W - Weather

Ww - Weather

In this unit the children will learn about different types of weather, the different seasons and will learn about other weather facts through hands on activities. Helping children understand about changing weather can be interesting, exciting and fun! Weather conditions effect what we wear outside, what kind of activities we participate in and sometimes how we feel. Children make observations using their senses: seeing, touching, hearing and even smelling.

Weather Emergencies
Write to your local Red Cross and request information on how to prepare for weather emergencies.

Natural Weather Disasters
Write to your local National Guard and obtain information on how they help when natural weather related disasters occur in your area.
Weather Words
Rain
Storm
Breeze
Clouds
Thunder
Wind
Sunshine
Fair Skies
Rainbow Frost
Sleet
Snow

Thermometer Readings
Place a weather thermometer outside your window. Several times a day check the temperature and write it down. See how the temperature changes throughout the day. Answer the following questions:
What time was it the warmest?
What time was it the coolest?
If you want to do a more advanced activity, record the temperature for several days and make a graph.

Weather Sounds
Make a list of different sounds you can hear from weather. For example: car traffic on wet pavement, waves crashing on the beach, walk through a pile of freshly fallen leaves or road construction work, a thunderstorm , birds chirping, wind through the trees.

Weather Senses
Use your five senses to relate to the sky and weather. Taste, smell, sight, hear, feel. Make a list of all the different ways in which the senses help you connect with different types of weather.

Weather Wheel
Use the provided pattern and make weather wheels.

Weather Dial
Use a pen and divide a paper plate into four sections, have the children draw pictures in each different section of a sunny day, rainy day, cloudy day and snowy day. Make an arrow and poke a hole through the center of the plate and arrow. On each day the children can change their weather dial to the appropriate weather

Determine The Weather
Every day for one week at the same time in the morning try to predict the weather for that day and write it down. Go outside and look around, make notes as to what may be happening. Is it sunny, cloudy, foggy? By what you see, try to guess what the rest of the day will be like. Each night make notes as to how correct your predictions were.

Tornadoes
Tornadoes are formed when warm air gets trapped under cold air. When this warm air finds an opening, it spirals up forming the shape of a tornado. Fill the bathtub with water, pull the plug and see if you can create a mini tornado. Only wind can create a tornado.

Tornado Safety, Knowledge and Drill
Pick a place where you should gather if a tornado is headed your way. It could be your basement or, if there is no basement, a center hallway, bathroom, or closet on the lowest floor. Keep this place uncluttered.
Assemble a disaster kit that contains at lest the following:
· First-aid kit and medications
· Battery-powered weather radio, flashlight and extra batteries
· Bottled water
· Written instructions on how to turn off your home’s utilities.

Listen to your local radio and TV stations for updated storm information. Know what a tornado WATCH and WARNING means:

· A tornado WATCH means a tornado is possible in your area.

· A tornado WARNING means a tornado has been sighted and may be headed for your area. Go to safety immediately. If a Tornado WARNING Is Issued . . . Go to the safe place you picked to protect yourself from glass and other flying objects. If you are outside, hurry to the basement of a nearby sturdy building or lie flat in a ditch or low-lying area.
Tornado Myths
· Leave the windows alone. It’s a myth that tornadoes cause houses to explode due to changes in air pressure.

Tornado Safety
· Anywhere in a low place in the home is safe. The southwest corner of the basement is just as safe as any other corner, or middle, of the basement. The best place to be is away from all windows.

· Tornadoes can happen anywhere, including California and other states in the continental U.S.
· Tornadoes cause a lot of debris to be blown around and you can be hurt by this debris. Getting under a highway overpass is NOT safe.

· Tornadoes do not suck houses, cars, cows, or people, up into the funnel. Their strong winds, however, can blow large objects, including cars, hundreds of feet away.

Read A Book
Visit your local library and find out more about tornadoes. Learn as much as you can about them.

Tornado In a Bottle
Fill a plastic pop bottle with water about 3/4 full. Add food coloring so you can see the water better. Now add a large squirt of liquid dish soap and some long narrow strips of paper about 1/2 inch wide and 2 long. Place the cap on tightly so nothing leaks out. Swirl the bottle and see what happens.

Make a Hurricane
Fill a large bowl with lukewarm water about two-thirds full. Stir the water gently counterclockwise , using an eyedropper, add vegetable oil or food coloring on the top. The color moves out and forms bands just as clouds do in a hurricane.

Wind
What Is Wind Wind is air that is in motion, moving air. Look around you, are the leaves moving? The curtains blowing? What do you see that would let you know the air is in motion?

Wind Sock
Cut the bottom from paper lunch sacks and decorate it with weather symbols (rain drops, suns, snow flakes, etc.) Cut 6 12 strips of colored tissue paper. Paste the tissue paper to the bottom edge of the paper bag. Punch 4 holes 1/2 inch down from the top edge, one hole on each side. Cut 4 12’ pieces of string and 1 24’ piece of string. Tie the four pieces of string to the four holes, gather the top ends and tie in a knot. Tie to the piece of the 24 inch string. Hang the windsock outside and observe how it moves with the wind.

Wind Chimes
Punch nine holes in an aluminum pie tin, be sure to space them equally around the bottom of the tin forming three circles of three holes. Using nine pieces of string (3 each of 8, 12, 14) tie a knot in the end of each string and string on ten beads. Pull the strings through the holes and make a knot so they stay. Put the longest stings near the center and the shortest toward the outside edge. Hang outside so you can see it through a window.

Bags of Air
Take zip lock bags and fill them with small pieces of tissue paper. Put a straw in each bag and zip the bag shut. Have the children blow the bag full of air and see what happens to the tissue paper.

Make Your Own Wind
Turn on a fan at different levels so they can feel it blowing slow, medium, and fast. Gather several items from around the room and see if they blow in the wind you made

Wind Game
Use white pom-poms or cotton balls and straws, have the children see who’s wind can blow their cloud past the finish line first or see who can blow it the farthest.

Windy Weather Catch
Use a hair dryer to blow a small scarf, tissue (Kleenex) or tissue paper up in the air. Let the children try to catch it as it floats down.

Determine Wind Direction
Find a nice sunny place to sit and get out your bubbles. Blow the bubbles in an upward direction. Which way are the bubbles traveling? North, east, south or west? What would make the bubbles move faster? What would cause them to move slower?

Homemade Bubble Solution
2 cups Joy dish liquid, 6 cups water, 3/4 cup corn syrup. Combine ingredients, shake, let set for 4 hours in the refrigerator, allow to warm to room temperature before using.
Bubble Painting
Add food coloring to the bubble solution, when you blow the bubbles, blow them on a piece of white paper. They will pop when they hit the paper and make a beautiful design. Use your favorite colors in a rainbow.

Rain
What Is Rain Rain is the accumulation of water droplets that form in the clouds. When the sun heats the earth water evaporates and lifts toward the sky, it gathers as moisture in a cloud. When the cloud becomes full and heavy rain begins to fall.

Making Rain Game
Each child should stand on an colored quare of construction paper with their arms stretched out. There should be an assortment of colors scattered around the area. They should pretend they are small cloud drops being blown by the wind. When you shout GO! they travel from their piece of paper to another of the same color. Each time they bump with another they join hands keeping their arms outspread and travel to the closest colored square. This is their new color. When a group becomes five people, they have made a rain drop and must sit down in their puddle. When everyone is rained out, the game is over.

Umbrella Game
Set out an open umbrella upside down. Make a starting line and let the children take three turns to see how may sponge balls they can toss in the umbrella

Rainy Day Clothes
What type of material is best to wear in the rain? Do an experiment using different types of fabric, hold each piece of fabric under a dripping faucet, which type of fabric gets very wet all the way through and which type lets the water run off? Which type of fabric would you rather wear in the rain? The best fabrics to use are a piece of cotton, wool, and a pieces of coated nylon. After you try the above experiment, lay the pieces of fabric in the sun. Which one dried the fastest?

Dress For The Rain
Have children make a list about what you need to wear outside on a rainy day. After making the list, cut out a shape of a childąs body from a large piece of butchers paper, then do the same with the items from the list (boots, raincoat, umbrella). Have the children to use this as an opportunity problem solve about what kind of gear there need to stay dry.

Walk In The Rain
On the next rainy day, have the children bring their boots, umbrellas and rain coats. Take a walk around the yard, playground or neighborhood. What is different about rainy days; i.e. smells sounds, sky, sights etc. When you get back write down their observations. You could take photos and make a book about the outing and what you noticed in the rain! Ask children to look out for animals that come out when it rains.

Make A Rainbow
Place a glass of water on a white piece of paper facing the sun. The paper must be in the shadow, the glass in the bright sun. As the sun shines through the glass, a rainbow will form on the paper.

Make Rain Drops
Cut rain drop shapes out of blue construction paper. Make them big, about 12 long. Cut out the center of the raindrop. Replace with clear contact paper. Have the children stick squares of tissue paper on the sticky side of the contact paper. Punch a hole near the top and hang around the room.

Rain Game
Tell the children they are going to make sounds of a rainstorm. Ask them how they think they could do this. Have them sit in a semicircle and then divide them into three sections. Explain that the activity you are going to do will be done in a round-like fashion. You will lead the activity by having the first section rub their hands together. The second section will join them, and then finally the third section. Go back to the first section and have them start snapping their fingers, while the second and third sections are still rubbing their hands. Then the second group snaps their fingers, and finally the third section joins in. Next, in the same fashion have them pat their legs. For the thunderstorm, they will stomp their feet, section by section. As the thunderstorm subsides, they will make all the sounds in reverse order, section by section. That is, pat legs, snap fingers, then rub hands.

Clouds

What Is a Cloud
Clouds come in all sizes and shapes, and can form near the ground or high in the atmosphere. Clouds are groups of tiny water droplets or ice crystals in the sky. Clouds are classified by height and appearance. The shape depends on the way the air moves around it. If air moves horizontally, clouds form in layers. However, clouds can grow upward if air movement is vertical. We would not have rain, thunderstorms, rainbows or snow without clouds.

Rain Clouds
Can you tell if a cloud will bring rain? Gray clouds are the clouds that are holding the most water. The darker the cloud, the more water it is holding. As a cloud holds more water it gets heavier and begins to drop lower to the ground. Make a picture and add cotton ball clouds in the sky. Place some nice white clouds nearest the top and add a few darker clouds (rub over dark gray chalk) a little lower to the ground. Be sure to add some flowers at the bottom, they are thirsty and need some rain to drink.

Make Your Own Cloud
Pour 2.5 cm. of hot water in a glass jar. Place a few ice cubes on a baking dish and place the baking dish on top of the jar. As the air inside the jar rises it is cooled by the ice, the water vapor it contains condenses into droplets making a cloud!

What’s That Cloud?
Get a nice soft blanket and lie on the ground and look for different shapes, sizes and movements of clouds. Describe what you see - animals, letters, toys, cars, dragons. Did you see any form which disappeared right before your eyes?

Clouds
Take different photos of clouds. Be sure to capture flat clouds, puffy clouds, storm clouds etc. When you have them developed make sure to order double prints. Have the children match up the cloud formations or play a game of memory with the photos.

Fog
When you get up in the morning and you cannot see across the street because it is foggy, you are inside a large cloud. Fog is a cloud or clouds that are very close to the earth.

Lightning
Make lightning right in your living room Turn out the lights and let your eyes adjust to the dark, put a cotton or wool blanket behind you. Hold your fist out about six inches in front of your face. With your other hand pull the blanket slowly over your head. Make sure it brushes over your hair. Don’t let the blanket touch your fist, arm, or face. Keep pulling the blanket until your fist is undercover, if the conditions are right, purple sparks will jump from your fist.

The Distance of Lightning
Lightning and thunder happen at the same time. The further away the lightning, the longer it takes to hear the thunder. That is because sound travels slower than light travels. So you see the light first and the hear the sound second. You can experiment by turning on a light then clapping your hands. The longer you wait to clap your hands after turning on the light, the further away the lightning is.

Sun

What Is The Sun
The Sun is our nearest star to earth. Because it is closer, we can study it better than any other star.
The center of the sun is very hot, about 15 million degrees.
The sun is about 93 million miles away from earth.
The sun is what heats up the earth.
Earth is closer to the Sun during the summer, causing summer’s warmer temperatures

Sun Prints
Use a piece of dark construction paper, place the paper on the ground in direct sun light. Place a few objects on the paper, pencil, rock, leaf. Allow to sit for about an hour. Remove the objects and take the paper inside. What happened?

Disappearing Paintings
On a nice hot sunny day, fill a pail with water. Choose a nice, dry location of the driveway or the sidewalk. Paint a picture using a paint brush and water. What happens to your painting?

Hot or Cool
Find a nice un-shaded place to stand in the sun. Stand in the direct sun for 3 minutes, now move into the shade of a tree or under an umbrella. Do you feel warmer or cooler? What makes you hotter without the umbrella or shade?

Does Color Absorb Heat
Use two identical jars. Place a piece of white paper in one and a piece of black paper in another. Place a thermometer in each jar and place the lid on them. Be sure you can read the thermometer without removing the lids. Place the jars in a sunny location side by side. After several minutes feel the jars and check the temperatures, can you feel a difference? Which jar is the hottest? On a hot summer day, would you be cooler wearing black or white?

Snow

What Is Snow
When the temperature is cold it freezes the moisture in the clouds (in the summer the moisture would be rain, in the winter it is snow). When this moisture freezes it turns into snowflakes and falls from the clouds like the rain does in the summer.

Make Your Own Snow
Mix one cup of water with two cups of soap flakes. Add a little more water if necessary. Mold into balls and make a snowman. Add items to the face for the eyes and mouth (beads work well), allow to dry for several days. What helped make your snowman stick together (water). Try experiments by adding less water and more water, what happens? If you add less water the snow is to dry, if you add more water, the snow begins to melt.

Wake Up Little Bear
In the winter some animals hibernate, bears are one of these animals. They sleep all winter long. When it gets warm in the spring time they wake up. Cut out a bear pattern out of newspaper, fold the bear one time vertically and one time horizontally. Place the folded bear in a pie tin of cool water, did the bear unfold, wake up? Try again using warm water, did the bear unfold, wake up more quickly?

Snowflakes
Make some paper snowflakes using the traditional way of folding and cutting them out of typing paper. Did any two end up identical? No two snowflakes are ever the same.

Make Snowflakes
Place one teaspoon of moth flakes in a large jar and place the lid tightly on the jar. Place the jar in a saucepan of water and heat until the flakes turn into gas. Remove the jar and allow to cool. You will see crystals that represent snowflakes. Do you see an that are exactly the same? Try it again and add food coloring. Seasons There are four seasons each year. Winter, spring, summer and fall.

Winter
Color the page that represents winter. Make a list of the fun things you can do in the winter. Sledding, skating, building a snowman.

Spring
Color the page that represents spring. Make a list of the things you can do in the spring. Play in the rain, plant flowers, watch the birds, make bird feeders, fly a kite.

Summer
Color the page that represents summer. Make a list of the things you can do in the summer. Go swimming, go to the beach, wear shorts, play outside for a long time, go on picnics, go to the park, roller skate, mow the lawn, .

Fall
Color the page that represents fall. Make a list of the things you can do in the fall. Gather leaves, rake leaves and jump in them, make leaf rubbings, carve pumpkins, pick apples.

Which season allows you to have the most fun doing things you really like.

Do the seasons work pages included in this packet.