Grade: 2nd
Content: Science
TEKS: 112.13(b)(8)(C)
(8) Earth and space. The student knows that there are recognizable patterns in the natural world and among objects in the sky. The student is expected to:
(C) explore the processes in the water cycle, including evaporation, condensation, and precipitation, as connected to weather conditions.
The Magic School Bus: Wet All Over
Summary:
Ms. Frizzle’s class is learning all about water. When Wanda suggests they take a tip to Waterland, Ms. Frizzle gets a funny look in her eyes. Instead of taking her class to the water theme park, she takes them on a seriously wet and wild ride—through the water cycle! Join the class as they evaporate, condense, rain, and make their way back to the ocean…only to evaporate all over again!
The Magic School Bus does a good job of depicting the water cycle in a simple and relatable way that young children can understand. The voices, colors, and synopsis of The Magic School Bus episodes help keep students engaged, are entertaining, and make learning fun. The distortion of the bodies during the stages of evaporation and condensation are amusing and allow children to better understand exactly what happens to water as it moves through the cycle in relation to weather conditions. At the end of the episode, some clarifications are even made and students are encouraged to conserve our precious resource.
Instructional Strategy:
- When finished watching the video, ask students to recall the three steps of the water cycle and describe them.
- Show students pictures of boiling water, rain, snow.
- Graphics for the sun, water, clouds,
- Glass filled with cold liquid
- How do these pictures demonstrate what was just discussed about the water cycle?
- Use appropriate water cycle vocabulary
- Demonstration of the water cycle
- You can either build a class demonstration of the water cycle like the one below so students get to see “first hand” what the stages of the water cycle are
- or have each student create their own water cycle using a plastic baggie.
Supportive Text:
Interactive diagram
http://earthguide.ucsd.edu/earthguide/diagrams/watercycle/
- Show students the Water Cycle Diagram
- Review each of the three parts the diagram provides (where it exists, changing form, how it moves).
- Go through each part of the diagram and use pointer to show students exactly what you are referring to.
I love the Magic Schoolbus! I think this a good resource because it is entertaining but makes the concept easy enough for 2nd graders to understand. Maybe for the review of the three steps of the water cycle, you could have students do this as a writing to learn activity, and have them write about the steps or draw them – however they can make understanding for themselves. I think your other activities are great! The water cycle offers a lot of great and fun activities to do. I think yours are really cute! I might have to steal the bag idea!
I always love lessons on the water cycle because it’s so easy to make them interesting and fun! Your’s was no exception either. I love how you incorporated The Magic School Bus. Those videos seem to have the same effect on kids these days as they did with us when we were in elementary school. Ms. Frizzle definitely makes learning fun. Plus, The Magic School Bus always did a good job of explaining things to kids in simpler terms that they could understand.
Why not do both activities though? I think that a whole group water cycle as well as an individual baggie water cycle would be awesome!
It’s always important to do hands on activities in science. I feel like kids that don’t get to do these kind of things find science boring or difficult. But as teachers, we can make the content understandable and fun to learn.
I loved your post. Thank you for including such great links and activities. I will most likely use them for my future classroom. I think the Magic School Bus is a great show to include in any Science class because it is entertaining and captures students’ attention. It’s a great way to hook them into the lesson. Having them create their own water cycle is a great hands-on activity that will greatly help with understanding the process. One suggestion I do have is maybe instead of the teacher just showing them the interactive diagram of the water cycle, the teacher should let the students play with it and do some exploring of the diagram on their own. Then the teacher can go over it with the whole group to review. I realize though that the classroom would have to have a laptop/computer for each student so that could be a limitation.