We Explore Weather

Lesson Plan Overview:

Introduction
Flexible 10 lesson sequence: Timing of activities may depend on conditions (location, season, weather)

Activity 1: Being Weather Detectives

Children are invited to be weather detectives who look for clues (evidence) about the weather. They begin by identifying clues in images of different types of weather and then explore the weather outdoors using their senses. The teacher records the clues they find on a weather chart. Back in the classroom, children review all the clues they found and share their ideas about the weather. They are introduced to the terms meteorologist and evidence. 

Home Connection: The Home Activity invites children to have a conversation with family members about their school weather observations. They talk about their favorite type of weather with their families and draw a picture of the family outdoors together.

Activity 2: Gazing at the Sky 

Children become skygazers and observe the daytime sky. They each draw something they observe in the sky and combine their observations on a group chart. Children make connections between the objects they observe in the sky and the weather.

Home Connection: The Home Activity invites children to observe the night sky with their families and record the things they see in the sky. Back at school, children talk about how the night sky is similar to and different from the sky during the day. 

Activity 3: Watching Clouds

Children listen to a story about clouds that sparks their interest in looking for cloud shapes. They observe and describe the sizes, shapes, and colors of clouds and draw one of the clouds they see. They compare their drawings to images of different types of clouds to find matches and think and talk about the role of clouds in the weather.

Home Connection: The Home Activity encourages children have a conversation with their families about their cloud observations at school. Family members are invited to go outdoors with their children and make their own cloud observations, looking for animals and other shapes in the clouds.

Activity 4: Investigating Shadows on a Sunny Day

Children listen to a story about shadows and reflect on their own past experiences with shadows. Outdoors they explore their shadows and investigate how to change their shadows’ appearance by moving in different ways and to different locations. The teacher draws their attention to the position of the sun and other sunny-day phenomena, and children share their evidence-based ideas about sunny days and shadows.

Home Connection: The Home Activity invites children to talk with their families about their sunny day and shadow investigations. They look for their shadows together inside or outside and draw a picture of their shadows.

Activity 5: Predicting Weather on a Cloudy Day

Children explore the outdoor environment on a cloudy day. They notice the effects of cloudy weather on themselves, on other living things, and on the objects and surfaces they find around the school. They record their observations and make predictions about the weather.

Home Connection: The Home Activity invites children to share their weather predictions at home and draw a picture of themselves with their families in the weather they predict.

Activity 6: Measuring Rainfall

Part 1: Children listen to a story about rain, discuss their own rain experiences, and share ideas about how to measure rain. They investigate volume with plastic bottles and measuring cups. In pairs, they assemble rain gauges and place them in the outdoor area. They make predictions about how much rain their gauges will collect if it rains a little or a lot.

Part 2: Children explore outside after the rain looking for clues (evidence) that it rained and describe what they find. They bring their rain gauges indoors and share and compare how much water they collected. They record the amount and make inferences about how much it rained based on the clues they found outdoors and the amount of water in their rain gauges. 

Home Connection: The Home Activity invites children to talk with family members about their rainy-day experiences at school. They make a rain gauge at home with family members and place it outdoors before a rainfall. They record the amount of rainfall on the Home Activity Page.

Activity 7: Blowing in the Wind 

Children listen to and discuss a story about the wind. They make simple wind sticks using ribbons to investigate weather, and if and how the wind is blowing. They observe the ribbons on their wind sticks outdoors, look for other wind clues, and make inferences about how hard and which way the wind is blowing. They use their bodies to represent the effects of different strengths and directions of wind. 

Home Connection: The Home Activity invites children to tell family members about their school wind investigations. They talk about a family activity they might do on a windy day and draw a picture of it on the Home Activity Page.

Activity 8: Taking the Temperature: It Is Hot Out!

Children investigate outdoors on a hot day using their senses and a thermometer to measure the air temperature. They notice differences between how surfaces and objects feel in the sun and the shade and make connections to sunlight. They make connections to seasonal changes and listen to the book How Do You Know It’s Summer? by Allan Fowler (read-aloud available online) sharing ideas about hot weather clues, dress, and activities. 

Home Connection: The Home Activity invites children to talk with their families about some of activities they like to do in hot weather. Children draw pictures of themselves or their families doing a hot weather activity.

Activity 9: Taking the Temperature: It Is Cold Out!

Children investigate small classroom thermometers indoors using cups of warm water and ice and use an indoor/outdoor thermometer to measure the temperature outside on a cold day. They share their ideas about how thermometers work and why they are useful tools. They make connections to seasonal changes and listen to the book How Do You Know It’s Winter? by Allan Fowler (read-aloud available online), sharing ideas about cold weather clues, dress, and activities.

Home Connection: The Home Activity invites children to talk with families about some of the activities they like to do in hot or cold weather. Children draw pictures of their family engaged in one of these activities.

Activity 10: Making a Classroom Weather Book

Children browse through their AWIM notebooks and reflect on the weather they have observed during We Explore Weather. They create their own classroom big book about weather. Small groups draw and write about sunny, cloudy, rainy, snowy, and windy days and how weather influences the living and nonliving things in the environment.

Home Connection: The Home Activity invites children to talk with families about their classroom big book of weather. They create a small book about weather with their families by illustrating the weather over several days and having their family members help them write about it.