Weather Unit/Theme - Printables, lessons, ideas, & more!

My Favorite Weather Activities

LET THE WIND BLOW

YOU WILL NEED:
-Henery and Mudge And the Wild Wind by Cynthia Rylant -each student will need a three-inch ball of clay; a small plastic container; two 2 1/2 inch poster triangle; a pencil with an eraser; plastic straw, straight pin; succors; and a small amount of gravel (to make the wind vane)

THIS IS HOW IT GOES:
Introduce the activity by reading the book above to your class. Now let your class watch the wind change directions!!
1.) Instruct the class to cut two one inch slits across from each other in each end of the straw.
2.) Assemble the straw into an arrow by inserting the triangles into the slits.
3.) Attach the resulting arrow to the pencil by pushing the pin through the straw and securing it to the eraser.
4.) Press the ball of clay into the bottom of the container. Place the pencil into the clay.
5.) Fill the rest of the container with gravel.
6.) Find a place outside for young students to keep their wind vanes and allow the class to observe the wind directions throughout the week

Free To Print From Teaching Heart

The first one above is a printable dice game that asks the students to take turns rolling a dice and covering up the sum of the three dice.
The second game is a roll and draw a rainbow game.
Students take turns rolling a dice and coloring in a part of the rainbow. First person to color in all the colors of their rainbow wins.
This actvity is also great for practice reading color words.

Click rainrollandcoverteachingheart to download the free dice game.

Click rainbowrollteachingheart to download the roll a rainbow game.

With all these rain and rainbows, you need some umbrellas….
I have a guest post over at the Organized Classroom Blog that contains a contraction center that is perfect for spring practice of contractions.
Click here to visit the post, download the free file, and say hi to me over there!!!

Be sure to stop by the Teaching Heart Instant Download store and purchase one of our Spring Resources. There are lots to choose from. Click here!

Weather Safety
An excellent way to start a discussion on weather safety is to start out by making a graph of storms with your class. Title the graph Storms We Don't Like at the top. Then brainstorm a list of storms with you class: tornado, thunder, blizzards, etc. Allow each child to illustrate one of the storms. Sort and classify the pictures onto the graph. This will now lead you into a discussion of weather safety.

Sounds Of Nature: Thunderstorm & Rain - Play this CD during your weather unit!!!!

WEATHER RIDDLES
THIS IS HOW IT GOES:
1.) have each student fold a sheet of white construction paper so that a two inch strip is visible from the bottom.
2.) Across the strip have the student write "What's the weather?"
3.) Now have the student choose a weather condition and write three clues about it on the top flap of her paper.
4.) Have the student unfold the paper and illustrate and label the weather condition in the resulting space.
5.) Staple the completed projects to a bulletin board so the clues can be seen and the picture is covered by the flap. 6.) Now have the other students guess what the weather is!

Ideas From Our Weather Packet!!! CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE AND ORDER.. 17 Files for 10.99 - It's a STORM of a Steal!!!

Rainbow Math Game - Can be used to review addition, subtraction, and/or multiplication.

Umbrella Rhyming Activity - Teacher reads a story and students find the picture that would complete the rhyme. Lastly they color the umbrellas and write a word that rhymes with the words on the umbrella.

Weekly Weather Graph

Students keep track of the weather for five days in graph form. On the last day they answer questions about the data they have collected.

Water Cycle Wheel - Have students illustrate the parts of the water cycle. Fasten top of wheel to the bottom and you are ready to review the water cycle.

Weather Map Reading- Student Reads a Map and answers questions about the weather map.

The Wind Blew

To be used with the story, The Wind Blew. Pocket chart strips and two activity sheets to follow.

Cut out book as one piece. Fold left side in. Fold right side in. Open book. Cut on dotted line to form three flaps. Refold book. Illustrate or add picture.

Students make a ROY to help them remember colors in the rainbow.

My Rainbow
Read the book A Rainbow of My Own to your class. After reading it and discussing rainbows allow the children to create rainbow marble paintings.
1.) Place a piece of blue paper in a tray.
2.) Apply small spoonfuls of paint, one for each color of the rainbow, in various places on the paper.
3.) Place a marble on the tray.
4.) Have the children tilt the tray.
Now they have their own rainbow!

Season Strips
You can lecture to your students about the cycle of the season or you could use this activity to help you students get a visual idea of the cycle.
THIS IS HOW IT GOES:
1.) Tell the student to fold an 18 inch construction-paper strips into fourths.
2.) Instruct the students to unfold the strip and write "Fall" at the top of the first section.
3.) Now have him draw a small illustration next to the season name.
4.) Underneath the title have him write the abbreviation for September, October, and November.
5.) Have him label the other sections as above with the following seasons.

All About the Seasons Activity Book

Favorite Cloud Graph
Review the three main kinds of clouds. Title a piece of chart paper "OUR FAVORITE CLOUDS," and divide it into three columns with the headings stratus, cirrus, and cumulus. Give each student a cotton ball and have her stretch, cut, or shape it to make it look like her favorite kind of cloud. Then have the class glue their clouds in the corresponding row. Next, use the data on the graph to review math operations by asking the following questions: Which cloud is liked by the most students?
How many more students like cumulus clouds than liked stratus clouds?
Which cloud is liked by the fewest students?
What are the totals for each cloud?

The Cloud Book Introduces the ten most common types of clouds, the myths that have been inspired by their shapes, and what they can tell about coming weather changes.

Clouds for Dinner

Cloud Poems
This proves to be a great poetry project for your students to do.
Start by reading The Cloud Book by Tomie dePaola. Then begin the project by involving students in vocabulary development activities. Have the students use descriptive words and follow the format below for writing poems. TITLE: name of cloud
FIRST LINE: three adjectives that describe the cloud.
SECOND LINE: three verbs related to the cloud
THIRD LINE: a phrase that tells about the cloud
FOURTH LINE: name of a cloud or synonym
EXAMPLE: Cumulus Clouds fluffy,white,wispy forming, changing,moving help predict the weather Cumulus Clouds Once the students have made a sloppy copy and you have corrected their mistakes. Have them design a cloud out of white construction paper. Then have them write their poem onto the cloud!

The Cloud Book Introduces the ten most common types of clouds, the myths that have been inspired by their shapes, and what they can tell about coming weather changes.

Catch A Cloud
This is a neat activity that your students will really enjoy. Also, it will help them understand how clouds are made.

YOU NEED:
candle match two-liter or two-quart bottle with a narrow neck. All of the earth's water sources release water vapor into the air. As the water vapor rises, it combines with tiny particles in the air and forms water droplets. Millions of tiny water droplets combine to make a cloud. You will now demonstrate this to your class.
1.) Light the candle.
2.) Turn the bottle upside down and hold the lit candle inside the bottle for a few seconds.
3.) Give the bottle a few minuets to cool. Force air into the bottle by completely covering the opening of the jug with your mouth and blowing hard.
4.) Have the students predict what will happen inside the bottle when you take your mouth away.
5.) Observe the results.
6.) Review with the students how clouds are made. Help them to identify the smoke from the candle as tiny particles and your breath as the water vapor. The air cooled when you took your mouth away from the bottle and a cloud was formed.
7.) Have students draw a picture of what happened.
*NOTE: It is a good idea to try all science experiments before demonstrating it to the class.

What Do You See in a Cloud? (Rookie Read-About Science)

Weather Listening:
Collect a few items a head of time to make some weather sounds. A cookie sheet is good for thunder, a pie tine and rice is good for rain. After reading the story Rain Song by Lezlie Evans have the children close their eyes while you make some weather sounds. Ask them to describe what type of weather they think it sounds like. There do not have to be any right or wrong answers. Don't forget to do some windy sounds, tornado sounds, and snow sounds (what does snow sound like?)

Click Here For Rainbow Ideas

A Few Center Ideas

Make cards with clouds and raindrops. Put a different number of raindrops on the cards. Let children pick 2 cards. Which has more? Can you count the number of raindrops.

Weather ART PROJECTS:
Sent in by Jane from Oregon - Pre-K

RAIN PAINTING:
Paint green on the bottom of the paper. (for the grass) Use a paint brush dipped in blue paint and "Splat" it over the paper. (You can also tap the brush on a ruler to make the paint splatter on the paper)

WET CHALK DRAWINGS:
Use black paper, or a dark color paper. Have children dip colored chalk in a sugar water and color with the chalk. The sugar water makes the chalk colors more vibrant.

PAPER BAG KITES:
Use lunch size paper bags, decorate. Add streamers to the bottom of the bag. Attach a string to the open end. Children can run outside with them to see how the wind fills the bags.

PINWHEELS:
Start with a square piece of paper. Let children color or paint the paper. Cut from the corners, in about 2/3 and fold the four corners into the middle. Put a tack through the center and stick it into a pencil eraser. Blow on it, or see the wind blow and turn it.

SNOWFLAKES:
Glue 'honeycomb' cereal to blue paper.

THUNDERSTORMS:
Start by gluing cotton to the top of your paper, for clouds. Cut silver rick-rack into pieces about one and half to 2" long. Glue them on, under the clouds, for lightening.

COLD WINTER WINDOW:
Start with a square piece of paper -- 8" X 8". Glue thin strips of brown paper (8" long) inthe center going vertically and horizontally. (This will give the window pane effect) Spread glue, with a pint brush around the windows, sprinkle with silver or white glitter. Now, your windows have been visited by Jack Frost!

CLOUDS:
Use styrofoam packing peanuts and toothpicks to assemble clouds.

SUNSHINE:
Start with a 9" paper plate. Cut trianles around the outer edge to make and leave triangle points, all around the plate. Give children orange, yellow and white paint to mix all over the plate.

Great Ideas Found on Our CDROM # 3

Click Here to learn more.

All you need to do is print the file on card-stock, laminate, and cut to create a center. I store this particular center in a glad Tupperware container…
LOVE THOSE… They come in all shapes and sizes and are great to store different centers in. Have the student organize the umbrellas in order by sorting them by 5's…

Once the student sorts by 5's, have them use the center as visual to write out the numbers by 5's.

You can print this at Count by 5's to 100 umbrella (k-1).

Below is a small sample of some of the files found on our January through June Primary Teacher Timesavers set. Click here to see the index of all the awesome printables in this set!!!

More but only a few of the ideas found on the CD set above now instant download...

Rainbow Race Student Game

- You supply a dice with six colors (you can buy a wooden cube at a craft store and color each side). Your students roll the dice and place an x in the correct column. They play till a color wins. They then answer questions about their race.
An activity sheet for this game is provided on our CDROM!

The Colors of the Rainbow

This includes sentences strips for your pocket chart. The strips are in color and include pictures to make the text easy to read. You can use this as a center. Place the strips in a pocket chart along with our center sheet that matches this. The center sheet in in black and white. The student write the color word in the blank and then colors the pictures to match the text. When they are finished they cut apart the strips, staple in the corner and take home a little book.

This is free to print from Teaching is a Work of Heart
1.) Rainbow sentence strips - these are sentences in color with graphics. They may be used in a pocket chart or other.
2.) Activity sheet - after the student reads the center - they use the center to help them make their own book.

Raindrop Contraction Center

this includes all the manipulatives - teacher prints, laminates, and cuts. You can store these in baggies that students take back to their desk or in a pocket chart. You may choose to give a set to each student or use as a group activity. The student must match the raindrop to the umbrella.(1-3) If you do not have the CDROM, you can create a center like this. Find a die cut of an umbrella and raindrop. Place a match problem on the raindrop and the answer on the umbrella. Have the sudents match.

Umbrella Count by 5's Centers

Place umbrellas with counts by fives in a baggie. The student places the umbrellas in the correct order to complete the center.

These are just a few over 200 printables found on our January Through June Primary Teacher Timesavers CDROM. Check it out and Click Here to learn more!!!! Over 100 happy teachers have purchased!!!

Literature Activites

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs

STORY VOCABULARY:

weather	sanitation	department	tornado
hurricane	fog	cloudy	shower
drizzle	storm	abandon	float
town	survival	violent	downpour

~ Before Reading - Discuss and define the following types of weather: snow, fog, rain, tornado, hurricane, and flood. Place these terms on index cards. As the word is discussed place it in a pocket chart. Have students illustrate the six words in their journal.

~ After Reading - Relate different types of weather that we have discussed and defined to the different food disasters in the book. You may want the students to fill in sentence strips such as:

In the book _________ looked like snow.
In the book _____________ looked like fog.
In the book _________ feel from the sky like rain.
There was a tornado made of _______________________ in the book.
A hurricane of ____________________ came through and a _________________ flood caused the town people to leave.

~ Have students write their own story. Maybe something besides food falls from the sky!

~ Have each student share their favorite part. They can create a poster showing their favorite part of the story. They will then show the class their poster and discuss why this was their favorite part.

~ Give students newspapers and have them cut out weather words and pictures. Have them make a collage on construction paper.

~ Ask students if they would enjoy living in a place like Chewandswallow. Then list the positive and negative aspects of living in such a place.

Some Ideas From Our Weather Packet - Click Here to Learn More.

More Great Ideas Found at Other Links

Compound Words Lesson	Lesson From TNET Bank This activity will help students understand how people depend on their environment (Human/Environment Interaction) and how movement of people brings changes (Movement).
A Directed Reading Activity designed to help develop reading comprehension and vocabulary through the use of the text and song. The concepts of "Cause and Effect" and "Compound Words" are also included within this week long lesson plan.	Various ideas