Literacy & Drama
The Water Cycle
![Picture](/uploads/1/7/0/9/17099422/8373723.jpg?422)
Grade Level: 2nd
Time: 40 minutes
Lesson Background:
This lesson is meant to teach students about the water cycle and the different forms water takes.
Big Ideas, Key Concepts, Competencies: Water is all around us and we need it to survive. Sometimes it is visible and sometimes we cannot it with our naked eyes. The water cycle shows how Earth recycles it's own water. This cycle is important for all living things and helps keep people alive.
Teacher Knowledge: Teachers should know the stages of the water cycle in the order it occurs and that matter exists in different states. Air is a material that surrounds us and takes up space. When liquid disappears, it turns into a gas in the air and can reappear as a liquid when cooled, or as a solid if cooled below the freezing point of water. Clouds and fog are made up of tiny droplets or frozen crystals of water.
Pennsylvania Curriculum Standards:
- Academic:
1.1.2.D: Demonstrate comprehension / understanding before reading, during reading, and after reading on grade level texts through strategies such as think aloud, retelling, summarizing, note taking, connecting to prior knowledge, supporting assertions about text with evidence from text, and non-linguistic representations. - Art:
9.1.F: Understand story (scenario), script/text in the theatre arts.
Objectives:
- Students will be able to define four stages of the water cycle: evaporation, condensation, precipitation, and, collection.
- Students will be able to act out the different stages of the water cycle as teacher is reading.
- Students will be able to fill out a K-W-L chart to show comprehension progress.
Materials:
Teacher
- White board
- White board markers
- White board eraser
- Book: “The Magic Schoolbus at the Waterworks” by Joanna Cole
- Pencil
- Paper
Step-By-Step Procedure:
Engagement/Introduction
To engage students I will ask them what they already know about water and have an open discussion: “Where does it come from? What do you do when you want a drink of water? Where have you seen water before? Does anyone live near a body of water?” As I ask these questions I will write the information they give me under the K(now) part of the K-W-L chart. I will then move on to the W(ant to learn) part of the chart and write down student suggestions.
Explicit Instruction
I will explain to students that they will learn about the different phases of the water cycle. I will define these and illustrate these on the board. Students will also draw illustrations in their notebook:
Evaporation: Evaporation is when the sun heats up water in rivers or lakes or the ocean and turns it into vapor or steam. The water vapor or steam leaves the river, lake or ocean and goes into the air. Draw a picture of water with arrows going upwards to the sky and label it.
Condensation: Water vapor in the air gets cold and changes back into liquid, forming clouds. Draw an arrow from evaporation to the clouds and label this step of the cycle.
Precipitation: Precipitation occurs when so much water has condensed that the air cannot hold it anymore. The clouds get heavy and water falls back to the earth in the form of rain, hail, sleet or snow. Draw a picture of rain coming down from the clouds and label it.
Collection: When water falls back to earth as precipitation, it may fall back in the oceans, lakes or rivers or it may end up on land. When it ends up on land, it will either soak into the earth and become part of the “ground water” that plants and animals use to drink or it may run over the soil and collect in the oceans, lakes or rivers where the cycle starts. Draw a picture of a body of water and label it collection.
I will then read the book “The Magic Schoolbus at the Waterworks” by Joanna Cole out loud. Before reading the book, I will make sure to tell students that this book helps explain the water cycle and that they will have to act out what happens in the story. In this book, students go on a field trip to the water works with their teacher Ms. Fizzle. Ms. Frizzle physically takes her students into the water cycle so the class can get a first-hand look at how water forms, falls, goes through the purification process and then ends up coming out of the faucet at the very end. This will help solidify what they just learned about the water cycle.
Modeling
I will model how each phase of the water cycle can be acted out as Ms. Fizzle and her students physically go through the water cycle:
When the book touches on evaporation, students will start kneeling on the ground and move their hands up as they stand. When Ms. Fizzle condensates, students will hold their hands above their heads and form a cloud with their hands. During precipitation, students will pretend to turn into raindrops and fall from the sky. For collection, students will pull their arms together as if they are gathering something.
Guided Practice
I will read the book for the second time and do the actions mentioned above with the students as I read and go through the waterworks trip with Ms. Fizzle. I will be there as a support for the students who seem to struggle. Students will go back to their desks and complete the final L(earned) in the K-W-L chart individually.
Evaluation
I will assess by checking the L portion of their K-W-L charts as well as observing to make sure all students are doing the right movements for all the stages.
Differentiation
- Draw what they learned instead of writing it in the chart
- Students can act out cycles of the water cycle with the teacher individually
- During guided practice, the teacher can provide more explicit, detailed information about the water cycle
© 2013 Dana Daniel