1. Temperature
2. Moisture in the Air
3. Air Pressure and Movement
We used these three things to structure our whole weather unit. First we talked about Temperature-what temperature is, how it is measured, how it is determined by the Sun and the Sun's position to the Earth, and the different temperatures during the course of a day as well as the course of a year. The kids started a temperature log that included entries four times a day for an entire week. This got us talking a little bit about our solar system, about the rotation of the earth, etc. which was an unexpected but fun tangent. (We'll have a full-blown space unit later.)
Next we talked about Moisture in the Air. We talked about humidity, dew, frost, clouds, and every type of precipitation we could think of. My kids (and I) enjoyed learning about what causes hail verses snow, which clouds are cumulus and which are cumulonimbus, and we still joke about the difference between a drizzle, a shower, and a rainstorm. During this section I started some weather flashcards so I could drill the kids on all of the weather terms they were learning. I also had them make a weather log--the first week we did a picture graph, and the second week we did a bar graph. (This tied in nicely with a graph unit we were doing in math class.) The most fun part of this section was that we did tons of experiments with weather. I'll list as many as I can remember:
First we tested humidity. We have a humidity reading on our thermometer so we could watch as the humidity changed. We turned on the shower scalding hot and let it run with the door closed for five minutes. Then we went in with our thermometer. We didn't need a thermometer to feel the change in the air quality; however, it was fun to watch the reading as we went from the regular house, into the bathroom, and then outside into the freezing cold.
We made clouds. First we watched how clouds are formed by many water droplets joining together. This was accomplished by taking wax paper and a dropper. The droplets merge together when you pick up the wax paper and move it slowly from side to side.
Then one of our books showed how to use a two-liter pop bottle, a spray bottle, and some matches to form a cloud right in your house.
We made it rain on our stove with boiling water and a pan of ice.
We made homemade thunder.
We made homemade lightening.
We "caught" rainbows with a mirror and a pan of water. (By "caught" I mean projected them onto our easel so that we could paint the colors.)
And we studied snowflakes. By freezing a piece of dark cloth (and then wrapping it around a frozen object) we were able to catch snowflakes and study them with a magnifying glass before they melted. We found a chart in one of our books on how the shapes of snowflakes change depending on the temperature. It was fun to catch snowflakes on different days and compare their shapes based on the outside temperature.
Our last section was Air Pressure and Wind. For this section we talked about air pressure systems, fronts, air masses etc. We are lucky to have an exhibit at our science museum on weather that was very helpful when teaching this section. We also spent quite a while talking about tornadoes and hurricanes. We watched tons of u-tube videos of actual tornadoes and hurricanes, and well as talked about safety during storms.
To cap off our unit, we got weather bingo cards and instead of playing it the regular way, we watched the news every night over the course of a week and marked all of the items that were mentioned during the weather segment. The kids loved it, and it helped them understand a little about forecasting.
While I initially thought weather would be a pretty mundane unit, it actually worked out to be a lot of fun. And I have to say, as usual, I learned as much as the kids. Now I understand so much better about cold and warm fronts, as well as high and low pressure systems. It's like having a whole new level of understanding if I ever watch the weather.
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