Let's face it. We all should learn about weather. We should learn about the atmosphere, the hemispheres, the tilt of the earth in relation to the sun, the different clouds, and precipitation. We should learn it all. What better way to learn about it than hands on activities?
Today's topic: Seasons
Why do the season's happen? What causes the change? Do all areas of the world experience the same kind of weather all the time? All good questions. What did we do to find out?
First, we watched a movie entitled The Reasons for the Seasons. (Description:Students are shown, through the use of computer animation, the scientific principles responsible for our planet's yearly cycle of seasons. The tilt of the earth's axis and the planet's orbit around the sun are discussed. Other planets in our solar system are compared to earth, as terms such as revolution and rotation are defined. In addition to exploring the seasons, topics covered include: the role leaves play in the survival of trees and plants, photosynthesis, the reasons for changing autumn colors as trees prepare for the winter, and the explanation for day and night.) This particular movie is from a pay site that is rather costly but you might want to check with them because they offer free access to homeschoolers in some states. \o/ \o/ http://www.unitedstreaming.com/ This particular movie had a quiz at the end of it. The picklets LOVE it when there is a quiz. They yell loud to be the first one to blurt out the right answer! Gotta love that.
Second, we read The Reasons for the Seasons by Gail Gibbons. We love Gail Gibbons books. They are so well written. We stopped on each page and talked about the tilt of the earth, the rotation around the sun and using a globe and light demonstrated how the earth moves. It greatly helped the learning process. Hands on is great!
Thirdly, after watching the movie and reading the book, the picklets wrote a script (based closely on the book) and demonstrated the revolution of the earth and the tilt to show the 4 seasons.