Severe Weather

1. Severe Weather

2. LiteratureSelection

3. Theme Study • Students will learn about severe weather through this thematic unit. They will learn a little bit about each subject including reading and writing, social studies, science, math, art, music, and physical education. • They will also learn safety tips and how to react when a severe storm approaches.

4. Language Arts: Reading • Read Blizzard’s Wake by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor out loud to the students • Read an assortment of books talking about severe weather of their interest • Read interesting facts about each storm book • Research poems about severe weather online • Find newspaper article about recent severe weather

5. Language Arts: Speaking • Each student has a day to give a weather report • Discussion about their personal severe weather books • Talk about personal experiences with storms • Interview classmate about another experience not shared • Share information on their researched storm

6. Language Arts: Writing • Name Blizzards and Hurricanes • Write down a personal experience or stories heard as a narrative of a severe storm • Write a poem using onomatopoeia • Write reflections on a current severe weather disaster (ex. 2009 flood) • Write a journal about each day’s weather and how they feel about the weather that day

7. Language Arts: Listening • Listen to a story about a severe storm told by a survivor • Listen to different wind, lightning, and other storm sounds • Have a guest speaker such as a weather person speak to the class • Listen while their peers read their stories to the class • Listen to upcoming weather forecasts

8. Language Arts: Viewing • Watch weather channel for updates when applicable • Look at a live radar during severe weather (not only where they live but around the globe) • Watch Bill Nye the Science Guy and Storms • Research storm pictures online (either as a class on the board or online and share with class later) • Take a field trip to local weather forecasting station • Watch videos of storms occurring

9. Language Arts: Visually Representing • Make a collage of the pictures the students found on the internet or at home • Decorate the room with severe weather pictures or other decorations • Display their projects from the unit around the room and hallway • Create a presentation of their favorite storm • Picture wall of storm photos and newspaper or magazine articles

10. Science • How storms are formed • How snowflakes look under a microscope • What the differences between a tornado and a hurricane • What causes thunder and lightning • Inspect hail and how it is formed • All different types of severe weather (tornado, blizzard, hurricane, flood, ect.) • Types of clouds and what they do • Write down what kinds of clouds they have seen after being taught how to identify them

11. Mathematics • Add Lightning bolts in a pictures of two different storms on a worksheet • Learn how to tell how far away lightning is • How much faster is one tornado going than the next • Graph daily precipitation • Measure wind speeds of certain hurricanes and tornados by using researched information of a certain hurricane or tornado • Learn the degree of which the precipitation is falling and apply it to triangles • Measure temperature before, during, and after storm

12. Social Studies • Use maps to determine distance one tornado traveled on the ground • Study a specific vicious storm in history and write a research paper • Choose a year and find out some of the most severe weather in that year • Learn what to do during each specific storm • Color a map of where a selected severe weather pattern occurs • Compare states of average precipitation each year on a bar graph • Create Venn Diagram of the differences and likenesses of Tornados and Hurricanes

13. Music, PE, and Art • Make wind chimes • Make rain sticks • Storm Noise Activity (patting knees, clapping, snapping ect.) • Make paper snowflakes • Compose a storm song • Have a relay to each ‘storm’ and do an activity that goes along with safety during that ‘storm’ • Create picture journal of favorite storms • Play basketball ‘Lightning’ game • Play ‘snowball’ (dodge ball like game with mats as protection around the gym)

14. Technology • Bill Nye the Science Guy and Storms Video • Twister • PBS Home Video: Tornado Glory • Tornadoes: How They Form Video • Google Search Engine • http://www.ussartf.org/predicting_weather.htm • http://www.tornadohistoryproject.com/ • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHKOT4K7hO4 • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guQB_-Nper4

15. Language Arts Strategies • Brainstorm what kind of storms that they have or haven’t been through • Remembering things they already know about storms to learn more • Predicting weather and seeing how to monitor weather • Using severe weather to relate to the whole world, not just North Dakota (or USA) • Using visualizing to view a storm in their minds before it happens

16. Language Arts Skills • Students will understand new words and how they fit in with severe storms and everyday life • Students will write and understand how to write a narrative, a poem, and conduct an interview • Students will recognize words learned during this unit and use them outside of the classroom • Students will have used graphs, diagrams, pictures, and much more to visualize each severe weather storm

17. Grouping Patterns • Large Group: classroom discussions, videos, snowball game, videos, guest speakers, daily forecast, relays, storm noises • Small Group: interviews, map colorings, picture researching, composing songs, experiments • Individual: making snowflakes, making rain sticks, writing poems, personal journals, weather forecast per day, survival information

18. Assessments • Personal Journal Entries • Evaluate mapping skills • Poetry informal assessment • Participation in all activities • Observe as students complete their picture journal • Assess narrative story using 6+1 writing traits • Quiz on Science and Math content • Use rubric to score research report