What is Snow? For 4K
Unit Title What is Snow? |
| Grade Level 4K |
| WMELS Standards Addressed: V.C.EL.1, V.C.EL.2,V.C.EL.3V.C.EL.4 |
| ELS Standards Addressed: ELS.C1.B.e, ELS.C1.C.e, ELS.EX3.B.e, ELS.EX4.B.e, ELS.EX5.B. |
Checklist for Quality
Yes/ No | Criteria |
Yes | Does the unit: Engage students physically in exploring, investigating, and manipulating elements in their environment? |
Yes | Does the unit: Involve students in asking questions, probing for answers, conducting investigations, collecting and analyzing data? |
Yes | Does the unit: Address questions that are relevant to the child? |
Yes | Does the unit: Encourage children to engage in science process skills such as predicting, observing, classifying, hypothesizing, experimenting, and communicating? |
Yes | Does the unit: Invite students to create, test, and revise theories? |
Yes | Does the unit: Provide opportunities for students to share their observations and ideas with peers? |
The preceding checklist is provided to assist with reflecting on whether the unit lessons support the development of scientific thinking in young children.
References
Selly, Patty Born. Teaching STEM Outdoors: Activities for Young Children. Redleaf Press, 2017.
Wilson, R. “Promoting the Development of Scientific Thinking.” EarlychildhoodNEWS, www.earlychildhoodnews.com/earlychildhood/article_view.aspx?ArticleId=409%20. Accessed 18 Oct. 2019.
Wisconsin. Early Learning Standards Steering Committee. Wisconsin Model Early Learning Standards: with Introduction. Madison, WI: Wisconsin Dept. of Public Instruction, 2017.
What is Snow? DAY 1
Learning Targets (As a result of this experience outdoors, the student will know and be able to do): I can use my senses to investigate snow and ice. I can describe snow to my friends. | ||||
Success Measures (The student will know they are successful if they can): Students will be able to use their senses of seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, and tasting to explore snow. Students will use a variety of words to describe snow. | ||||
Essential Question: What is snow like? | ||||
Big Idea (I want my students to understand that…): Snow is made of frozen water. | ||||
Materials Needed: Snow Set up ahead of time: None Children are prepared and will bring outdoors: Dressed for the weather. | ||||
Connect | ||||
Circle-Up/Opening | Teacher | Notice there is snow on the ground. Tell children that today we are going to use our senses to notice what snow is like while playing with it. Review the senses of smell, taste, sight, touch, and hearing. Tell them that when we come back inside we will make a poster recording what we think snow is like. | ||
Explore | ||||
Inquiry What inquiry will students be involved in to develop skills/understanding of the learning target? | All | Go outside and play in the snow. If necessary, encourage kids to use their whole bodies to explore the snow: make snow angels, fall down in the snow, throw it up in the air, make snow balls or people, etc! When it seems to make sense, ask about what they are doing and how the snow feels/ tastes/ sounds/ looks/ smells. | Formative Assessment Student behavior and conversation: specifically looking for the kids engaging multiple senses while playing with the snow. | |
Engage | ||||
Reflection/Synthesis | All | Ask students what is snow like using different senses: What does snow feel like? What does snow sound like? Taste like? Look like? Smell like? What does snow do? How does snow make you feel? | Formative Assessment: Student responses to questions: looking for students' use of descriptive words for snow using each sense. | |
Review and Closure | Review the learning target-I can use my senses to investigate snow and ice. I can describe snow to my friends. | |||
What is Snow? DAY 2
Learning Targets (As a result of this experience outdoors, the student will know and be able to do): I can use a magnifying glass to look closely at snow. I can record what I notice. | ||||
Success Measures (The student will know they are successful if they can): Students will be able to explain that snow is made up of snowflakes. | ||||
Essential Question: What is snow? | ||||
Big Idea (I want my students to understand that…): Snow is made of frozen water. | ||||
Materials Needed: Magnifying glasses, cold black or other dark colored paper, bucket or cups to fill with snow to bring inside. Set up ahead of time: Chill paper outside. Children are prepared and will bring outdoors: Dress for the weather. | ||||
Connect | ||||
Circle-Up/Opening | Teacher | Remind students that yesterday they went outside to explore and investigate snow with their whole bodies using their senses. Today we are going to use another tool called a magnifying glass to look closely at snow. Show a magnifying glass and model how to use it. Explain that when we go outside today, we will try to catch snow on the paper so we can use the magnifying glasses to look closely at it. | ||
Explore | ||||
Inquiry What inquiry will students be involved in to develop skills/understanding of the learning target? | All | Outside either catch snowflakes on the paper or try to pick up some snow, place it on the paper, and look at it through the magnifying glasses. Ask students what they notice. Wonder out loud: “I wonder what would happen if we brought some snow inside to look at it.” “How could we find out what happens when snow is brought inside?” Students fill up bucket or cups with snow. Bring snow inside. | Formative Assessment Student behavior and conversation: specifically looking for students engaged in the activity, talking about what they notice, and making predictions about what will happen. | |
Engage | ||||
Reflection/Synthesis | All | Inside, invite students to share what they noticed about the snow. Hopefully they will have noticed that the snow on the ground is actually lots of little snowflakes. Maybe they will be able to describe the snowflakes to you. Remind them that they brought snow inside it to look at. Tell them you will put it (location) for them to explore. | Formative Assessment Student responses to questions: specifically looking for students verbalizing their observations and making a prediction about what will happen. | |
Review and Closure | Review the learning target-I can use a magnifying glass to look closely at snow. I can record what I notice. | |||
What is Snow? DAY 3
Learning Targets (As a result of this experience outdoors, the student will know and be able to do): Students can describe what happened to the snow after it was brought inside the classroom. | ||||
Success Measures (The student will know they are successful if they can): Students will explain that when snow is brought inside it melts and becomes water. | ||||
Essential Question: What is snow? | ||||
Big Idea (I want my students to understand that…): Snow is made of frozen water. | ||||
Materials Needed: Buckets to carry water. Pans to put water in outside. Note to place by pans asking that people not empty the pans because the 4K is doing an experiment. Set up ahead of time: none Children are prepared and will bring outdoors: Dress for the weather. | ||||
Connect | ||||
Circle-Up/Opening | Teacher | Remind students that yesterday they brought a big bucket of snow inside to investigate. Ask if anyone has looked at it today. If so, ask what they noticed. If not, go over as a group to investigate together. Ask what they notice. It is water! Where did our snow go? See what they think, listen to their discussion if kids have differing ideas about what happened to the snow. Perhaps they will decide that the snow melted and became water. Ask, “If snow melts into water when it is brought inside the warm classroom, will the water turn back into snow if we bring it back outside where it is cold?” “How could we find out?” | ||
Explore | ||||
Inquiry What inquiry will students be involved in to develop skills/understanding of the learning target? | All | Carry the bucket or cups of water outside to where you want to set up the pans. Place pans on the ground. Fill with the melted snow water. Place note describing your experiment. (Optional: Teacher tosses a couple of leaves/sticks/seeds/ etc. in secretly before leaving to encourage chipping tomorrow.) | Formative Assessment Student comments: specifically looking for students verbalizing their noticings, describing what happened to the snow and making predictions about what is going to happen to the water. | |
Engage | ||||
Reflection/Synthesis | All | Inside, review that they noticed that the snow melted into water when it was brought inside. They are doing an experiment to see if it will turn back into snow when they bring it outside again. Ask the students to predict- who thinks it will turn into snow? Who thinks it won’t? If it doesn’t turn into snow, will something else happen to it? Or will it still be water tomorrow? Record their predictions. | Formative Assessment Student predictions about what is going to happen to the water. | |
Review and Closure | Review the learning target- I can describe what happened to the snow after it was brought inside the classroom- it melted into water! | |||
What is Snow? DAY 4
Learning Targets (As a result of this experience outdoors, the student will know and be able to do): I can describe what happened to the melted snow water after it was outside in the cold overnight. | ||||
Success Measures (The student will know they are successful if they can): Students can explain that the melted snow water froze when left outside in the cold overnight. | ||||
Essential Question: What is snow? | ||||
Big Idea (I want my students to understand that…): Snow is made of frozen water. | ||||
Materials Needed: Frozen water in pans outside. Something for kids to chip the ice with (sticks, wooden mallets, small hammers), safety glasses (optional). Set up ahead of time: Place pans of water outside overnight to freeze. Place small natural objects placed in the water prior to freezing to encourage kids to chip away at the ice the next day (optional). Children are prepared and will bring outdoors: Dressed for the weather. | ||||
Connect | ||||
Circle-Up/Opening | Teacher | Remind kids of all they have noticed about snow this week. Review how they used their senses to describe what snow was like. Remind them that they looked through magnifying glasses and saw that snow is made up of lots of little snowflakes, that when they brought snow inside it melted into water. Then we decided to see if that melted water would turn back into snow if we brought it back outside. We are doing an experiment! Some of us think that it will turn back into snow. Some of us think it won’t. Today, we get to go see what has happened! | ||
Explore | ||||
Inquiry What inquiry will students be involved in to develop skills/understanding of the learning target? | All | Hike to pans. Ask kids what they notice about the melted snow water? Has it changed? Is it snow? Is it water? Invite kids to explore the frozen water. If they don’t come up with it by themselves (in effort to get out some of the objects frozen inside), perhaps try chipping away at the ice to see what happens. Invite kids to look at chips with a magnifying glass. What do they notice? How are the chips similar to snowflakes? How are they different? (Note the lesson’s author has an extended time for nature play in the woods adjacent to the school each Friday (Forest Friday). This lesson is designed to take place on Friday where the kids would have time and freedom to chip away at the frozen water or otherwise play with the frozen water.) | Formative Assessment Student behavior: specifically looking for engagement in investigating the evidence of what happened to the water and assessing whether or not their prediction was accurate. Student engagement in investigating the ice. | |
Engage | ||||
Reflection/Synthesis | All | Ask what they noticed about what happened to the melted snow water after being outside in the cold over night. Did it turn into snow? What did it turn into? Were your predictions right? Remark that you saw some kids making ice chips. They reminded you of snow. How are the chips similar to snowflakes? How are they different? Ask, after our week of exploring and investigating snow, what do you think snow is? What do you think snow is made out of? | Formative Assessment Student responses to questions: specifically looking for describing what they noticed, synthesizing their observations across the week to make a hypothesis about what snow is made of. | |
Review and Closure | Review the learning target-You can describe what happened to the melted snow water- it froze into ice. | |||