A Flood of Resources for Teaching Weather

Keeping students excited and focused can be a difficult task for teachers. These resources will help kick off a course in weather and are geared to keep kids interested, especially kindergarten to fifth grade classes:

Weather Lesson Plans

Don't know where to begin? These lesson plans are geared to help you implement your style of teaching or allow your present lessons to flow more efficiently by giving precise descriptions of the goals.

Basic Aspects of Winter- First graders gain knowledge of the change of seasons.

Curriculum Guide-Weather lesson plans and curriculum for fourth and fifth graders(.pdf).

Puddles- Third and fourth grade lessons on the evaporation of puddles.

Weather Maps- Lesson plans from the National Severe Storms Library.

Weather Vocabulary- Weather lesson plan focusing on weather terminology.

The Seasons- A course plan allowing students to discover why the weather changes and how.

Dynamic Earth- Lesson plan for grades three through five with video support for educators.

Weather Lessons- From weather vocabulary to the types of instruments and clouds, teachers are provided fun educational lesson plans.

The Climate System- Educational module plan investigating the structure of climate.

Weather WebQuests

WebQuests are suited for working in teams and built to allow students to use their imaginations.

Weather and Climate- Students are instructed to use the Internet to complete this weather WebQuest.

Kindergarten Science - This WebQuest uses the student's imagination to accomplish the task set before them.

Tornadoes - Third grade WebQuest that creatively teaches students about tornado safety.

The Ocean and Weather- Students are instructed to find the connection between weather conditions and ocean currents.

Weather Extremes- For upper level grades, this WebQuest Lesson instructs students to use power point to correlate extreme weather with their life history.

Weather C.A.M.P- A WebQuest allowing students to become meteorologists. This quest is geared toward sixth graders but there are suggestions for gearing it towards a younger class.

Weather- This task is geared towards younger students and the fear of certain weather conditions.

Cloud Quest- Elementary school quest to understanding the various types of clouds

Sounds of Weather - A fifth grade team based WebQuest covering various aspects of weather.

Interdisciplinary Weather Lessons

These lessons provide tips and guidance on teaching weather with other subjects.

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs- A five-day course for third graders combining lessons in weather, immigration and the food groups.

Cloud Art- Teaching cloud types and formation through art.

Where Art thou Weather?- Third graders use science, art, and language arts to learn about weather.

Teaching Science Through Arts- Several examples of teaching weather through art for various grade levels.

Sky Math- 16 classroom lessons combing math with weather.

Severe Weather  - Research lesson plan utilizing language arts to bring severe weather awareness.

Clouds- A fun artistic lesson that teaches children how clouds are formed.

Painting Weather- Using paint to depict weather and it affects on culture, life, and the state of mind.

Weather Measurement- Lesson plan that makes the connection of math with determining weather temperature.

Weather Activities

Learning should be fun and exciting and using activities to educate will enhance the learning process for your students. These resources allow students to get a hands on understanding of weather.

Ride the Snow- A collaborative activity reading the book Snow Riders and using dough to create snow characters from the book.

Hurricanes - The Miami Museum of Science provides several weather activities on hurricanes.

Atmosphere- Several atmosphere activities for data collection, predictions, temperature maps, and creative writing exploration.

The Cycle of Water- Students will create their own cloud in a bottle.

Science Vortexes - Two vortex activities, The Water Race & Tornado In A Bottle(.pdf).

Wild Weather - Stormy activities for students to create extreme conditions.

Make it Rain - A condensation experiment.

Acid Rain - Students make acid rain followed by five lessons on acid rain and it effects on earth.

The Cycle of Water- A game to teach the cycle of water.

Weather Tracking- Weather tracking projects made by students for students.

Other Ideas

Two popular ideas for making a weather lesson more exciting are inviting a local meteorologist to speak to your class, or arranging a field trip to see a meteorologist at work. The kids will not only learn about weather but see how a TV station works and maybe even get on camera! The following resources are flooded with ideas for classroom guests and field trips. Each resource explains the process for planning class outings or classroom visits. While an idea or guest might not be located directly in your area, these resources could provide an idea for a similar trip or guest in your location.

Weather Research Center- The museum provides weather camps and guided tours.

Museum of Science- School Programs for in school demonstration of weather.

Weather Discovery Center  - The outreach program of the observatory consists of teacher training and demonstrations for students.

American Museum of Natural History  - The museum provides programs for field trips and classes on the science of weather.

The Northeast Science Center Collaborative - A six-week climate program for fourth, fifth, and sixth graders.

The John C. Freeman Weather Museum- The only weather museum in America. Free tours are provided. Located in Houston, Texas.