about this unit and cannot wait to get started. This unit will span over two weeks and will cover topics in science as well as math and geography, there is a lot that can be incorporated in this unit. In math the students will be completing worksheets and homework problems that have to do with weather such as comparing temperatures in on city and then comparing it to another city. They will include addition, subtraction, and multiplication problems. It will be great for the students to incorporate what they are learning into math to make it more exciting to complete. Geography will also be a big part of this unit. The students will assigned to a region of America and will have to do research on what type of climate and weather is common there. They will then be assigned to track the weather over the two weeks of a certain city within that region to follow. This will help them become more familiar with a map of the United States. The students will also gain a better understanding of how to access the internet to find information because they will have to research their region and city. Lastly, they will have to present this information in front of the class. Also the students will take turns checking the weather conditions and temperature for the day and inform the class each morning. As you can see the students will be learning many new skills during this unit.