More Meaningful Conversations

After a few days of struggling this week, I saw some progress during our lesson about water on the Earth.  The students gathered on the back carpet and listened to a read-aloud.  We read The Magic School Bus: Wet All Over, a book adaptation of the animated TV series based on The Magic School Bus book series by Joanna Cole.  This book was a great choice because my students are highly familiar with the characters and format of the TV series and books.  We watch The Magic School Bus videos often on Fridays when we eat lunch in our classroom.
During the read-aloud, I asked the students to use their learning logs to write down any important information about the water cycle.  This took a little modeling because we did this once before and I had several students who simply listed every word they heard in the story that they could.  Before I began reading this time, I gave some examples of what types of information to write down, including important vocabulary, facts, questions, or connections.  As I began to read, it was obvious that the students were more engaged in the story than they had been with the textbook.  Throughout the story, students took notes about key details they heard.  We had several meaningful discussions about the difference between evaporation, condensation, and precipitation and the three states of water on Earth (solid, liquid, and gas).  The students made connections and asked questions as well.  One student made a connection between the evaporation of water from her deck at home during the summer and what happened in the book.  She said:

"In the summer when my brother, like...um...gets water and puts it on the deck, it dries so quickly.  That's probably because it goes all the way up to the sky."

One student's learning log

Students also had questions about how we are drinking the same water now as people and animals did many years ago.  They were fascinated by this and also slightly disgusted.  Fortunately, the book took a mini side-trip through the water purification process so students gained information about how our water is cleaned up before we drink it.  That information eased some of their worries about drinking water that others had used before them.
At the end of the read-aloud, students turned and talked to the person sitting next to them and shared an important fact they learned from the story.  Several students shared their facts, and while some required a little clarification, others were accurate.  Some facts that emerged from the discussion were:

• Water always flows to the lowest spot.
• The water cycle never ends.
• Water can drip.
• Evaporated water turns into clouds.
• Evaporation is the rain that pours down on the land.  (This one required some clarification and we revisited the meanings of "precipitation" vs. "evaporation".)

Overall, I was pleased with how this discussion went.  The students were much more engaged than they had been earlier this week, and the discussions we had were meaningful and included many references to our new science vocabulary.  I plan to use The Magic School Bus books more during this study to help students have meaningful conversations about content within the context of a story.