Season and Weather Journal

TLW: Become aware of characteristics of seasons and changes that occur. They will also look for evidences of weather conditions and cloud types.

At the beginning of the year have your class go out and survey the school campus. Let them take pictures with a digital camera. Have the students write a description and date the photographs. Take note of vegetation, weather and atmosphere. Once a week have the students go out and take pictures of some of the same things--grass, certain trees, shrubs, clouds. Write a weekly descriptions to go with the pictures. These can be stored in a folder on the computer, put into a slide show program, or printed and put in a journal or scrapbook in the science center. As the year progress talk about the changes the students are seeing in vegetation. Relate this to a study of seasonal changes. Also, when the weather/water cycle unit is taught, you will have a collection of pictures to use in your instruction of weather and clouds. This will help bring out changes they don't realize are happening over time.