Our second unit of study in 4th grade usually starts at the beginning of the October, and I've been getting ready with some new materials for that. The unit is on Processes That Shape the Earth, and while last year I felt pretty good about introducing types of landforms and getting into plate tectonics, the kids were super interested in natural disasters. One of my goals for next year is to deliver content in a more focused way- sometimes I feel like I have to cover absolutely EVERYTHING, and end up doing too much skimming. To combat this, I created a project that will let my students research a type of natural disaster and then present to the class in the form of a news report.
My plan is to teach either volcanoes or earthquakes (or both, depending on time!), and then let them delve deeply into another type of disaster with their groups. In their research, they'll answer important questions, including what happens within the Earth to cause their disaster, how to prepare for and stay safe during it, what parts of the world are effected, etc. I absolutely love projects, and am hoping that the earlier in the year I introduce research, the better. You can find the packet on my Teachers-Pay-Teacher's site if you're interested!
Okay, I know I said that I wanted to focus in more on the natural disaster part of the unit, but they still have to know landforms! I made two PowerPoints about the different types of landforms we'll talk about throughout the unit. I'm not sure if I'll have a sweet little group of lovebugs who adore cutesy things like my end-of-the-year-kiddos last year (they were the sweetest), or if they'll have the "we're cool 4th graders who HATE cutesy" attitude my same little end-of-the-year-lovebugs had at the beginning of the year, so I made a cute PowerPoint with adorable little bears from Scrappin' Doodle's clipart, and a more basic one that I'm also pretty pleased with (whew!! Run-on sentence?). Either way, I'm so excited about the beautiful images I found and hope the kids will be too. I even used a few I took myself :) My students have been very well-traveled these past two years, so we might do a graphing activity along with it to see which landforms we've seen most, and which none of us have seen. I can't even wait for October now! This is also on my TPT store as a bundle with both PowerPoints.  |
| Cute little bears :) |
 |
| More simple and basic design |
