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  • Kindergarten

    Earth's Systems

Students who demonstrate understanding can:

Performance Expectations

  1. Use and share observations of local weather conditions to describe patterns over time. K-ESS2-1

    Clarification Statement and Assessment Boundary

A Peformance Expectation (PE) is what a student should be able to do to show mastery of a concept. Some PEs include a Clarification Statement and/or an Assessment Boundary. These can be found by clicking the PE for "More Info." By hovering over a PE, its corresponding pieces from the Science and Engineering Practices, Disciplinary Core Ideas, and Crosscutting Concepts will be highlighted.

Science and Engineering Practices

Disciplinary Core Ideas

Crosscutting Concepts

By clicking on a specific Science and Engineering Practice, Disciplinary Core Idea, or Crosscutting Concept, you can find out more information on it. By hovering over one you can find its corresponding elements in the PEs.

Planning Curriculum

Common Core State Standards Connections

ELA/Literacy

  • W.K.7 - Participate in shared research and writing projects (e.g., explore a number of books by a favorite author and express opinions about them). (K-ESS2-1)

Mathematics

  • K.CC.A - Know number names and the count sequence. (K-ESS2-1)
  • K.MD.A.1 - Describe measurable attributes of objects, such as length or weight. Describe several measurable attributes of a single object. (K-ESS2-1)
  • K.MD.B.3 - Classify objects into given categories; count the numbers of objects in each category and sort the categories by count. (K-ESS2-1)
  • MP.2 - Reason abstractly and quantitatively. (K-ESS2-1)
  • MP.4 - Model with mathematics. (K-ESS2-1)

Model Course Mapping

First Time Visitors

Resources & Lesson Plans

  • More resources added each week!
    A team of teacher curators is working to find, review, and vet online resources that support the standards. Check back often, as NSTA continues to add more targeted resources.
  • Weather Adds Up to Climate

    This unit consists of five parts that occur over the course of a school year. In Part 1 students are introduced to different ways to describe weather. In Part 2, students record weather observations each day on bar graphs. In Part 3, at the end of ea ...

  • Severe Weather-Blizzards-Let it Snow!

    This is #5 in a unit about severe weather. Using the book, Whiteout by Rick Thomas, images taken from space, and observing crystals students will learn about blizzards.

  • Activity 5: Weather: The Many Faces of Mother Nature

    This resource is part of a collection of ten activities in the Discover Earth series, designed to teach the story of Earth and its changing environment for ages 5-13. It includes differentiated task instructions for each  ...

  • About the Weather

    This lesson is about using local weather to make observations, measure, collect, and record data to describe patterns over time. Students will count types of outdoor clothing worn by classmates and use the data to look for patterns in weather over mo ...

  • Science- Weather

    This is a free interactive learning activity designed for individual students and can easily be used as a whole class interactive whiteboard activity.This particular title explores weather in relationship to season and temperature. Students learn to ...

  • Weather Walks

    Students learn about weather by taking walks during various weather conditions over the course of time. Walks take place during during sunny, rainy, windy, or snowy conditions. The lesson is divided into four sections with activities assigned to each ...

  • Weather and Climate Basics

    This is a resource from the National Center for Atmospheric Research and the National Science Foundation that explains the basics of weather and climate. This article is designed as background information for the teacher.

  • Cloud in a Jar Observation Booklet

    This free TeachersPayTeachers resource is a booklet that includes a KWL, observation pages, and writing activities about clouds to enrich "the cloud in a jar" activity. It does not include directions for making a cloud in a jar.

  • Disappearing Water

    This lesson is part of a series of weather related lessons from AAAS Science NetLinks. In this lesson, students watch what happens to water over time. Equal amounts of water will be placed in cans. One can will be closed and the other will be open ...

  • Weather Patterns

    This lesson is the first in a two-part series on the weather. The study of the weather in these early years is important because it can help students understand that some events in nature have a repeating pattern. It also is important for students to ...

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Planning Curriculum gives connections to other areas of study for easier curriculum creation.