Thursday, October 18, 2012

Nonfiction suggestion on Volcanoes: Will it blow?

In my quest to create a literacy rich classroom, I am trying to incorporate more non-fiction this year.  My students have been reading biographies of Olympians because we are finishing up our unit on the Olympics.

In Science, this week and next we are talking about slow and rapid changes to the Earth.  I found this fabulous book at the library called Will it blow? by Elizabeth Rusch.

I am reading it aloud to my students this week.  They are loving it!  How often do you find nonfiction that has kids on the edge of their seat? It is a nonfiction story that teaches students about Mt. St. Helens and volcanoes.  The story is presented as a mystery where the readers have to become detectives to learn how to determine signs of a volcanic eruption. The voice in the story is so fun, and the pictures are very engaging.  It also includes science experiments in the book.  The introduction of the book discusses when Mt. St. Helens erupted in the 1980's and presents what all the volcano did when it erupted.  It presents the description of the eruption like a list of crimes.  Therefore, I had my students make Wanted posters for Mt. St. Helens, listing her crimes.  They loved this task.  They even made me read her list of crimes twice.  Tomorrow, I will share pictures of our Wanted posters.  I am thinking about creating activities for this book for my store or to share.  The vocabulary is also really great.  Would anyone be interested in activities for this book?

What are your favorite activities to discuss slow and rapid changes to the earth?

I have had a couple people "boo" me.  I will be back to share my plans for Halloween in my classroom.  Based on everyone's suggestions, I picked up several Halloween books I want to start reading next week.  I also am finishing up some Halloween writing prompts to use. I really want to find some great Halloween/Fall activities for Math. I have to figure out how to fit in as well spend some time on Election stuff.  Maybe some Halloween and Election activities both everyday?

3 comments:

  1. I just boo-ed you over at my blog. Come check it out and please let me know what you would like from my TpT store.
    Katie
    I Want to be a Super Teacher

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  2. I'm going to have to check out this book. Thanks for linking up!

    Diving Into Learning

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  3. A great reading list. In the UK we are lucky enough not to have hurricanes but kids still show an interest in this weather phenomenon. In fact our weather is the same all year round. Rain.. drizzle...rain drizzle.. a little sunshine and then more rain!
    Steve
    Newtonsapple.org.uk

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