First graders have been continuing their learning about weather by studying precipitation this week. We learned that precipitation happens when water droplets in clouds gather together and become heavier than the surrounding droplets. When this happens, the drops fall to the ground as precipitation. Depending on the atmosphere temperature and ground temperature, these droplets can fall as rain, snow, sleet or hail. Soon, we will spend a few days diving deeply into just how each of these types form.
As part of our study of weather, we read Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs by Judi Barrett and Ron Barrett. In the story, two children hear of their grandparents past adventures in a very special town called Chewandswallow where food rains down from the sky for breakfast, lunch and dinner. One day, the food begins to become too big to handle and starts damaging their town! The people of the town must escape (on rafts made of giant slices of bread!) and move to a normal town nearby. First graders put their creative writing caps on and created books based on this idea! First graders considered the following: Imagine if you returned to Chewandswallow today. What would it look like? What would you do there? What might happen on your travels?
We revised and edited over the course of a few days and then added detailed illustrations to our “published” books! Check out first grade’s creative stories of Chewandswallow on the wall outside our classroom! After writing, we read the authors’ take on our writing prompt by reading Pickles to Pittsburgh: A Sequel to Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. In the story, Grandpa goes on a trip and his granddaughter has a dream about where he went – back to Chewandswallow! We get to see how the authors imagined the return to Chewandswallow and how it was similar and different to our own interpretations of the story!
