Weather Lesson Plan on Hurricanes

Content goals: Students will learn about hurricanes and pertinent information to the topic.

Linguistic goals:Students will learn and use descriptive terms such as spiraling, cyclone, typhoon, humidity, and tropical to tell about hurricanes in oral and written formats.

Communicative goals: Students will be able to describe hurricanes;students will request and contribute information about hurricanes in a conversational exchange with a partner. They will also learn about the hurricanes that have hit and impacted the US in the past.

Materials: KWL chart, sentence strips, markers or other writing utensils, tape, internet access, video clip of a hurricane

Vocabulary: Hurricane, water, typhoon, cyclone, spiraling, spiral, cyclonic, circling, spinning, humidity, humid, moisture, moist, tropical

Instructional Sequence

Introduce theme of lesson by activating students' background knowledge about hurricanes. Start by showing a video clip of a recent hurricane that has hit the US, such as Wilma or Floyd. Then assign student partners to draw or write what they know about hurricanes on a single piece of paper or sentence strips. One partner will be the recorder who will draw or write for the partnership, and the other partner will present the pairs ideas by speaking. Their pictorial or written contributions will then be taped onto the KWL(Know, Want to Know, Learned) chart under the letter "K."

Explain that hurricanes are nature's largest storm. Read aloud a short book about hurricanes. Ask them to highlight key ideas and vocabulary. Prior to reading , tell students to look and listen for three things that must be present for hurricanes to form. Use stress, intonation, and brief pausing to alert students to key facts and key words for the lesson. Stop during reading to elicit definitions to key words, write the key words on 4 x 6 index cards, and post them on the word wall (to the right of the chalkboard).

Ask students what important facts about hurricanes were learned in the lesson. The students should orally respond to your questions and state at least two things learned about hurricanes from their reading selection. You can write responses under the "L" on the KWL chart next to the "W" that corresponds.
Ask the students what else they might want to know about hurricanes based on the lesson and place the new responses under the "W" on the KWL chart. After learning that hurricanes form over warm oceans, for example, students might ask, "How warm must the water be for a hurricane to form? Record student responses for them on the KWL chart.

Have students research the different names of hurricanes in other countries. Modifications and accommodations are built into the lesson through use of visuals aids (video) and leveling of text. Other accommodations include repeating directions/content instruction and preferential seating. Another modification is to simplify the level of language used by the teacher and expected from the student.
Assessment

Listening:The students will select facts about hurricanes from visual representations such as a short video.

Speaking: The students will describe hurricanes and what they know about hurricanes from prior knowledge, pictures, and the video with their group partners.

Reading: The students will read facts about hurricanes and identify characteristics of a hurricane based on the text and pictures.

Writing: The students will write draw pictures or write a simple complete sentence with their partner describing prior knowledge about hurricanes.

Intermediate English Language Learners

Listening: The students will make observation about the properties of hurricanes (e.g., size, strength, effects) from visual representations (e.g., short video), teacher lecture, and reading of text.

Speaking: The students will compare hurricanes to storms studied in previous units and share what they know about hurricanes from prior knowledge, pictures, and the video with their group partners.

Reading: The students will identify characteristics of a hurricane and infer properties that drive the formation of a hurricane based on the text and pictures.

Writing: The students will write two complete sentences with their partner describing prior knowledge about hurricanes.