Grade three and four students can learn about the weather and have fun at the same time while playing a weather quiz game along the lines of the TV game show Jeopardy. Instead of prize money, award different point values for more or less difficult questions. Ask a student to choose a category related to the weather such as clouds, storms, or weather terms and then pick the level of difficulty involved from one to six points. Provide the answer and have the student give the correct question. Alternatively, you can have students take turns being the Quiz Master. You can purchase this online as a ready made game or you can make up your own points, board and questions.
First-grade students can make their own books about different kinds of animals. For each student, punch holes on the left side of pieces of paper for book pages. The students can use string or braids to connect the pages and card stock for the cover of their books. Ask the students to make a front cover of their favorite animal using crayons, pastels, or colored pencils. Inside pages should depict animals with feathers, animals with shells, animals with scales and animals with fur. In another animal book, have the students depict how animals move with drawings of how they run, hop, walk, fly, or swim.
Have grade two and three students participate in an interactive game to teach the class about the universe and how it relates to the sun. Have the children blow up balloons. Use a yellow punch balloon to represent the sun and nine balloons of various sizes and colors to depict the nine planets. In the gym or outdoors, have one student hold the yellow balloon and stand in the center of a circle. Have other students holding planet balloons walk in a path around the sun to explain orbiting paths and revolutions. Once the students have orbited the sun, explain the concept of rotation by having the students slowly spin around as they circle the sun. Explain how it takes one year for our planet Earth to circle the sun. Allow each child in the class to have a turn playing the sun.
Use interactive activities to teach students in grades two and three about the importance of preserving the environment. Read aloud the poem "Sara Jane Amanda Stout Wouldn't Take the Garbage Out" by Shel Silverstein and facilitate a class discussion on why it is important to dispose of garbage. Ask the children to gather garbage cans from different classrooms and then categorize the trash into piles of construction paper, newsprint, and copier paper. Have the students calculate the monthly and yearly volume of each pile of garbage. Teach the class about recycling, reusing, and reducing waste. Take the students on a field trip to visit a recycling center. As a homework assignment, have the children convert one piece of garbage into something usable and bring it to class. See if the children can identify the original piece of waste.
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