Studying The Weather

Sometimes we get so caught up in studying plants and animals that we forget that weather is nature, too. Unlike many parts of nature, weather can be studied anytime. It’s always there. Here are some great resources for studying the weather.

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Weather Study Resources

Over the past couple years we have studied weather in various ways. In our first year of homeschooling (3rd grade), we used the Weather book from Usbourne. It is a great book for young readers. It explains weather phenomena in a way they can understand and has good illustrations. We still go back to this book to remember cloud names.

After studying the weather in some detail, we started keeping a weather journal. The kids recorded the temperature, clouds and precipitation at breakfast and dinner time. We just used a notebook, but this free weather journal printable looks like a lot more fun for primary and elementary students.

This fall, we will do another weather study. This one is based on my two new book finds.Everyday Weather and How it Works : Revised Edition is a gem I found at a used book sale for 50 cents! It was first published in 1951 and has fabulous, classic pencil sketch illustrations. This book is not a textbook. It is a readable book with analogies and word pictures that kids can relate to. I can’t wait to read it aloud with the kids!

I was drawn to the other weather book on vacation while looking through a display of nature guides in a museum gift shop. (HINT: Museum gift shops often have wonderful guide books you may not have seen anywhere else! I’m kind of addicted.) The Ron Cordes Pocket Guide to Weather Forecasting is a quick guide to using nature to forecast the weather. By looking at the clouds or how nature behaves, you can often predict the weather over the next 24 hours.

For instance, a halo around the sun or moon in the summer months usually means rain is on the way. Or, if you are camping and your campfire smoke rises straight up, the barometric pressure is high and you can expect good weather. However, if the smoke stays near the ground, the pressure is dropping – watch for rain.

 

Weather Study Links

Ready to study weather? Here are some links I found to help make your study great!

Using Clouds To Predict The Weather

FREE Weather Unit Study for 3-9 year olds 

Fun Weather Unit Study for 1st grade 

Storm Unit Study Resources

Learning about clouds 

Snowflake Science

Snowflake Study Resources

Science Of Frost

JetStream, the National Weather Service Online Weather School 

Mathbooking Weather Journal – teaching weather and math

Fab sites for kids to learn all things weather

• http://www.weatherwizkids.com/
• http://www.weatherforkids.org/

Interactive Weather Maker

Weather Experiments

• http://www.weatherwizkids.com/weather-experiments.htm
• http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/experiments/024

Follow The Homeschool Scientist’s board Homeschool Weather Science on Pinterest.

 Do you have any favorite weather resources to share?

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Its’ our last day of Nature Week! I hope you enjoyed it and were able to find some resources to help and inspire you and your family to learn more about nature. Please visit our Nature Week sponsor, Discovery Scope. I can honestly say that this scope is changing the way we study and look at nature at our house!

 Thanks to Stef Layton and Jimmie Lanley for their fab guest posts this week!

Backyard Nature Studies

The Minimalist Guide To Nature Journals