Fly Guy Presents Weather

Topic: Weather

Grade: 2nd

TEKS: Science #8(a)(b)

Weather Patterns, Affects, Data
Fly Guy Presents Weather tells the story of Buzz and Fly Guy visiting a weather station to learn about weather and how it affects our lives. Buzz and Fly Guy are being introduced to photos of different weather patterns, natural occurrences, weather tools, and jobs while learning factual information. Fly Guy and Buzz also give tips on how we should respond during different types of weather as well as how we can help the Earth.
Arnold, T. (2016) Fly Guy Presents Weather. New York, NY: Scholastic Inc.
Science Concepts
- How weather affects what people's' choices
-Atmosphere
-State of Matter
-Water cycle
-Wind, clouds
-Natural occurrences (blizzards, lightning, hurricanes, tornadoes)
-Jobs (meteorologist, storm chasers)
-Weather Tools (weather balloons, radar, wind vane)
-​Human Responsibility
This book introduces different weather occurrences, weather patterns, and weather-related jobs.
For each section, the book defines the weather term.
For example, a tornado is a funnel cloud that touches the ground.
It gives the names of different types of occurrences (tornado over the water is a water sprout).
This book introduces a lot of concepts under weather, and it would be great to use additional
resources to discover more information about a specific weather occurrence.

Classroom Ideas:

This book can be integrated into your lessons and classroom in multiple subjects and times.

This book would be a great resource to introduce weather. It can be an interactive read aloud to gain a general understanding of what your students have heard about or experienced. At the same time, you can use this book to build on prior knowledge and make connections since its relative and a real-life experience.

For a student directed use, they can complete a "look-through" and identify the terms of weather occurrences they do not know. This can be completed as individual or group work. Students can highlight the unknown and scientific terms to conduct further in depth research using another resource.

Interdisciplinary Ideas:

Language Arts:

This book is a nonfiction text, however, it contains illustrations that can mislead students into thinking its fiction. Students can be given a lesson where they have to identify features of a non-fiction text (photographs, captions, facts). They could compare and contrast fiction and nonfiction books. This text can be used in a main idea and details lesson. Students can choose a section of the book and dissect it to demonstrate their understanding.

Possible Misconceptions and Prevention:

A common misconception students could have is that these occurrences happen all the time, everywhere. For example, students could think a drought could happen in their hometown every year, due to over generalization. On the other hand, students could think these occurrences happen anywhere else but where they are. In order to prevent this, you can create a inquiry lesson where students are given an occurrence to research. Students can use books and other resources to discover additional factual information including where these occurrences happen and when they are likely to happen.

Resources:

TEACHER-

Weather.gov

Weather Wiz Kids

Common Sense Education- Science

STUDENTS-

National Geographic Kids

Tree House Weather Station​

Long Way Down

Author and Illustrator: Jason Reynolds
Genre: Fiction
Awards: National Book Award Finalist
Grade Level:10- Young Adult

Rules. Violence. Death. Revenge. Repeat.
Shawn was Will's brother. They grew up together in a dangerous neighborhood; ran by inherited bad business and rules. Shawn was shot, dead. Just like his friends and family, Will was well aware of the deaths caused by gun violence in his neighborhood; however, everyone acts invisible. Against his nature, Will decides to follow the rules, find his brother's murder, and get his revenge. Will gets Shawn's gun, tucks it in his pants, and makes his way to the elevator. Will makes his way down the elevator to the lobby. As he reaches the next floor, he is visited by past relationships including friendships and all. As each visitor comes and goes, Will gains insight to Shawn's murder. Will also gains perspective and the realization of what will happen if he decides to carry out his revenge. Will fearfully hears from these ghost, and in turn these ghost help will make his decision. 

This book is an amazing read even though I heard it. This book is written in poetry; prose. The author has many points to get across to his readers; he wants to reveal truth, a broken cycle, and relevance of how your decisions impact your life forever. The author writes with such beauty, the reader is captivated by the novel. I would not have this book in my classroom since it is not age appropriate. I do encourage high school educators to have this book in  their classroom, or suggest it to their students. This book would be very beneficial to an array of students. Educators could use this book in their classroom to have students write a report on it, or have a book club.

Red

Author and Illustrator: Michael Hall
Genre: Fiction
Awards: Younger Reader's Choice Award
Grade Level: Kindergarten - 2nd grade

Red tried his hardest to please everybody. In everything Red did, it wasn't good enough. His mother, his grandparents, and other art supplies tried to fix Red. However Red was never broken, he was just misunderstood. Instead of everyone trying to fix him, to make him normal, or color the right way, everyone began to change their perspective. Thanks to the color purple, Red discovered he was really Blue. Blue used his full potential thanks to purple who believed in him.

Michael Hall was dyslexic as a child, and growing up everyone tried to fix him. Red is different on the inside, and Red does things his own way. When everyone starts to realize this, people change to accommodate for Red. I love this book because it reminds us that not everyone is what we call ' normal'. Everyone acts a certain way, everyone is different in how they think, everyone is different in what they do, and that is okay. I would use this book in my classroom as a read aloud. It is important that we do not label people, and this book would be a perfect reminder on how to treat others.

Diary of A Wimpy Kid

Author and Illustrator: Jeff Kinney
Genre: Fiction
Awards: 
Grade Level: 3rd - 6th

Cabin fever is book 6 out of many Diary of a Wimpy Kid books. Greg Heffley is the middle child to his two other brothers, Rodrick and Manny. Greg and his family are stuck at home during a winter storm so this books tells of the adventures Greg goes through. Cabin Fever tells of the many things Greg experienced, it is his own personal journal, not a diary. Some of the things Greg writes about it is behaving well in front of Santa's Scout, creating his Christmas list, hanging out with his best friend Rowley doing dares and making up challenges, doing lame chores and talking to neighbors, all while it snowed. Greg goes back to school and writes about all the little changes happening and how the student body is responding to them. Greg and Rowley start their own newspaper to promote their own event, and this gets them into sticky trouble. While trying to advertise their new paper, it began to rain and Greg and Rowley unintentionally vandalizing school property. The rest of the book is about Greg trying to hide his mistakes. 

This book is humorous and easy to read. The text, the informal writing, the illustrations, and the story line engage young readers. I would not use this book in my classroom because it is not age- appropriate. However, educators could use this book to transition readers from short books to longer books, or encourage students to write their own journals. This book would also work well for students to simply enjoy reading, not having an assignment attached to it. 

This Is Not My Hat

Author and Illustrator: Jon Klassen
Genre: Fantasy
Award: Caldecott Award
Grade Level: Prekindergarten- 1st grade

A little fish steals a hat from a huge sleeping fish. Little fish swims towards a grassy area to hide; he is trying to justify his actions to himself. The huge sleeping fish notices that his hat is missing, and goes on a mission to find it. A little crab points the huge fish in the direction little fish swam, and both fishes disappear into the plants.Huge fish swims away with his hat.

This book is very cute, and entices students to investigate the illustrations in the book. I would use this book in my classroom as a read aloud and a reading center. This book reminds children to not steal; to not take something away that does not belong to them. This would be a cute book to use when introducing reminders on behavior in a classroom. 

Leonardo da Vinci

Author and Illustrator: M. Provensen , John Strejan
Genre: Nonfiction
Awards:
Grade Level: 2nd- 5th grade

Leonardo da Vinci's life is characterized by his experiments, his artwork, his studies, his discoveries, and his inventions. This pop-up book creates emphasis on his creations; the Mona Lisa, flying machines, and studies of the sun and earth.

Even though this book is advanced for Kindergartners, I would use this book as a read aloud. This is a fun way to introduce historical figures, the pop-up pages engages the reader and encourages or stimulates thinking. Students could also use this book to recreate their own versions of Leonardo da Vinci's inventions. 

A Tree Is Nice

Author and Illustrator: Janice May Udry, Marc Simont
Genre: Fantasy
Awards: Caldecott Award 1957
Grade Level: Prekindergarten - 1st grade

Trees are beautiful and have many purposes. A child can climb a tree, provide shade for a house,  for a picnic, and hold a swing. This book celebrates the beauty and need for trees, especially through illustrations. 

I would use this book in my classroom as a read aloud, and in a reading center. This book encourages children to appreciate trees and overall nature. I would use this book to show the importance of plants, and how plants are important to us.