Google Document

Hey group I have sent an invite to each one of you to the Google Document check your emails.
So far we have agreed on comparing weather across the country through Epals.
We need a specific grade level and Location.
Angela said we should break up the class into groups and choose location.
I would like one location to be California. What grade level were you'll thinking? Maybe 3rd grade because I want the class to be able to read and write.
At what point will the class contact these students? I was focusing on which season should we have the project. I am unsure of when exact should the students contact them.
What kind of questions will the students be asking?
Maybe What is their favorite season?
What are their favorite activities to do during the summer?
What do they do for fun?
Maybe even favorite television shows?
Can they send a picture of themselves?
Have they ever visited any states? Things of that nature?
What will they do with the information they will receive?
 I was thinking maybe creating a poster board or PowerPoint of the information they received to present to the class.

Let me know what you think! Fill free to add this to the Google Document if agreed upon as a start.

Virtual Pen Pals

I was thinking for this assignment we could for instance have students from Michigan write to students in California about the weather conditions comparing the activities that can be done in the summer in California to that of Michigan.

E-Pal, Map, Movie Ideas

Okay everyone, we need to figure out what type of assignment we would do with our class to demonstrate cultural understanding and global awareness.  Maybe we could do something like having the kids write to other students in a different region of the U.S. and they can talk about and describe the weather in their area.  It's not super creative, but an idea.  We then have to figure out how to incorporate a map into the assignment.  We also need to discuss who is doing what concept for the digital movie.  We can stick with what we did our lesson plans on if you'd like.  I already have started a movie up for types of weather.  We need to make sure that we are cover all concepts on the map as well!

Websites

The sites that I used are ..

http://www.wxdude.com/

http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/wwatch/index.htm

http://www.edheads.org/activities/weather/

I was going to create my lesson using tools to predict weather. Has anyone done this yet? Also do you guys have the Task stream code?

Websites

I really liked this one for teaching its great!
http://urbanext.illinois.edu/treehouse/

Websites!

I wanted to use websites that were focused on kids. Since I will be teaching elementary. I'm not sure what level of teaching we as a group would like to focus on. If found a few websites that are focus on children's learning. Are we just focusing on the concepts as presenting it to students? Or are we finding websites that just relate to our project?

The weather channel for kids
http://theweatherchannelkids.com/weather-classroom-guides/teacher/
This link is more of a teachers guide. I found it pretty useful!

Weather Wiz Kids
http://www.weatherwizkids.com/weather-forecasting.htm

We can always find information from this link.
http://www.weather.com/

I really liked this one!
http://urbanext.illinois.edu/treehouse/
Ill list a few more till we decide which direction we plan to go.
http://www.wunderground.com/
http://www.weather.com/encyclopedia/ For weather terms
http://www.timeanddate.com/weather/glossary.html

I had trouble narrowing them done but they all are very useful!
Let me know what you think!

Lesson Plan

I will post my websites soon. I want to do my lesson on the section on seasons!

Lesson Plan One!

Hey everyone!  We need to figure out what concept everyone wants to focus on for our lesson plan.  Since there is six concepts on the map, two of us will need to take on an extra one.  I am willing to take on one of them.  I was thinking about doing the types of weather and careers involving the weather.  Is that okay with everyone?  And remember if you find other things to add to one of the concepts that's okay, I will go back through and update the concept map periodically.

We also need to decide on what types of websites we will need for our project so we can start evaluating them and posting them up here.

Concept Map: Part A

I like to ideas that are going so far! I think that the concept map looks great. The idea of each reporting on weather patterns in certain parts of the country or even where we are all at for the summer is a good idea. I just think we need to elaborate more on the concepts so we can gain as much information out of them as possible.

Example of Concept Map!

Here's an example of a concept map I just put together. The big idea was "predicting weather." Obviously there are plenty more terms and types of weather we can add to it, but this is just an idea. Let me know what you guys think and feel free to say you don't want something.
Kelli, I tried thinking of way to incorporate what you had said, but I was drawing a blank. So let me know what you think or how you were thinking about putting the CM together.
I will post something to the blog as soon as we all agree. I just though predicting weather was kind of a broad topic so we would have plenty to cover.

Again, let me know what you think!

Maybe we can compare weather forecast from the different cities we are in. or divided the country into half and compare the weather over a period of time. We could research the reason why the weather is different for each area. I like the idea of branching off into different types of weather. The weather can take on many forms.

Hey don't forget each one of us has to post the blog url in order to get credit.

The "Big Project" Idea

Hey everyone!   We need to brainstorm some ideas for our concept map.  I was thinking for the map we could have it branching off into things like different types of weather, careers involving weather, basic terms, etc.  Any other ideas?

Hey group we are ready to get started!!!