Our Grade 2 weather project

In Grade 2 the children learn about the seasons and weather as part of their curriculum.
Our three Grade 2 classes were invited by a teacher in Switzerland to participate in a Grade 2 ‘Weather around the world’ project along with 11 other Grade 2 classes around the world. (2010) This involved us thinking about what questions we would like to know, taking photos to show our weather, discussing the reasons for different weather in different countries, and comparing findings. We used Skype to communicate with other classes. The final findings were put onto Voicethreads, and we are in the process of making another Voicethread summarising our own findings.

Essential question: How does weather affect people?

Audience: 12 Grade 2 classes in Switzerland, Alaska, Honolulu in Hawaii, Florida in the USA, Tanzania in Africa, New Jersey in the USA, Bangkok in Thailand, Madrid in Spain, Melbourne in Australia, Vancouver Island in Canada, Fish Hoek in South Africa.

For more information click on these documents. (Your computer needs to have Java installed to open these documents)

Grade 2 weather project information
Grade 2 weather assessment
Grade 2 weather lesson plans

The Switzerland class
Maggie, the teacher who is running the project sent us some lovely photos of Switzerland. Here is a photo of their school in the town of Zug in Switzerland.


Here is a slideshow of their school and its surroundings. (Please close the little X on the Poke Advert so that you can see better)

Here are some of the voicethreads.

Miss McQueen's class
This voicethread was done after skyping with Alaska, Honolulu in Hawaii, Florida in the USA, Tanzania in Africa and our own Grade 2 McQueen in Cape Town. There are quite a few photos of our school in this Voicethread as well as a photo of Miss McQueen's class.
http://voicethread.com/?#q.b953700.i5104391


This is Miss McQueen's class during the Skype session. They are really enjoying the ocassion.

Miss Theunissen's class
Here is Maggie’s Grade 2s in Swizerland skyping with Alaska, New Jersey in the USA, Cape Town and Bangkok in Thailand. In this voicethread you can see photos of scenes in the different countries, along with our own Grade 2T and scenes in Cape Town. Can you find the photo of Miss Theunissen’s class? We would like to say thank you again to Maggie in Switzerland for sending these on to us. Next term we hope to add our comments to the voicethreads.
http://voicethread.com/share/953807/


Look at Miss Theunissen's classroom - they are all geared up to learn about the weather.

Miss Southern's class
Maggie from Swizerland has sent us another voicethread after skyping with our Miss Southern’s Grade 2 class. Yippee! (All three of our Grade 2s skyped with different Grade 2s in Switzerland). In this voicethread you can see the Grade2s in Switzerland skyping with Grade 2s in Madrid in Spain, Melbourne in Australia, Vancouver Island in Canada , and our Own Grade 2Southern in Cape Town. You will see a photo of Miss Southern’s class in this voicethread.

http://voicethread.com/share/953920/


Miss Southern reports that her class really enjoyed the experience of speaking on Skype to a class in Switzerland. Here is a slideshow of the photos that Maggie sent us from Switzerland showing the winter season.

This has been a wonderful project as we have swapped photographs as well, and we have a better understanding of weather around the world and how it affects people. All that remains to be uploaded is our own voicethread about weather. Watch this space!