Weather Unit

Weather Unit

During these two weeks of Discovery, we have explored Weather.

Weather is the current condition in a particular area.  

For example, "Our weather today is sunny and warm."

We talked about many types of weather:  sunny, snowy, windy, stormy, hot and humid, cold, rainy, and many more.  We looked out our window and saw that the weather can change from one hour to the next - and weather is never quite the same from one town to the next!

Weather and Meteorologist were our two words of the week for this unit.

We discussed the type of scientist that studies weather and gives us important weather forecasts (what the weather will be like in our area):  Meteorologists!  Meteorologists have a very FUN job studying the weather.  

There are many tools they use to understand weather.

We discussed anemometers (measures wind), barometers (measures pressure), thermometers (measures temperature), weather satellites, rain gauges, lightning detectors, computer balloons, and other tools meteorologists use to understand the weather around us. We also discussed why it is important for us to know what's going to happen with the weather. Farmers, for example, have to water their crops/plants so they'll grow (for us to eat) if there is not enough rain in the forecast.  The weather can help farmers or hurt their progress. It can hurt their plants if it's too dry or there's a storm that wipes out all their crops.

We talked a lot about clouds together. Clouds are one of Miss Marion's favorite things!  We talked about their shapes, what we think they are made of, and how they move across the sky.  We learned clouds are made tiny droplets of water or ice crystals and dust particles - not cotton or "sheep"!  :)  We learned that clouds are held up by the air around us but that when the clouds get so moist and wet and heavy that the air can no longer hold them up, we get rain!

We got to participate in two, fun demonstration on clouds and rain. We examined how similar a sponge is to a cloud.  Both hold a lot of water before they "rain" down or release their water when they become too saturated (full of water).  

We also pretended that shaving cream was a cloud and we dripped water droplets into the "cloud" until it was so full it rained.  

 

 

We talked about storms and how electricity is formed in the clouds.  Bits of ice and dust particles bump against each other and create an electric charge. This is the lightning we see during storms and the thunder we hear is from the lightning strike.  Sound is just slower than light to get to us!

For the youngest scientists, we focused on several specific types of weather and discussed how they feel differently, how we dress differently, and how important they are to us (for example, rain helps water our gardens and keep our grass green).  We talked about the importance of sunshine for growing plants and keeping us warm, and rain for plants and animals.  What talked about what kinds of things the wind can move and what kinds of things it can't move.

Our core centers were weather-related (cloud center, wind center, snow and rain center), but as always, the children are free to explore the room and discover several other science centers as well.  

 

 

 

 

 

Books about weather that we used for this unit: