Same subject, different levels-hail

I've been asked many times how I teach so many different grades at one time. While obviously there are things that have to be taught individually, there are many that we do as a group and tailor it to different levels. Here is an example of how simple this actually is.

One morning, we woke to large hail and took it as an opportunity to learn more about something we didn't know that much about. We felt of the hail and photographed it, then we looked it up online and learned about how it is formed and watched some videos. We looked at charts and talked about it.

Next each child made a page for their nature notebook. Notice how they all naturally worked on their own level.

Here is Cole's (pre-school level). He wrote the word "hail" and the date by himself, but I wrote down the rest for him as he dictated to me what he had learned.

This is Riley's (1st grade level). She wrote a sentence about finding the hail, then finished an open ended sentence that I had started for her. We were focusing on describing the hail.

Next is Tyler's (4th grade level). He did some research and wrote about how the hail starts, and how it grows into a large piece of ice, then why it eventually falls to the ground. After he wrote this we went over it together and discussed grammar and punctuation, making it into an English lesson as well.

Finally is Garrett's (7th grade level). He researched and went into a detailed, scientific explanation of how hail is formed and the results of hail storms. At this point he rarely needs grammar or punctuation guidance, and this paper was a fast and completely independent project.

See? Same lesson, but everyone took away something different. Simple!