1st Grade Weather Unit

1^st Grade Weather Unit Blueprint

Lesson 4: Estimating Wind Speed

Pacing Suggestions:

Lesson to be taught at the beginning of the school year.

See Unit Calendar for details.

Teacher Resources:
Tips	Modified Record Sheet 4-A (Adobe^® Reader^® PDF) Modified Record Sheet 4-A (Microsoft^® Word^®)

Essential & Unit Questions* ¹

Benchmarks ²

Formative and Summative Assessments ³

Using Assessments to Monitor Student Learning

What tools can help us learn about the weather?

1B(K-2)#2: Tools often give more information about things than can be obtained by just observing things without their help.

Class discussion of usefulness/purpose of a wind scale

Do students' comments reflect an understanding that using a wind scale gives more specific/precise information about how hard the wind is blowing than just using words to describe the wind?

If an experiment is run the same way as it was before, what should happen?

Why is it important to keep accurate records or notes about things that are observed?

1A(K-2)#1: When a science experiment is done the way it was done before, we expect to get a very similar result.

1B(K-2)#3: Describing things as accurately as possible is important in science because it enables people to compare their observations with those of others.

Class discussion of the following questions: If we all use the class wind scale, should we each get the same wind speed for that day? Why is this important?

Do students recognize that we should all get the same wind speed reading if measuring it at the same time, place, and way?
Do students understand the importance of using/reading the wind scale so that day-to-day observations of the wind can be compared?

How does the weather change from day to day?

12B(K-2)#1: Use whole numbers and simple, everyday fractions in ordering, counting, identifying, measuring, and describing things and experiences.

4B(K-2)#1: Some events in nature have a repeating pattern. The weather changes some from day to day, but things such as temperature and rain (or snow) tend to be high, low, or medium in the same months every year.

Class Weather Calendar and discussions about wind speed recorded on calendar (established with comparisons of weather data over time—see "Teacher Tips" in the "Teacher Resources" section)

Modified Wind Record Sheet 4-A (Use teacher-generated sheet available under "Items to Print" in the "Teacher Resources" section.)

Weather Calendar & Modified Wind Record Sheet 4A

Can students complete the graph using numbers to represent wind data?
Do students determine from their graph & class calendar that wind changes from day to day?

* Essential/Unit questions are major questions driving the unit. They are directly aligned with the benchmarks. No single lesson addresses each question in its entirety. By the end of the unit, students should be able to answer these core questions.

1. For conceptual benchmarks.
2. Bolded sections indicate portion of benchmark addressed
3. Unless noted as a Summative Assessment, the assessments are formative and should be used to guide teaching and learning.

1st Grade Weather Unit Blueprint

1^st Grade Weather Unit Blueprint