A week long Volcano Unit Study

Miss K's unit on Volcanoes ended up having a strong New Zealand theme. I didn't realize how much I remembered from school about New Zealand Geology. The Kids were excited to hear about the active volcanoes (Mount Ruapehu, Mt Tongariro and Mt Ngauruhoe) I grew up close to.

Mt Ruapehu, New Zealand

The imagery in the Maori Myths and legends really capture the beauty of New Zealand. There is one about about the mountains and the river in my hometown that really stayed with me. This week I read it to the Piwi's. We didnt have much luck finding books on New Zealand Volcanoes at the library but the the Volcano zone on the GNS science website was a great alternative.

Another great resource we used was an book and activity set called Volcanoes of the world. The book itself was full off information about how volcanoes are formed, how they erupt and highlights some of the more well known 'trouble makers'. What Miss K loved most was the kit to make your own World volcano map and a flip book of an erupting volcano!

For Miss K's Notebooking pages 

• Parts of a Volcano three part cards from Etc Montessori 

• How a Volcano erupts mini book from Crayola.com 

• Some of the basic mini books from the Volcano Lapbook at Home school share

 
Books as always were the main source of all of Miss K's investigations and we found a good selection...some we already had, others we borrowed.

Multimedia resources we used in our unit

•  Earth quake report has Daily volcanic activity updates that include photos and videos

• Magic school bus blows it's top game -this was a fun activity after we watched the episode and read the book 

• Discovery Channel's Extreme World App-Ultimate Volcano was one of the eight interactive subjects
  
  Volcano Tour App took us on a Virtual tour of 80+ volcanoes

 Mini Piwi also had her own 'V is for Volcano' activities and Miss K was an eager assistant for the messier ones! Like...

Erupting Mini Piwi's Playdoh Volcano....

and playing with Lava in the bath thanks to the great idea from in lieu of preschool