Rainy or Cloudy - That is the Question

One of my favorite science topics to cover every year is weather.  There is just so much you can do with it and fortunately my friend Miss DeCarbo has an awesome weather packet.  Since I use pretty much the entire packet, then I included a link in the image below in case you want to see if it's something you could use.

Here are a few things that I do with my kids that are some of my favorites.

There is nothing more fun than making rain.  Yes, you read that correctly, we make rain.  It really is a cheap activity and it is a favorite every year.  As always, we talk about rules and expectations and if my sweethearts break the rules, they sit out and they have to try to earn their way back into the activity.

Here are pictures of the activity.  It's easier to do if you have an extra set of hands, but I did it on my own this year and it still worked.  It just takes a little longer.

After we make the rain, we fill out a rain report that is in the weather packet I was telling you about earlier in this post.  Seriously, the packet has so much it is almost all I use to teach weather.  It's just full of awesomeness!

This year, we had a ton of fun talking about the different types of clouds.  I Googled clouds and we pulled up a lot of pictures so that my kids could see real life examples.  During this lesson, I also taught my kids how to find shapes and objects in the clouds.  When I was a kid, I had fun doing that, so I wanted to teach my kids the same.  They loved it!

My favorite moment was when one of my kids came up to me and handed me a book and begged me to read it to the class.  At first, I didn't really listen, but then I realized why he wanted me to read it.  In the book, there were clouds and they were different shapes just like I had shown my kids.  In that moment I realized that my kids were making real life connections and that they were really into the lesson.

This last picture was at the end of the week and it just made me smile.  Some pictures just remind you of everything incredible in our world.  The weather was just right and there were a ton of clouds.  We went outside and looked for different shapes and objects in the clouds for a few minutes.

Hope this gives you a few new ideas!